Union Revolutionary Council

The Union Revolutionary Council (Burmese: နိုင်ငံတော်တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ), officially the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ) or simply the Revolutionary Council (RC; Burmese: တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ), was the supreme governing body of Burma (now Myanmar) from 2 March 1962, following the overthrow of U Nu's civilian government, to 3 March 1974, with the promulgation of the 1974 Constitution of Burma and transfer of power to the Pyithu Hluttaw (People's Assembly), the country's new unicameral legislature.^[1][2]

Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma

ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ
Flag of Burma.
Agency overview
Formed	2 March 1962
Dissolved	3 March 1974
Type	Council
Jurisdiction	Burma
Headquarters	Rangoon
Agency executive	Ne Win, Chairman

The Revolutionary Council's philosophical framework was laid in the Burmese Way to Socialism, which aspired to convert Burma into a self-sustaining democratic socialist state, on 30 April 1962.^[2] On 4 July 1962, the RC established the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), the country's only legal political party which Donald M. Seekins claims was modelled along the lines of a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary party.^[3] From 1962 to 1971, BSPP transitioned from a cadre party (consisting of elite RC affiliated members) into a mass party.^[3] In the First Congress, the party had 344,226 members.^[3] By 1981, BSPP had 1.5 million members.^[3]

Leadership

The Union Revolutionary Council was led by Ne Win, its chairman and 16 senior officers.^[4]

The founding members of the First Revolutionary Council, all of whom were military officers, are:^[1][5][6][7]

1. General Ne Win BC-3502 (Chief of General Staff)
2. Brigadier General Aung Gyi BC-5458 (Vice-Chief of General Staff) (Army)
3. Commodore Than Pe (died 1962) (Vice-Chief of General Staff) (Navy)
4. Brigadier General Thomas 'Tommy' Cliff (Vice-Chief of General Staff) (Air Force) (resigned 1964)
5. Brigadier General Tin Pe (resigned 1970) BC-3508 (Quartermaster General)
6. Colonel Than Sein BC-3574 (Colonel-General Staff)
7. Colonel Kyaw Soe (retired 1974) BC-3526 (Military Appointment General)
8. Colonel Chit Myaing (dismissed 1964) BC-3520 (Vice-Quartermaster General)
9. Colonel Khin Nyo (dismissed 1965) BC-3537 (Director General of Directorate of Military Training)
10. Colonel Hla Han (Director General of Directorate of Medical Services)
11. Brigadier General San Yu BC-3569 (Commander of Northern Military Command)
12. Brigadier General Sein Win BC-3525 (Commander of Central Military Command)
13. Colonel Thaung Kyi BC-3523 (Commander of Southeast Military Command)
14. Colonel Kyi Maung (sacked 1963) BC-3516 (Commander of Southwest Military Command)
15. Colonel Maung Shwe (resigned 1972) BC-3575 (Commander of Eastern Military Command)
16. Colonel Saw Myint (sacked 1964) BC-3518 (Administrator of Border Regions)
17. Colonel Tan Yu Sai (resigned 1968) BC-5090 (Vice-Commissioner of General of People's Police)

Revolutionary Government

The government formed by the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma was named Revolutionary Government of the Union of Burma (ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးအစိုးရ) or simply Revolutionary Government (တော်လှန်ရေးအစိုးရ).

As wiping out the monarchist terms, a Ministry was called as a Department (ဌာန) and a Minister was called as a Person in-charge of Department (ဌာနတာဝန်ခံ) during the time of the Revolutionary Government.

The terms Ministry and Minister were restored when the Council of Ministers was formed on 8 May 1974.^[8]

Council member terms

Union Revolutionary Council^[9]

Name and Rank	Military Position	RC Position	Date
General Ne Win BC 3502	Chief of Staff of Armed Forces	Chairman	2 March 1962 to 1 March 1974
Brigadier General Aung Gyi BC 5458	Vice Chief of Staff (Army)	Member	2 March 1962 to 7 February 1963
Brigadier General Than Phay	Vice Chief of Staff (Navy)	Member	2 March 1962 to 22 May 1962
Brigadier General Tin Phay BC 3508	Chairman of Forestry	Member	2 March 1962 to 14 November 1970
Brigadier General Tommy Clift	Vice Chief of Staff (Air)	Member	2 March 1962 to 2 November 1964
Brigadier General San Yu BC 3569	North Western Regional Military Command	Member	2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Brigadier General Sein Win BC 3525	Central Regional Military Command	Member	2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Kyi Maung BC 3516	South Western Regional Military Command	Member	2 March 1962 to 12 March 1963
Colonel Maung Shwe BC 3575	Eastern Regional Military Command	Member	2 March 1962 to 22 September 1972
Colonel Thaung Kyi BC 3523	South Eastern Regional Military Command	Member	2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Than Sein BC 3574	Colonel General Staff	Member	2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Kyaw Soe BC 3526	Military Appointment Secretary	Member	2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Saw Myint BC 3518	Director – Border Troops	Member	2 March 1962 to 17 August 1964
Colonel Chit Myaing BC 3520		Member	2 March 1962 to 31 March 1964
Colonel Khin Nyo BC 3537	Director – Military Training	Member	2 March 1962 to 9 June 1965
Colonel Tan Yu Saing BC 5090		Member	2 March 1962 to 6 October 1970
Colonel Lun Tin BC 3610	Commander – No. 7 Infantry Brigade	Member	5 July 1962 to 9 July 1971
Colonel Maung Lwin		Member	12 September 1964 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Tin Oo BC 3651	South Western Regional Command	Member	12 September 1964 to 2 March 1974
U Ba Nyein		Member	9 July 1971 to 2 March 1974
Dr. Maung Maung		Member	9 July 1971 to 2 March 1974
Mahn Thar Myaing		Member	9 July 1971 to 2 March 1974