JPS October 1973, Vol 1 Number 1


Eric Hobsbawm, Peasants and Politics

(4): differentiating between the 'peasant' problem and the 'agrarian' problem (landless labourers or commercial farmers, he's arguing, belong to the latter)

(4): peasants on a continuum--the 'sack of potatoes' (i.e. 18th Brumaire) variety to more collective forms (i.e., 19th century Central Russia). most tending towards latter, though this doesn't imply egalitarianism, even if it does imply prohibition of unrestricted accumulation.

(5): peasant question is question of traditional group involved in 'modern' politics

(5): citing Shanin, 'peasantry' is characterized by 'low classness'--not much about its politics can be read off its relation to the MoP

(7): allowing for a vague consciousness of 'peasantness', as a distinct category of subalternity

(8): but stressing underdeveloped sense of the world beyond ('Cuba as another department of Peru,' etc.) [unique to the peasantry?]

(9, 11): imp, no such thing as a 'national peasant movement' -- only becomes wider by external force (and even then more likely to be regional) [hmm] (Mexico as his example--bulk of peasantry not involved, but key regions were: Pancho Villa's North (the equivalent of the Cossacks), and Zapata in Morelos, situated next to the capital)

(11): 1905-1907 in Russia, 80-100% of peasant population in action


(11): at the same time, such 'congolemerate' movements can be very important to the success/failure of revolutions, of course

(11-12): Peru 1962-1964 was impressive, but had limitations--took five years and a coup to win agrarian reform

(12): imp, major reason peasantry is weak is because of a pervasive sense of inferiority [hmm]. this has something (?) to do with the nature of the peasant economy, since unrest must stop for the harvest (hypothesis that the little labour required by the potato economy in Ireland made possible frequent unrest)

(13): peasant 'passivity' as a form of class struggle--since 'no change' suits them best [hmm]

(14-16) [becoming a bit too speculative, all this; Hobsbawm's writing doesn't really lend itself to journal articles]

(17): traditionally, peasants integrated into political apparatus by three ideological devices: King (precisely because he isn't their 'real' ruler, but wields power over their overlords), Church, proto-nationalism. all this lends them to right-wing politics, albeit of a revolutionary tenor

(17) int, so why do peasants come under the political Left? economic changes, urbanization, migration, etc. (Narodniks vs. early 20th C. revolutionaries in Russia). (but S. Italy and Garibaldi? no answers)

(18-20): three propositions about peasants in modern political situations

1. the 'peasantry' as a political concept disappears, because conflicts within rural sector eliminate what peasants have in common against outside (Bolsheviks were over-eager in anticipating this, of course--but this often redounds to the disadvantage of revolutionaries, since it antagonizes some groups [hmm])
2.  democratic electoral politics do not work for the peasantry as a class ('peasant party' is a freak phenomenon, no one-to-one attitude; peasantry as 'electoral fodder')
3. citing Marx, peasantry are incapable of representing their own interests; they need a master over them

(20): rise of Nazis 1928-1933 was last genuine 'mass movement' of peasants