I have argued two points. Firstly, Skocpol has confused peasant autonomy and peasantstate alliances. The relationship between autonomy and revolt is spurious. Secondly, peasant solidarity is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of peasant revolt. It is not necessary because revolt concentrated in a specific niche in a peasant community cannot be attributed to peasant solidarity. Nor is solidarity sufficient, because it has effects only in communities with relatively high skill levels. When solidarity does have independent social effects, it is as a community norm and tends to be associated with a sort of revolt that is not intended to change the lord—peasant relationship.
The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 is a pivotal moment in Britain's history. The complaints of the peasantry during the revolt would echo through the following centuries. The chronicles of Jean Froissart, Henry Knighton, Thomas Walsingham, as well as the Anonimalle Chronicle recorded the events before, during, and after the uprising and gave sometimes conflicting interpretations of the Revolt. Analyzing these chronicles and other medieval documents, historians have developed their own idea explanation of the motivations of the Peasants' Revolt ranging from social, to political, to economic, or to religious incentives for rebelling—or some combination of these factors. With an issue as complicated as the Peasants' Revolt, these motivations were likely to have been heavily intertwined. It is the goal of this paper to piece various chronicles, court cases, and labor legislation together with the secondary scholarship of other historians and show the underlying tensions of the Peasants' Revolt: a drive for economic security. Although the common people reacted to a variety of religious, political, social and economic concerns during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a quest for economic security was an underlying motivation for people of all social and economic statuses.
This book is an analysis and exploration of the relationship between peasants and policies within the process of reform in China. After examining the long term rural policies, either before or after the reform, it was found that all these polices have been expected to promote peasants' interests and claimed to take enhancing peasants' happiness as their goal. Nonetheless, the history and current reality of rural development have demonstrated that the same policy starting point had lead to very different policy designs. Even today, quite a few institutional arrangements with good intentions have ended up with opposite results and have even become bad policies that do harm to people. This book argues that the reason for such serious deviation, between political intentions and institutional arrangements, as well as between policy goals and its results is: as a political force, the peasantry itself has not effectively engaged with the political process of the country.
The participation of Ru pop's in 6 major soc & pol'al upheavals in the 20th cent is examined: (1) the Mexican revolution of 1910; (2) the Russian revolutions of 1905 & 1917; (3) the Chinese revolution which metamorphosed through various phases from 1921 onwards; (4) the Vietnamese revolution which has its roots in WWII; (5) the Algerian rebellion of 1954; & (6) the Cuban revolution of 1958. It is not easy for a peasantry to engage in sustained rebellion & it takes strong influences to impell them toward this. The peasant rebellions of the 20th cent are no longer simple responses to local problems, if indeed they ever were. They are the parochial reactions to major soc dislocations, set in motion by overwhelming societal change such as: the spread of the market; industr'ization & expanded COMM; erosion of traditional pol'al authority & ascendancy of new contenders for power, etc. No cultural system is ever static. As long as the on-going changes remain within tolerable limits, the over-all system persists. If they exceed the limits, or if other components are suddenly introduced from the outside, the system will be thrown out of kilter. Then the parts of the system are rendered inconsistent with each other, the system grows incoherent. Since incoherence rarely appears all at once, in all parts of the system, men may follow one alternative for some time, then another, perhaps contradictory one. But in the end a breach of major disjuncture will make its appearance somewhere in the system. Under such circumstances, a peasant uprising can-without conscious intent-bring the entire society to a state of collapse. M. Maxfield.