‘The Peasant War in Germany’ by Friedrich Engels—125 years after

Abstract

The 450th anniversary of the Peasant War was also the 125th of the publication of The Peasant War in Germany by Friedrich Engels. The historiographic and theoretical significance of The Peasant War is, however, only one of the aspects which may make this discussion relevant for students of peasant societies. The stage of social disintegration in and around the peasantry may define the form, organization and programme of revolt and revolution in terms very different from those of late medieval Germany. Engels drew the outline of the Marxist interpretation of the Reformation in the Peasant War on the basis of a somewhat simplified socio-economic analysis of the period. Since the French Revolution historical analysis of the German Peasant War has illustrated the close relationship between politics and scholarship. The Reformation and the Peasant War fit into three developmental processes, when understood as an early-bourgeois revolution.