Agrarian Struggle Research Articles

Review essay: Agrarian transformation, agrarian struggles, and Marxist analyses of the peasantry

Review essay: Agrarian transformation, agrarian struggles, and Marxist analyses of the peasantry

Law as a Resource in Agrarian Struggles

F. von Benda‐Beckmann and M. van der Velde. eds., Law as. Resource in Agrarian Struggles. Wageningen: Agricultural University.

The New Agrarian Movement

One of the most heated debates in Mexico during the 1970s was over its agrarian structure, peasant differentiation, and the character of struggles in the countryside. This issue has been in the forefront of Latin American discussions of the agrarian question. Scholars from other countries have frequently turned to the Mexican case for theoretical inspiration in pursuing analyses of agrarian classes and political processes in their respective homelands. The seeming paradox which ignited the debate is this: In some regions rural workers seem to behave as peasants while in other areas peasants seem to behave as workers.1 According to Leninist theory, workers are supposed to struggle for wages, better working conditions, unionization and, ultimately, for socialism. Authors in this tradition saw the need for a vanguard party to lead the workers in line with their class position in production relations. Others, inspired by Chayanov, thought that rural workers were really peasants by virtue of their general access to land. In Mexico the two positions have been labeled, respectively, proletarista (or descampesinista) and campesinista. Each tends to assign a central revolutionary role to either the agricultural proletariat (proletaristas) or to the peasantry (campesinistas). They stress either wage labor or access to land as the main determinants for the character of struggles -proletarian or peasant.2 My own interpretation of the process of political class formation is that the process of political class formation is mediated by prevailing forms of culture and state intervention in addition to the causal link with class positions in production relations. Morever, it is the agricultural semiproletariat which has been at the center of agrarian struggles rather than the proletariat or the peasantry themselves. It is the semiproletariat

Peasant Brazil: Agrarian History, Struggle and Change in the Paraguaçu Valley, Bahia

Peasant Brazil: Agrarian History, Struggle and Change in the Paraguaçu Valley, Bahia

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman Making Sense of Development: An Introduction to Classical and Contemporary Theories of Development and Their Application to Southeast Asia. By P.W. Preston OPEC and the Challenge of Development. Edited by Abdelkader Benamara and Sam Ifeagwu Unequal Exchange and the Evolution of the World System. By Kunibert Raffer The Less Developed Countries and the World Trading System. By Diana Tussie Europe and the International Division of Labour: EEC and the Third World. A Survey 6. Edited by Christopher Stevens and Joan Verloren van Themaat Developing with Foreign Investment. Edited by Vincent Cable and Bishnodat Promotion of Direct Investment in Developing Countries. Edited by Heinz Hauser Soviet Economic Assistance to the Less Developed Countries: A Statistical Analysis. By Quintin V.S. Bach Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence. Edited by A.R. Desai The Failure of the International Debt Strategy. By Knud Erik Svendsen Life After Debt: Australia and the Global Debt Crisis. By the Australian Council for Overseas Aid Options and Investment Priorities in Irrigation Development. By Jose Olivares Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects. By M. Cernea

Agrarian Struggles in India After Independence. Edited by A. R. Desai. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986. xxvi, 666 pp. Rs. 250.

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Planters Against Peasants: The Agrarian Struggle in East Sumatra, 1947–1958. By Karl J. Pelzer. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. xviii, 186 pp. List of Abbreviations, Tables, Index. N.p.

Planters Against Peasants: The Agrarian Struggle in East Sumatra, 1947–1958. By Karl J. Pelzer. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. xviii, 186 pp. List of Abbreviations, Tables, Index. N.p. - Volume 44 Issue 2

Book reviews

Michael Maclear, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. Thames Methuen, London, 1981, pp x + 368. $16.95 Peter King, (ed.), Australia's Vietnam. George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1983, pp. 226. $19.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper). Carlyle A. Thayer and David G. Marr, Vietnam since 1975 ‐Two views from Australia. Griffith University, CSAAR Paper No. 20, 1982, pp. $3.00 Walter Scott Dillard, Sixty Days To Peace: Implementing the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam 1973. National Defence University, Washington, 1982, pp. xiv + 240. No price given. Peter Pringle and James Spigelman, The Nuclear Barons Michael Joseph, London, 1982, pp. xii + 578. $25.00. Daniel Frei, with the collaboration of Christian Catrina, Risks of Unintentional Nuclear War. Croom Helm, London, 1983, pp. xxxi + 255. $13.95. Ian Clark, Limited Nuclear War. Martin Robertson and Company, Oxford, 1982, pp.266. £16.50. Julie Dahlitz, Nuclear Arms Control with Effective International Agreements. McPhee Gribble, Melbourne, 1983, pp.238. $16.95. G.A. Craig and A.L. George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1983, pp.xiv + 288. $33.95 (cloth), $16.99 (paper). Michael Carver, A Policy For Peace. Faber and Faber, London, 1982, pp.123. $6.95. Everett Mendelsohn, A Compassionate Peace: A Future For The Middle East. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1982, pp. xii + 226. $6.95. Alison Broinowski (ed.), Understanding ASEAN. Macmillan (in association with AIIA), London, 1982, pp.xv + 323. $36.00 (cloth), $13.95 (paper). Tunku Shamsul Bahrin, Chandran Jeshurun, A. Terry Rambo (eds.), A Colloquium on Southeast Asian Studies. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1981, pp. xvi + 319, S$35.00. Alfred W. McCoy and Ed. C. de Jesus (eds.), Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations. Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City and George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1982, pp. ix + 479. 524.95 (cloth) $12.95 (paper). Stephen R. Shalom, The United States and the Philippines: A Study of Neocolonialism. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia, 1981, pp. xvii + 302. $19.50. Karl J. Pelzer, Planters Against Peasants: The Agrarian Struggle in East Sumatra 1947–58 Martinus Nijhoff ‘S‐Gravenhage, 1982, pp. xvii + 186. No price given. TAPOL, West Papua: The Obliteration of a People. TAPOL, London, 1983, pp. 114. £2.50 R. Mitton, The Lost World of Irian Jaya. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1983. pp. ix + 235. $50.00. Radha Sinha, Japan's Options for the 1980s. Croom Helm, London and Canberra, 1982, pp. 269. $27.50 Wang Gungwu, Community and Nation, essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese. Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), Singapore, and George Allen & Unwin Sydney for Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1981, pp. 292. $24.94 (cloth), $12.95 (paper). B. Male, Revolutionary Afghanistan. Croom Helm, London and Canberra, 1982, pp. 229. £13.95. Edward Mortimer, Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam. Faber and Faber, London, 1982, pp. 432. $16.95. Julius W. Pratt, Vincent P. De Santis, Joseph M. Siracusa, A History of United States Foreign Policy. 4th edition. Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., U.S.A., 1980, pp. xvi + 553. $US 18.95. John Cartwright, Political Leadership in Africa. Croom Helm, London and Canberra, and St. Martin's Press, New York, 1983, pp. 310. $26.75. Greg Crough and Ted Wheelwright, Australia: A Client State. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, 1982, pp. 255. $7.95. Altro Polo. The Frederick May Foundation for Italian Studies, University of Sydney, annual. $10.00 The Scottish Government Yearbook. The Unit for the Study of Scottish Government, University of Edinburgh, annual. £10.00 (cloth) £5.95 (paperback).

Explaining Peasant Conservatism: The Western European Case

What is the political role of the peasantry? Is it a source of revolution or reaction? For the Third World nations, where this is an issue of special importance, the answer is by no means clear. In the advanced capitalist countries, however, the political impact of peasants has become less ambiguous. Although Lipset once argued that radical consciousness in the United States had shown itself primarily through agrarian struggles, farmers have now evolved into perhaps the most conservative occupational group in America. Harrington Moore, considering the historical place of peasants in the modernization of France, England and Germany, details their revolutionary contribution. But, concerning more recent times, Huggett indicates that, in general, the peasants of Western Europe have expressed themselves politically through the parties of the Right. The contemporary evidence presented here demonstrates that these strong right-wing sentiments on the part of the peasantry persist.

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido

The social composition of the Mau Mau movement in the white highlands

This article is an attempt to locate the social basis of the Mau Mau movement in the White Highlands. It is argued that the Mau Mau revolt was an outcome of a prolonged agrarian struggle between Kikuyu squatters and European settlers. In this agrarian struggle, the leading role was assumed by Kikuyu artisans and petty traders. This leadership provided the Mau Mau movement with the type of organisation and strategy that could unite the Kikuyu peasantry.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this articleFaces of Nationalism, New Realities and Old Myths. By Boyd C. Shafer.The Dimensions of the Past: Materials, Problems, and Opportunities For Quantitative Work in History. Edited, with an introduction by Val R. Lorwin and Jacob M. Price.Plutarch. By D. A. RussellSayyid Jamal ad‐Din “al‐Afghani.” A Political Biography. By Nikki R. Keddie.The Long March to Power. A History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921‐72. By James Pinckney Harrison.Mining in the New World. By Carlos Prieto.Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido. By David Ronfeldt.Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Dominique and Cuba, By Gwendolyn Mildo Hall.Crime and Public Order in England, in the Late Middle Ages. By John Bellamy.Before the Bawdy Court: Selections from church court and other records relating to the correction of moral offences in England, Scotland and New England, 1300‐1800. Edited, with an introduction, by Paul Hair.Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance, 1400‐1433. By Anthony Molho.Rural Settlement and Farming in Germany. By Alan Mayhew.Renaissance Europe: Individual and Society, 1480‐1520. By J. R. Hale.The Memoirs of Robert Carey. Edited, with an introduction, by F. H. Mares.The Causes of the English Revolution: 1529‐1642. By Lawrence Stone.Francis Drake, Privateer: Contemporary Narratives and Documents. Selected and edited by John Hampden.Inglorious Rebellion: The Jacobite Risings of 1708, 1715 and 1719. By Christopher Sinclair‐Stevenson.British Commercial Policy and Trade Expansion, 7750‐1850. By Judith Blow Williams. With a bibliographical chapter by David M. Williams.Industrial England, 1776‐1851. By Dorothy Marshall.Toward the French Revolution: Europe and America in the Eighteenth Century World. By Louis Gottschalk and Donald Lach.The Durham Report and British Policy: A Critical Essay. By Ged Martin.Lord Salisbury on Politics: A Selection from his Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860‐1883. Edited with an introduction and notes by Paul Smith.Churchmen and the Condition of England, 1832‐1885: A study in the development of social ideas and practice from the Old Regime to the Modern State. By G. Kitson Clark.The Paris Commune, 1871. By Stewart Edwards.Englishmen and Irish Troubles: British Public Opinion and the Making of Irish Policy, 1918‐22. By D. G. Boyce.The Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900‐1905. By Shmuel Galai.The Left Bank Revisited: Selections from the Paris Tribune, 1911‐1934. Edited with an introduction by Hugh Ford.The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. By Robert Payne.The History of the Nazi Party: 1933‐1945. By Dietrich Orlow.Germany: A Companion to German Studies. Edited by Malcolm Pasley.The Uneasy Alliance: America, Britain, and Russia, 1941‐1943. By Robert Beitzell. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. Pp. xiv, 404. $10.00.)Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940‐1944. By Robert O. Paxton.Total War: The Story of World War II. By Peter Calvocoressi and Guy Wint.William Tatham, 1752‐1819: American Versatile. By G. Melvin Herndon.Moorfield Storey and the Abolitionist Tradition. By William B. Hixson, Jr. (New YorkRadical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought. By Lewis Perry.The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Ante‐Bellum South. By John W. Blassingame.The Last Campaign: Grant Saves the Union. By Earl Schenck Miers.The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation. By Robert F. Durden.Blacks on John Brown. Edited by Benjamin Quarles.The Legend of John Brown, A Biography and A History. By Richard O. Boyer.The County Courts in Ante‐Bellum Kentucky. By Robert M. IrelandBlack Political Parties, An Historical Analysis. By Hanes Walton, Jr.J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the N.A.A.C.P. By B. Joyce Russ.Black Women in White America. A Documentary History. Edited by Gerda Lerner.Another Look at the Twentieth‐Century South. The Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History. By George E. Mowry.Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842‐1936. By Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz.Indiana Canals. By Paul Fatout.The Catskills: From Wilderness to Woodstock. By Alf Evers.Congress and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century. By George N. Rainsford.Joseph Smith's New England Heritage: Influences of Grandfathers Solomon Mack and Asael Smith. By Richard Lloyd Anderson.Colorado's War on Militant Unionism: James H. Peabody and the Western Federation of Miners. By George G. Suggs, Jr.The Western Peace Officer: A Legacy of Law and Order. By Frank Richard Prassel.In Search of Roosevelt. By Rexford G. Tugwell.The Influence of the United States on Canadian Development: Eleven Case Studies. Edited, with an introduction, by Richard A. Preston.

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido.

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido.

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido

Atencingo: The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido

United front government and the politics of agrarian struggle in West Bengal, 1967 and 1969–70

United front government and the politics of agrarian struggle in West Bengal, 1967 and 1969–70

William Covell and the Troubles at Enfield in 1659

A great revolution always involves changes in land ownership. That the Puritan Revolution was no exception is proved by the story of agrarian riots in 1659 over property rights to Enfield Chase, a tract of land in Middlesex about nine miles from London. The struggle was between a moneyed group of Intruders who had encroached upon or purchased part of the Chase and a group of Inhabitants who had traditional feudal property rights, including rights of common, over the area. Their quarrel reproduced in miniature the conflict between moneyed men attached to the new capitalism and men whose wealth consisted mainly of “feudal” rights and properties—the conflict which underlay the Revolution. It is also significant because it led to the collectivist theories of William Covell, just as the agrarian struggles of the Diggers helped to provoke the communistic writings of Gerrard Winstanley. The purpose of this study is to tell the story of the troubles at Enfield and to examine Covell's pamphlets.