Rural Unrest Research Articles

Power and Protest in the Countryside. Studies of Rural Unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Power and Protest in the Countryside. Studies of Rural Unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Agrarian Policy and Instability in Porfirian Mexico

In the struggle sustained from time immemorial by the people with the haciendas, I shall be on the side of the people, once I obtain power.— Porfirio Díaz, 1876Given the importance of rural unrest in the destabilizing of Porfirian Mexico, it seems at least ironic to find these words attributed to Díaz during his Tuxtepec revolt. And, given the attention paid to the repressive elements of the Díaz dictatorship, one might easily argue that Díaz never intended to fulfill that promise, vague though it may be. A number of works seem to blame Díaz personally for the land problem which lead to his overthrow. Others maintain that Díaz remained aloof and was isolated from the common people; but by far the greatest number of works employ such amorphous or monolithic concepts as the “State,” the “Díaz regime,” “porjirismo,” or simply “the government” and focus exclusively on evidence of repression in Porfirian Mexico. Repression has attracted attention in part because it has been important in explaining dissatisfaction which lead to the Revolution of 1910 and in part because violence attracted a great deal of attention from contemporaries. This interest provides historians with more accessible sources while evidence of a more conciliatory attitude has remained hidden in the collection of Porfirio Díaz's presidential papers.

Agrarian Policy and Instability in Porfirian Mexico

In the struggle sustained from time immemorial by the people with the haciendas, I shall be on the side of the people, once I obtain power.— Porfirio Díaz, 1876Given the importance of rural unrest in the destabilizing of Porfirian Mexico, it seems at least ironic to find these words attributed to Díaz during his Tuxtepec revolt. And, given the attention paid to the repressive elements of the Díaz dictatorship, one might easily argue that Díaz never intended to fulfill that promise, vague though it may be. A number of works seem to blame Díaz personally for the land problem which lead to his overthrow. Others maintain that Díaz remained aloof and was isolated from the common people; but by far the greatest number of works employ such amorphous or monolithic concepts as the “State,” the “Díaz regime,” “porjirismo,” or simply “the government” and focus exclusively on evidence of repression in Porfirian Mexico. Repression has attracted attention in part because it has been important in explaining dissatisfaction which lead to the Revolution of 1910 and in part because violence attracted a great deal of attention from contemporaries. This interest provides historians with more accessible sources while evidence of a more conciliatory attitude has remained hidden in the collection of Porfirio Díaz's presidential papers.

Rural Unrest in Sumatra, 1942 a Japanese Report

The interaction of peasant movements with national elite politics has been a specter equally alarming to colonial and some independent governments in Asia. In Netherlands India colonial policy put a high priority on sealing the two phenomena off from each other, particularly after the communist-inspired revolts of 1926-27. To a remarkable degree the Dutch appeared to have succeeded, after 1927, in limiting national politics to the relatively small urban elite of Indonesia, and creating an impression of static rust en orde in the countryside.

The Samin movement and millenarism

by the late Professor Harry Benda and Lance Castles was published in Bijdragen in 1969. It was preceded by a series of articles by The Siauw Giap, who tried to explain more specifically the movement's economic backgrounds. And most recently a third article on the Samin movement, written by Victor King, who tried to analyse this phenomenon in the somewhat broader theoretical framework of rural unrest, appeared also in Bijdragen. Strangely enough, however, no-one has up to now discussed the Samin movement from the perspective of the phenomenon of millenarism,1 despite the fact that the past decades have witnessed a visibly growing interest in this phenomenon on the part of sociologists, anthropologists and historians alike. For this reason the present article will attempt an approach of the Samin movement from this specific angle. Such an approach may help to broaden our insight into both the special character of the movement and the causes underlying its emergence. Before embarking on a comparison of the Samin movement with millenarism, I would like first to review the main facts relating to the movement. Around 1890 a peasant by name of Samin from the regency of Blora, in the residency of Rembang, Central Java, began propagating a new faith. He gained a following, and soon the movement spread to the neighbouring regencies as well. It was not until about fifteen years later that Samin and his followers began drawing the authorities' attention to themselves. In 1907 Samin was arrested on suspicion of

Land Reform in Vietnam

(1973). Land Reform in Vietnam. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 32-41.

Some observations on the Samin movement of North-Central Java. Suggestions for the theoretical analysis of the dynamics of rural unrest.

In recent years the Samin peasant movement of north-central Java has received a good deal of attention from students of Indonesian colonial history. In particular there is Benda and Castles' article published in this journal in 1969 1 and the series of articles by The Siauw Giap.2 Their work is based mainly on Dutch official reports written before 1930, and together it offers a fairly comprehensive view of the Samin movement. However, since it was not the intention of these authors to attempt a comparative study of peasant movements, but simply to analyse the Samin movement in detail, I felt it would be profitable to present material from other studies of rural unrest in an attempt to place the Samin movement in some sort of theoretical framework. This approach necessitates a multi-causal analysis, bringing into focus a number of factors ? social, economic, political and religious.3 I also offer some additional comments on the Samin movement which may

Co-operators and Bureaucrats: Class Formation in a Senegalese Peasant Society

IntroductionRecent rural unrest in Senegal, the malaise paysan and the spreading rejection of commercial agriculture, have focused official and journalistic attention on the predicament of that country's peasantry. This is a predicament in large part defined by nature, which has endowed most of Senegal with soils so poor as to leave little practical alternative to the groundnut as a source of export revenue. Declining world market prices for this staple export have inevitably exacerbated the situation, especially following the final withdrawal of French price subsidies in 1967. Consequent economic difficulties are in turn made no easier by a rapid rise in population (officially estimated at 2·1 per cent per annum): this causes overcrowding on the land, with over-cultivation and soil exhaustion, and thus stimulates migration to towns and cities which can provide few employment outlets.

Rural Unrest and Agrarian Policy in Argentina, 1912-1930

From 1912 until the late 1920s Argentina faced an agrarian social and economic crisis of proportions unprecedented in the republic's history. Trapped between unstable prices and the exactions of landlords, thousands of tenant farmers organized, went on strike, and at times sabotaged agricultural production. This unrest swept across the cereal belt, a 160,000,000-acre zone of extremely fertile soil in the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Córdoba, and Buenos Aires, and in the national territory of La Pampa. After 1919, rural unrest acquired new complexity when tens of thousands of landless workers employed by the tenant farmers began strike movements of their own. The purpose of the present article is to analyze the origins and characteristics of this rural upheaval and then to examine the responses to it formulated by the republic's national political leaders.

Anti-Political Political Thought

Australian politics absorbed a shock in the depression which affected the three parties in different ways. Labor was split and put out of office; the Nationalist Party was succeeded by a new party, the United Aus tralia Party; the Country Party had to adapt itself to movements of rural unrest. Outside the parties, new movements sprang suddenly into existence professing disillusionment with party politics. Those who battled for power in each of these situations drew on the stock of political beliefs traditionally available to them. The advocates of socialism raised their voices once more in the Labor Party; disillusioned businessmen and other friends and supporters of the Nationalists sud denly remembered traditional criticisms of party politics; the leaders of the Country Party drew on New State thinking to help them absorb the rural dissatisfaction. In short, the depression provoked party figures and other public men to state their political beliefs explicitly and often more dogmatically than usual. Non-Labor beliefs evaluating and explaining the political system were set out on a number of topics besides party politics and new States. Mistrust of democracy was evident in some of it, and much of it had a distinctly conservative character. Upper Houses safeguarded democracy against the impulses of transient majorities, according to an article in the United Australia Review.1 The Bulletin2 thought governors helped safeguard democracy. The Pastoral Review quoted Alexander Hamilton and gloomily recalled that for close on forty years it had been showing the 'folly' of democracy.3 Menzies reminded an audience that citizens had duties as well as rights and suggested that democracy was not an end in itself. Self-government, he said, could succeed only when people were prepared to abandon selfishness at the expense of others.4 The duty of government, according to the Australasian Manufac turer, was not to interfere with the working of industry, but to maintain peace, construct roads, dispense justice impartially and facilitate enter prise in various ways.5 Senator Brennan thought that the prime duty of government was not to make people rich but to protect them while they made themselves rich.6 Government ought to withdraw from 'socialist' enterprise, to stop 'coddling' individuals and 'interfering' with industries. A. C. Davidson, of the Bank of N.S.W., thought governments could not initiate new industry.7 A Farmers' and Settlers' Association conference resolved that social services did 'untold harm' by reducing 'thrift' and removing the 'self-reliance' of the people.8 A writer in the Pastoral Review argued that bureaucracy was the cause of present troubles and the ruination of democracies.9 The Empire Party, an