In this book, conceived and written for the general reader as well as the specialist, Robert Edelman uses a case study of peasant behavior during a particular revolutionary situation to make an important contribution to one of the major debates in contemporary peasant studies. Edelman's subject is the peasantry of the right-bank Ukraine, and he uses local and regional archives seldom available to Western scholars to give a detailed picture of the ways in which the inhabitants of one of Russia's most advanced agrarian regions expressed their discontent during the years 1905-1907. By the 1890s, the landlords of Russia's Southwest had organized a highly successful capitalist form of agriculture, and Edelman demonstrates that their peasants responded to these dramatic economic changes by adopting many of the forms of political and social behavior generally associated with urban proletarians.
From the smoky music halls of 1860s Paris to the tumbling skyscrapers of twenty-first-century New York, a sweeping tale of passion, music, and the human heart's yearning for connection. An unlikely quartet is bound together across centuries and continents by the strange and spectacular history of Richard Wagner's masterpiece opera Tristan and Isolde.
Economakis analyses the processes of proletarianization and urbanization undergone by St. Petersburg's industrial working class from its inception in the early nineteenth century up until 1914. Attention is given to the severing of workers' ties to the village and the land. The book examines local conditions in sending areas and traces the history of factory work in St. Petersburg by workers from different provinces. Economakis finds that a majority of the factory workforce was objectively proletarianized by 1914.
2022 Reprint of the 1926 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The Peasant War in Germany was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of intense opposition from the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers. The survivors were fined and achieved few, if any, of their goals. Like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, the war consisted of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers, often supported by Anabaptist clergy, took the lead. The War was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789. The fighting was at its height in the middle of 1525. Engels analyzes the social and economic forces which brought about the peasant revolt of 1525 and its role in the Reformation. He portrays vividly the contrasting figures of Thomas Muenzer and Martin Luther, in relation to the revolutionary peasants and to the princes. The book has an enduring theoretical interest, as one of the earliest discussions of the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. Illustrated with drawings and woodcuts of the time.
In Marx Matters noted scholars explore the way a Marxian political economy addresses contemporary social problems, demonstrating the relevance of Marx today and outlining how his work can frame progressive programs for social change.
The Communist aim of proletarian hegemony in the Chinese revolution was given concrete expression through the Canton Commune—reflected in the policies and strategies that led to the uprising, in the makeup and program of the Soviet setup in Canton, and in the subsequent assessment of the revolt by the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party. “Proletarian Hegemony” in the Chinese Revolution and the Canton Commune of 1927 describes these developments and, with the further ideological treatment given the Commune serving as a backdrop, will then examine the continuing evolution and ultimate transformation of the proletarian line and the concept of proletarian leadership in the post-1927 history of Chinese Communism. [3]
Originally published in 1979, this book examines differing forms of international, interracial working- class action and the relationship between workers’ struggles in the periphery and those in advanced capitalist countries. It analyses the nature of class alliances forged in the countryside and the urban sprawls of the developing world among workers, students and the unemployed. The volume draws on theoretical debates and detailed empirical studies dealing with a wide range of countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. Each of the sections is preceded by a linking editorial comment and the editors also provide an introductory overview. Reviews of the original edition of Peasants and Proletarians: ‘This is an important book both for historians and for social scientists. It draws attention to a previously underestimated labour force that has grown into a significant – indeed, indispensable – part of the international economic structure.’ Lynda Shaffer, Journal of Asian Studies, 39 (4) 1980. ‘This book offers a truly impressive and solid compilation of material on labour in the Third World. The sheer range of scholarship concerning many different types of workers over a timescale of nearly I00 years in countries and political situations as various, for example, as Lagos in the I890s, Jamaica in the 1930s, and socialist Algeria or Chile under Allende, is sometimes bewildering, but never fails to stimulate and absorb the reader.’ Paul Kennedy, Journal of Modern African Studies, 19 (4) 1981. ‘Peasants and Proletarians is a very major contribution. The editors' introduction, though brief, successfully raises many of these issues and outlines an approach to them...The twenty-one readings, concerned with early forms of resistance, rural workers, strategies of working-class action, migrant workers in advanced capitalist states, and contemporary struggles, offer geographical and intellectual breadth in their exploration of the diversity of Third World experience.’ Joel Samoff, ASA Review of Books, Vol. 6, 1980.
In the wake of Mexico’s revolution, artists played a fundamental role in constructing a national identity centered on working people and were hailed for their contributions to modern art. Picturing the Proletariat examines three aspects of this artistic legacy: the parallel paths of organized labor and artists’ collectives, the relations among these groups and the state, and visual narratives of the worker. Showcasing forgotten works and neglected media, John Lear explores how artists and labor unions participated in a cycle of revolutionary transformation from 1908 through the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940). Lear shows how middle-class artists, radicalized by the revolution and the Communist Party, fortified the legacy of the prerevolutionary print artisan José Guadalupe Posada by incorporating modernist, avant-garde, and nationalist elements in ways that supported and challenged unions and the state. By 1940, the state undermined the autonomy of radical artists and unions, while preserving the image of both as partners of the “institutionalized revolution.” This interdisciplinary book explores the gendered representations of workers; the interplay of prints, photographs, and murals in journals, in posters, and on walls; the role of labor leaders; and the discursive impact of the Spanish Civil War. It considers “los tres grandes”—Rivera, Siquieros, and Orozco—while featuring lesser-known artists and their collectives, including Saturnino Herrán, Leopoldo Méndez, Santos Balmori, and the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists (LEAR). The result is a new perspective on the art and politics of the revolution.
