The nature and logic of the peasant economy 1: A Generalisation 1

This article discusses the major specific aspects of a general type of peasant economy: the family farm production‐consumption unit, the village as an economic organisation, the market and money in the peasant economy, the political economy of peasant societies. It concludes with an examination of the differing ideas of analysts who agree on the existence of a specific peasant economy but disagree on the relative importance of its characteristics. The aim is to provide a starting‐point for a systematic discussion of the general, the diverse, the relatively stable and the changeable in peasant economy, and the way in which it is affected by state policies; the latter aspects are dealt with in part II?.     

Islam,the Mappilas and peasant revolt in Malabar

Stephen Frederic Dale, Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: The Mappilas of Malabar, 1498–1922, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980, pp. 290, £17.50.

The Mappila outbreaks of the nineteenth century, culminating in the rebellion of 1921, have usually been seen as fundamentally either economic or religious phenomena, and have been treated in isolation from rural protest and revolt elsewhere in India. It is argued here that the outbreaks can best be understood in a specifically peasant context and constituted only one of several forms or strategies of Mappila peasant mobilization and protest: they shared, moreover, characteristics with many other peasant movements in India. In such a context religion and economics are not alternative causations, but intimately interwoven elements of peasant perceptions and self‐expression.     

Peasant classes and primordial loyalties

To establish a theoretical framework for the analysis of the social contexts of peasant political action, this article examines critically various approaches in social anthropology and Marxism. In the context of peasant societies, it considers the problematics comprehended in a distinction between a class‐in‐itself (an economic category) and a class‐for‐itself (a political group) recognising that the process of transformation of the one into the other is mediated by primordial ties such as those of kinship. For the analysis of such ties various approaches in social anthropology are examined, and emphasis is given to underlying conceptual problems in structural‐functional holism and methodological individualism in the light of a Marxist conception of the dialectical unity of man and society. It outlines an approach which seeks to extend the framework of class analysis.     

The Indian peasant rebellion in the highlands of northern Argentina, 1872–75

The paper describes and discusses the Indian peasant uprising which took place in the Puna (high tableland) of Jujuy Province in Northern Argentina between 1872 and 1875. The origins of the revolt are to be found principally in the land tenure system, and specifically in problems associated with the historical evolution of the colonial encomienda system. The role of ‘outside’ political forces in the uprising is discussed and evaluated, but it is argued that the Indians’ demands for the return of their communal lands was the fundamental issue. In this respect it is suggested that the revolt should be examined within the wider context of Indian revolts and agrarian unrest which affected various parts of the Andean Highlands during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century.     

Co‐operative labour in peasant agriculture

Co‐operative labour in cultivation activities exists in a wide variety of forms; two main organisational categories are distinguished and the characteristics, socio‐economic correlates, and technical and economic benefits of the most important manifestations of the practice are discussed. An assessment is made of the prospects for the persistence of co‐operative labour in contemporary peasant societies under the impact of certain widespread changes changes in the socio‐economic environment.     

The state as landlord in Pakistani Punjab: Peasant struggles on the Okara military farms

Marxist theories of peasant revolt have identified different strata within the peasantry that adopt widely varying roles in rural conflict. However, a complex interplay of class and primordial factors has been identified in studies of Pakistani Punjab, where in a unique revolt beginning in 2000, peasants cultivating not private but public land have engaged in a widespread civil disobedience campaign against the state. This group of tenant farmers is sociologically distinct from the poor peasantry of most Marxist studies, and it is argued here that the revolt can be better understood as a grassroots mobilisation that was an effect of tenure relations combined with notions of community.     

Peasant farming in Russia

Russia started its decollectivisation effort in earnest after the abortive 1991 coup attempt. A legislative foundation has been laid and over one‐quarter million peasant farms have been created, many through the act of exiting a collective by a farm worker, taking his or her land and asset shares along. Yet significant obstacles remain in the path of both continued peasant farm creation and the viability of those already functioning.     

The ideology of anti‐bolshevism

Continuity existed between Marx and Lenin on the peasant problem. Marx recognized that the capitalist peasant, the tenant‐farmer, would not support a proletarian revolution, but the capitalist peasant could be a revolutionary force in a liberal revolution. Marx felt that if a liberal revolution was found to be progressive for the proletariat, an alliance could be formed between proletariat and tenant‐farmers in the bourgeois revolution. Moreover, in Vol. III of Das Kapital Marx discerned the evolution of an agricultural proletariat. These agricultural wage‐labourers would support a proletarian revolution, and thus were allies of the urban proletariat in a socialist revolution. Lenin was familiar with the arguments of Vol. III of Das Kapital and incorporated them in his Development of Capitalism in Russia (composed in 1898). And certainly by 1901, and not in the revolution of 1905 as most commentators maintain, Lenin's ideas on the peasantry had fully matured and were entirely consonant with the views of Marx. By 1901, by extending the insights of Marx to Russia, Lenin had formulated the policy later enunciated in 1905 in Two Tactics of Social‐Democracy in the Democratic Revolution: two revolutions were brewing in the countryside, between capitalist farmers and aristocracy and between agricultural wage‐labourers and capitalist farmers, and the urban proletariat could find an ally for either a liberal or socialist revolution by allying with the capitalist farmer in the bourgeois revolution or the agricultural wage‐labourer in the socialist revolution.     

Neo‐populism and Marxism: The Chayanovian view of the agrarian question and its fundamental fallacy

The neo‐populist viewpoint on the agrarian question, developed in Russia from the late 19th century against Marxist theory, enjoys a modified revival in India today. The theoretical core of the neo‐populist framework consists in the idea of an economically undifferentiated, virtually homogeneous peasantry, which shows extreme stability and viability vis a vis the competition of capitalist production; and is of superior efficiency with respect to yield. There is a basic logical fallacy underlying this view, consisting in the positing of identical conditions of production for units with differing objectives of production—’subsistence’ for peasant holdings and ‘profit’ for capitalist holdings—in a situation where they coexist and are linked through markets. In fact capitalist production cannot emerge at all unless it is accompanied by a rise in output and surplus per unit area compared to petty production, which presupposes technical change. The logical necessity of differing conditions of production, implies that all the neo‐populist propositions are invalid.     

Peasants and politics

This paper discusses the political relations of ‘traditional’ peasants to groups and institutions outside their local community, with special reference to situations in which they encounter the political movements and problems of the twentieth century. It stresses the separation of peasants from non‐peasants, the general subalternity of the peasant world, but also the explicit confrontation of power which is the framework of their politics. The relative isolation of local communities, and their consequent ignorance, does not confine peasant politics only to parish pump or undefined millennial universality. However, it makes certain forms of nation‐wide peasant action without outside leadership and organisation difficult and some, like a general ‘peasant revolution’, probably impossible. The political problems of a ‘modern’ peasantry are briefly touched upon in conclusion.     

Changes in peasant food production and food supply in relation to the historical development of commodity production in pre‐colonial and colonial Tanganyika∗

This paper explores the dynamic interaction between peasant food production and commodity production under conditions of the increasing penetration of capital and consequent erosion of pre‐capitalist modes of production in pre‐colonial and colonial Tanganyika (Tanzania). It is argued that while the law of value inherent in commodity production definitely served to effect more specialisation of labour in peasant production, nevertheless,it was bounded by the limits of labour productivity attainable in peasant household production units. Shortfalls in peasant food production appeared as the most glaring consequence of the labour productivity constraint. The role of the colonial state was critical, not merely in the sense of acting to increase peasant commodity production. The colonial state also intervened strategically to dispense famine relief in times of serious food shortfalls, which guaranteeing peasant subsistence, altered its character from that of unreliability to that of regularity. Since peasant subsistence formed the necessary base for peasant commodity production, state famine relief ensured the persistence of peasant commodity production but not its proliferation, the latter again being indicative of the labour productivity constraint.     

Indian peasant historiography: A critical perspective on Ranajit Guha's work

With the publication of six volumes of Subaltern Studies (1982–89), under Ranajit Guha's general editorship, South Asian social and political history, centred round the struggles of the subaltern classes of South Asia under colonial rule, and of the peasantry in particular, was poured into an entirely new historiographical mould. The intellectual foundation for this exciting project was laid in Guha's three major works published during the previous two decades. The historiography of the Indian peasantry, cast in this new mould, constitutes not only a formidable challenge to the dominant mainstream orientations of the metropolitan liberal and natonalist elite historians but has also opened a new frontier of understanding of the dynamics of peasant insurrections which is of significance for the future and for peasant societies in general.     

M.H. Khan,A.V. Chayanov and the family farms of the North‐West Frontier Province

Mahmood Hasan Khan has argued that the agrarian structure of Pakistan's North‐West Frontier Province resembles that described in Russia in the early twentieth century by Alexander Vasil'evich Chayanov. The purpose of this article is to examine the validity of such an argument. After identifying changes in the agrarian structure of the Frontier since 1947, Chayanov's theory of peasant economy is empirically tested. Despite an absence of wage labour, none of Chayanov's static hypotheses are supported. It is concluded that the rural research of Khan, while technically proficient, does not explain processes of economic change in Frontier agriculture.     

Agrarian contradictions and resistance in Faizabad district of Oudh (India)

The history of the Indian peasantry is a rather unexplored area even today. Hence, as some historians have complained with reference to histories of their own societies, a subject as vital as peasant resistance has received little attention despite a strong tradition of peasant militancy.¹ During the British period peasant resistance was greatly in evidence in the Awadh region. In this paper we examine the pattern and magnitude of peasant resistance in Faizabad, one of the major districts of Awadh, between 18S8 and 1920. This period was marked by the development and sharpening of internal contradictions in the agrarian structure and by resistance by various classes. It was the policies of the British administrators which played a vital role in sharpening the contradictions and strengthening one class at the cost of others. This paper brings out the nature and forms ofresistance; the manner in which it was built up over time; the reasons for its success in some cases and failure in others; and finally the inability of these frequent but isolated cases of resistance to culminate in a mass movement. The above exercise also leads one to question some of the basic assumptions of conventional Indian sociology which tend to assign to kinship and caste a predominant role in containing social tensions, including those emerging from agrarian contradictions. Contrary to the conventional view, membership in a kin or caste group does not necessarily lead to solidarity between members if they belong to different economic groups.     

Reflections on Peasant Adaptation in Rural Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: The Stolypin Agrarian Reforms

The Stolypin reforms in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century are usually understood as a revolutionary attempt to destroy the peasantry and peasant culture through legal coercion; in fact, they were a more moderate attempt to encourage change through voluntary procedures. In terms of both the numbers of peasants embracing them and their social impact, the reforms were also more successful than has traditionally been acknowledged. A key reason for their success was the synergistic relationship between the reform process and the deepening marketization of rural and urban economic environments in conjunction with the peasants' increasing willingness to adapt to and take advantage of the new opportunities these processes created. The reforms' positive outcomes contrast sharply with the results of current reforms in Russia and highlight the critical role of market supporting institutions in creating a supportive environment.     

‘Peasantry’ as an economic category

This paper is concerned to challenge the category ‘peasantry’ as defining a distinct and general type of economy. It is divided into three sections: i. an examination of the work of Lenin and Kautsky on capitalism in agriculture which shows that they investigated economies in which peasant production was important without using such a concept; ii. it is argued that no rigorous concept of a ‘peasant’ mode or ‘peasant’ relations of production can be constructed which has the general applicability of the common‐sense notion of ‘peasantry'; iii. the treatment of ‘peasant’ economy in non‐Marxist literature is considered.     

Passive revolution meets peasant revolution: Indian nationalism and the Telangana revolt

An explanation of how the struggles by villagers in the region of Telangana in the 1940s evolved into the largest rural armed conflict in twentieth‐century India, requires an understanding not just of property relations in the region (the focus of most previous studies of the revolt), but also of the nationalist movement there, and the political conjuncture at the time of Indian independence. As much a nationalist mobilization as a revolt over land and grain, the Telangana struggle attained its success because the enemy was a decrepit sultanate ‐ the princely state of Hyderabad attempting to remain outside an independent India — against whom followers of both the CPI and the Indian National Congress fought.     

Emigrants,spinsters and priests: The dynamics of demography in Spanish peasant societies

In Spanish peasant societies, aspects of social organisation such as patterns of marriage and inheritance and cultural traits like courtship and the concept of honour are examined as functional equivalents of demographic mechanisms such as fertility control and migration. Whether a demographic mechanism reinforces tradition or generates social change is found to be dependent on social structure.     

Value,price, and simple commodity production: The case of the Zapotec stoneworkers∗

The concepts of ‘commodity’ and of ‘simple commodity production’ in the work of Marx and his interpreters are examined as a necessary departure point for the analysis of value and price in a Mexican peasant‐artisan stoneworking industry. The labour theory of value, which posits a close relationship between market price and average embodied labour cost of commodities in a peasant‐artisan economy, is applied to the stone‐working industry and is shown to have explanatory power in both the qualitative and quantitative sense. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the labour theory is a necessary tool for discerning and approximating the fundamental role of the labour process, as well as the structure of production relations, in determining the nature and conduct of exchange activities in a peasant‐artisan commodity/market economy.     

Adivasi and peasant: Reflections on Indian social history

This essay looks at recent historical approaches to tribal societies in India and examines their political implications. Building on this criticism, it synthesizes a range of secondary literature in history and anthropology, in an attempt to formulate an alternative approach that locates tribal societies within the wider framework of south Asian history and is capable, at the same time, of marking changing patterns for different periods of the past. Finally it examines the way the word peasant is used in historical writing in order to show that the special history of tribal societies and their conversion into peasants in the colonial period is fundamental to an understanding of contemporary Indian society.