{"id":51,"date":"2017-09-14T13:41:26","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T13:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/?post_type=chapter&p=51"},"modified":"2017-10-27T22:00:12","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T22:00:12","slug":"readings-and-resources-on-peasant-resistance-and-protest","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/chapter\/readings-and-resources-on-peasant-resistance-and-protest\/","title":{"raw":"Readings and Resources on Peasant Resistance and Protest","rendered":"Readings and Resources on Peasant Resistance and Protest"},"content":{"raw":"\"\"\r\n\r\nZapata by Diego Rivera<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe global expansion of the culture of capitalism has benefited many; but it has also brought suffering to others.\u00a0 Perhaps the greatest loss was borne by peasant farmers who, with the expansion of large-scale agriculture, were transformed from relatively self-sufficient food producers to dependent laborers.\u00a0\u00a0 The transformation was sometimes accomplished slowly as large-scale producers either bought up or pushed out small farmers; or it was accomplished rapidly, as colonial powers expropriated land to redistribute to settlers from the colonizer's nation-state.\u00a0 More recently, economic globalization and the withdrawal of government support has made it difficult, if not impossible, for small-scale farmers to compete with multinational agribusiness.\u00a0 In any case, the transformation was marked by resistance that was sometimes passive, and other times violent.\u00a0 The following readings provide some historical perspective on the phenomenon of peasant revolt and resistance and two recent cases, one in Colombia and the other in Mexico\r\n\r\nA. The History and Nature of Peasant Revolts<\/strong>\r\n\r\nRevolts and protests by peasants against those who demand tribute or taxes, and\/or who control the land on which peasants depend, go back for centuries.\u00a0 There are thousands of such protests recorded in Russia and England, for example, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.\u00a0 One question we need to ask is how such protests compare to more recent ones, such as in Chiapas, or those discussed in Global Issues and the Culture of Capitalism in Malaysia and Kenya?\u00a0 The readings in this section address past and present peasant protests and their relationship to religious, political, and economic revolution\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nReading 1.\u00a0<\/span>The Twelve Articles of the Peasants\r\nhttp:\/\/germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org\/sub_document.cfm?document_id=4323<\/a>\r\n\r\nYou can get a good idea of the traditional concerns of peasants by examining this declaration prepared by peasant farmers in Germany in 1525.\u00a0 The early sixteenth century was a period of widespread peasant revolt in Germany.\u00a0 Frederick Engels suggested there was a parallel between those uprisings and the revolutions that shook Europe in 1848, prompting him to write\u00a0The Peasant War in Germany. \u00a0 His major point was that the protest was class-based, rather than a result of religious upheaval.\u00a0 The Twelve Articles seem to substantiate that point of view; while religious issues are present, clearly demands of the peasants have to do with the level of exploitation by both religious and secular leaders.\r\n\r\nReading 2<\/span>.\u00a0The Peasant War in China and the Proletariat\r\nhttps:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/trotsky\/1932\/09\/china.htm<\/a>\r\n\r\nThis letter written in 1932 by Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the communist revolution in Russia, addresses his concerns about the role of the peasant revolutionary in the Chinese revolution.\u00a0 The letter expresses some longstanding concerns, largely articulated by Vladimir Lenin, that the goals of peasant revolts were often incompatible with the goals of worker revolts. \u00a0 More specifically, he address the question of what happens when peasant movements come face-to-face with the working class?\u00a0 In Russia, he points out, there was often conflict, some of it violent.\u00a0\u00a0 The peasant, he says, generally has limited goals, and rather than socializing property, seeks only to divide it up\r\n\r\nReading 3<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0Deep Roots in Cocoa Country\r\nhttps:\/\/newint.org\/features\/1998\/08\/05\/village<\/a>\r\n\r\nand\r\n\r\nReading 4<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Race to Stand Still\r\nhttps:\/\/newint.org\/features\/1998\/08\/05\/adjustment<\/a>\r\n\r\nBeing a peasant or small-scale farmer is very different in today's global economy than it has ever been.\u00a0 The traditional peasant's fate was determined by his or her farming skills, by the weather, and by the occasional natural (hurricane, flood, earthquake) or social (war, revolution) disaster.\u00a0 But today, in addition to these dangers, the grower must also adjust to the vagaries of the global market, the price and demand for what is produced, and, most importantly, the competition from large-scale, corporate agriculture and its allies in the nation-state.\u00a0 These selections from the\u00a0New<\/span> Internationalist<\/span><\/a>\u00a0introduces you to the life of the cocoa grower in Ghana.\r\n\r\nB. The Revolt in Colombia<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThere are few Latin American countries that have not, in the past thirty years, experienced protest by workers, peasants, and the poor.\u00a0 In many cases the protest was met with violent repression by the state, or by paramilitary forces operating with the tacit consent of the state.\u00a0 Colombia has been no exception.\u00a0 It has experienced a civil war since the early 1960s, a war that followed other instances of violent repression, including the massacre of hundreds of strikers by the United Fruit Company in 1928.\u00a0 The following articles provide an anatomy of peasant protest in Colombia.\r\n\r\nReading 6.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0A History of the Guerrilla Movement in Colombia\r\nhttps:\/\/nacla.org\/article\/evolution-farc-guerrilla-groups-long-history<\/a>\r\n\r\nA good brief summary of peasant and worker protest in Colombia, and the violent reaction by the state and its representatives.\r\n\r\nReading 7.\u00a0Colombia's Dirty War: The Clash Between State and Society\r\nhttps:\/\/nacla.org\/article\/farc-war-and-crisis-state<\/a>\r\n\r\nC. The Rebellion in Chiapas<\/strong>\r\n\r\nOn January 1, 1994, the same day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, the Zapatista Revolutionary Army briefly occupied the city of San Cristobal de las Casas in the Mexican state of Chiapas.\u00a0 The timing was not coincidental.\u00a0 The agreement would further undermine the livelihood of peasant farmers by permitting the free import of cheap corn from the United States.\u00a0 In fact, everything about the Zapatista peasant revolt concerns the expansion of the global economy, as we discuss in\u00a0Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism.\u00a0\u00a0 The following articles describe the revolt,\u00a0 the social and economic state of peasant farmers in Chiapas, and the reasons behind it.\r\n\r\nReading 8<\/span>.\u00a0Chiapas Uprising and Trade\r\nhttp:\/\/teaching.quotidiana.org\/our\/2006\/chiapas\/nafta.html<\/a>\r\n\r\nAn excellent background piece on the Chiapas rebellion.\u00a0 The review focuses on the economic factors in the protest, particularly as it relates to NAFTA.\r\n\r\nReading 9<\/span>.\u00a0\"From the Mountains of the Southeast\": A Review of Recent Writings on the Zapatistas of Chiapas\r\nhttp:\/\/www.ainfos.ca\/98\/mar\/ainfos00200.html<\/a>\r\n\r\nAn excellent review by Barry Carr of writings on the Zapatista uprising.\u00a0 He manages to convey the different perspectives that social scientists and journalists have taken of the conflict.\u00a0 You might want to contrast and compare these views with the analysis of the rebellion in Chapter 10 of\u00a0Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism.\r\n\r\nReading<\/span> 10.\u00a0\u00a0Acteal Massacre in Chiapas\u00a0 https:\/\/www.culturalsurvival.org\/publications\/cultural-survival-quarterly\/first-anniversary-acteal-massacre-chiapas\r\n\r\nAnd\r\n\r\nReading 11<\/span>: The Chase Bank Memo\u00a0 https:\/\/www.realhistoryarchives.com\/collections\/hidden\/chase-memo.htm\r\n\r\nThis is a comprehensive report and analysis by Lynn Steven of the Chiapas rebellion and the reaction to it by the Mexican government.\u00a0 The second reading is the memo which is said to have been at the root of the action taken","rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zapata by Diego Rivera<\/span><\/p>\n

The global expansion of the culture of capitalism has benefited many; but it has also brought suffering to others.\u00a0 Perhaps the greatest loss was borne by peasant farmers who, with the expansion of large-scale agriculture, were transformed from relatively self-sufficient food producers to dependent laborers.\u00a0\u00a0 The transformation was sometimes accomplished slowly as large-scale producers either bought up or pushed out small farmers; or it was accomplished rapidly, as colonial powers expropriated land to redistribute to settlers from the colonizer’s nation-state.\u00a0 More recently, economic globalization and the withdrawal of government support has made it difficult, if not impossible, for small-scale farmers to compete with multinational agribusiness.\u00a0 In any case, the transformation was marked by resistance that was sometimes passive, and other times violent.\u00a0 The following readings provide some historical perspective on the phenomenon of peasant revolt and resistance and two recent cases, one in Colombia and the other in Mexico<\/p>\n

A. The History and Nature of Peasant Revolts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Revolts and protests by peasants against those who demand tribute or taxes, and\/or who control the land on which peasants depend, go back for centuries.\u00a0 There are thousands of such protests recorded in Russia and England, for example, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.\u00a0 One question we need to ask is how such protests compare to more recent ones, such as in Chiapas, or those discussed in Global Issues and the Culture of Capitalism in Malaysia and Kenya?\u00a0 The readings in this section address past and present peasant protests and their relationship to religious, political, and economic revolution<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reading 1.\u00a0<\/span>The Twelve Articles of the Peasants
\nhttp:\/\/germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org\/sub_document.cfm?document_id=4323<\/a><\/p>\n

You can get a good idea of the traditional concerns of peasants by examining this declaration prepared by peasant farmers in Germany in 1525.\u00a0 The early sixteenth century was a period of widespread peasant revolt in Germany.\u00a0 Frederick Engels suggested there was a parallel between those uprisings and the revolutions that shook Europe in 1848, prompting him to write\u00a0The Peasant War in Germany. \u00a0 His major point was that the protest was class-based, rather than a result of religious upheaval.\u00a0 The Twelve Articles seem to substantiate that point of view; while religious issues are present, clearly demands of the peasants have to do with the level of exploitation by both religious and secular leaders.<\/p>\n

Reading 2<\/span>.\u00a0The Peasant War in China and the Proletariat
\nhttps:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/trotsky\/1932\/09\/china.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

This letter written in 1932 by Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the communist revolution in Russia, addresses his concerns about the role of the peasant revolutionary in the Chinese revolution.\u00a0 The letter expresses some longstanding concerns, largely articulated by Vladimir Lenin, that the goals of peasant revolts were often incompatible with the goals of worker revolts. \u00a0 More specifically, he address the question of what happens when peasant movements come face-to-face with the working class?\u00a0 In Russia, he points out, there was often conflict, some of it violent.\u00a0\u00a0 The peasant, he says, generally has limited goals, and rather than socializing property, seeks only to divide it up<\/p>\n

Reading 3<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0Deep Roots in Cocoa Country
\nhttps:\/\/newint.org\/features\/1998\/08\/05\/village<\/a><\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

Reading 4<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Race to Stand Still
\nhttps:\/\/newint.org\/features\/1998\/08\/05\/adjustment<\/a><\/p>\n

Being a peasant or small-scale farmer is very different in today’s global economy than it has ever been.\u00a0 The traditional peasant’s fate was determined by his or her farming skills, by the weather, and by the occasional natural (hurricane, flood, earthquake) or social (war, revolution) disaster.\u00a0 But today, in addition to these dangers, the grower must also adjust to the vagaries of the global market, the price and demand for what is produced, and, most importantly, the competition from large-scale, corporate agriculture and its allies in the nation-state.\u00a0 These selections from the\u00a0New<\/span> Internationalist<\/span><\/a>\u00a0introduces you to the life of the cocoa grower in Ghana.<\/p>\n

B. The Revolt in Colombia<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are few Latin American countries that have not, in the past thirty years, experienced protest by workers, peasants, and the poor.\u00a0 In many cases the protest was met with violent repression by the state, or by paramilitary forces operating with the tacit consent of the state.\u00a0 Colombia has been no exception.\u00a0 It has experienced a civil war since the early 1960s, a war that followed other instances of violent repression, including the massacre of hundreds of strikers by the United Fruit Company in 1928.\u00a0 The following articles provide an anatomy of peasant protest in Colombia.<\/p>\n

Reading 6.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0A History of the Guerrilla Movement in Colombia
\nhttps:\/\/nacla.org\/article\/evolution-farc-guerrilla-groups-long-history<\/a><\/p>\n

A good brief summary of peasant and worker protest in Colombia, and the violent reaction by the state and its representatives.<\/p>\n

Reading 7.\u00a0Colombia’s Dirty War: The Clash Between State and Society
\nhttps:\/\/nacla.org\/article\/farc-war-and-crisis-state<\/a><\/p>\n

C. The Rebellion in Chiapas<\/strong><\/p>\n

On January 1, 1994, the same day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, the Zapatista Revolutionary Army briefly occupied the city of San Cristobal de las Casas in the Mexican state of Chiapas.\u00a0 The timing was not coincidental.\u00a0 The agreement would further undermine the livelihood of peasant farmers by permitting the free import of cheap corn from the United States.\u00a0 In fact, everything about the Zapatista peasant revolt concerns the expansion of the global economy, as we discuss in\u00a0Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism.\u00a0\u00a0 The following articles describe the revolt,\u00a0 the social and economic state of peasant farmers in Chiapas, and the reasons behind it.<\/p>\n

Reading 8<\/span>.\u00a0Chiapas Uprising and Trade
\nhttp:\/\/teaching.quotidiana.org\/our\/2006\/chiapas\/nafta.html<\/a><\/p>\n

An excellent background piece on the Chiapas rebellion.\u00a0 The review focuses on the economic factors in the protest, particularly as it relates to NAFTA.<\/p>\n

Reading 9<\/span>.\u00a0“From the Mountains of the Southeast”: A Review of Recent Writings on the Zapatistas of Chiapas
\nhttp:\/\/www.ainfos.ca\/98\/mar\/ainfos00200.html<\/a><\/p>\n

An excellent review by Barry Carr of writings on the Zapatista uprising.\u00a0 He manages to convey the different perspectives that social scientists and journalists have taken of the conflict.\u00a0 You might want to contrast and compare these views with the analysis of the rebellion in Chapter 10 of\u00a0Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism.<\/p>\n

Reading<\/span> 10.\u00a0\u00a0Acteal Massacre in Chiapas\u00a0 https:\/\/www.culturalsurvival.org\/publications\/cultural-survival-quarterly\/first-anniversary-acteal-massacre-chiapas<\/p>\n

And<\/p>\n

Reading 11<\/span>: The Chase Bank Memo\u00a0 https:\/\/www.realhistoryarchives.com\/collections\/hidden\/chase-memo.htm<\/p>\n

This is a comprehensive report and analysis by Lynn Steven of the Chiapas rebellion and the reaction to it by the Mexican government.\u00a0 The second reading is the memo which is said to have been at the root of the action taken<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47552,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-51","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47552"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/51\/revisions\/87"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/51\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-plattsburgh-anthro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}