World's first attempted socialist revolution? 1381?

[Nox]

My History teacher told me about this, I found it extremely interesting, take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant%27s_revolt

Was that the first time in history the working class (or contemporary equivalent) tried to take control?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Thread moved :)

[Caj]

My History teacher told me about this, I found it extremely interesting, take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant%27s_revolt

Was that the first time in history the working class (or contemporary equivalent) tried to take control?

I think Bakunin or someone referred to this as the first proletarian revolution. (Bakunin, it is important to note, used the term "proletariat" very loosely and with no regard to historical or material context.)

I don't think it could really be called socialist or working class in any real sense, but it was probably progressive for its time.

[JustMovement]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie

A peasant uprising against the French nobility following the 100 years war in 1358

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciompi

This is a particularly interesting revolt in Florence because it does not involve peasants, but rather the urban poor (the ciompi who did the shit low paid work) who revolted because they were not represented by any of the guilds in the city.

1300s was crazy apparently.

[Tommy4ever]

The 1300s are known as the 'worst century to be alive' for a reason. During the first half of the century the economy of Western Europe (with England being the worst hit of all) was creaking slowly towards total disaster (I just wrote an essay about this economic crisis last week :p), then you had the Black Death which wiped out anywhere between 1/4 and 3/4 of the continent's population. Following the Plague there was an intense period of class struggle - the sudden shift from an overwhelming overabundance of labour to a crippling shortage obvious drastically changed the class dynamic between the powerful and powerless - the stubborness of the lords to realise this had some inevitable consequences. Also, this century was one of intense and especially brutal warfare - especially after the Plague as landowners looked to make up for lower incomes from traditional sources.

So yeah, crazy times.

[Rooster]

I'm pretty sure they didn't try to take control. They just looted tax offices and burnt papers, eventually getting tricked by the king and then being slaughtered because they didn't want to take control.

[Book O'Dead]

The first truly proletarian revolution was in Paris, in 1871. Anyone tells you otherwise is full of shit.

[MotherCossack]

yeah.... poor fuckers... all ardent and revolutionary... at the relative begining... before all that exploitation, madness, death, hacking, be-heading, fire, disease, sewage, sea-sickness, lunacy, famine, industrialisation, small child labour, more death, war, heresy, pollution, steam, more death, poison, premature death...disemboweling...and bloody guts....
if they had known how their efforts would go....and what would be done to them in the name of treason.....
and the awfulness of the following 700 years....
but i suppose you have to admire the bravery and blind courage.....things have gotten so tawdry these days...

[scarletghoul]

the peasants revolt was fucking awesome and everyone in england should study it (theres a reason its rarely mentioned in the dominant discourse), however its by no means the 'first attempted socialist revolution'. Badiou's term "communist hypothesis" is a good one:

What is the communist hypothesis? In its generic sense, given in its canonic Manifesto, ‘communist’ means, first, that the logic of class—the fundamental subordination of labour to a dominant class, the arrangement that has persisted since Antiquity—is not inevitable; it can be overcome. The communist hypothesis is that a different collective organization is practicable, one that will eliminate the inequality of wealth and even the division of labour. The private appropriation of massive fortunes and their transmission by inheritance will disappear. The existence of a coercive state, separate from civil society, will no longer appear a necessity: a long process of reorganization based on a free association of producers will see it withering away.‘Communism’ as such denotes only this very general set of intellectual representations. It is what Kant called an Idea, with a regulatory function, rather than a programme. It is foolish to call such communist principles utopian; in the sense that I have defined them here they are intellectual patterns, always actualized in a different fashion. As a pure Idea of equality, the communist hypothesis has no doubt existed since the beginnings of the state. As soon as mass action opposes state coercion in the name of egalitarian justice, rudiments or fragments of the hypothesis start to appear. Popular revolts—the slaves led by Spartacus, the peasants led by Müntzer—might be identified as practical examples of this ‘communist invariant’. With the French Revolution, the communist hypothesis then inaugurates the epoch of political modernity.


In other words throughout the whole existance of class society there have been movements to do away with it. However it is important to keep in mind the unique character of the proletariat which makes it the class to end all classes.


still the peasants revolt, yeah , it was good lol

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

The first truly proletarian revolution was in Paris, in 1871. Anyone tells you otherwise is full of shit.


The defeat of the Parisian insurrection of June, 1848—the first great battle between Proletariat and Bourgeoisie—drove again into the background, for a time, the social and political aspirations of the European working class.

-Preface to the official American English translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party
Published by the New York Labor News Co., 28 City Hall Place
1908

You're full of shit.

[A Marxist Historian]

I think Bakunin or someone referred to this as the first proletarian revolution. (Bakunin, it is important to note, used the term "proletariat" very loosely and with no regard to historical or material context.)

I don't think it could really be called socialist or working class in any real sense, but it was probably progressive for its time.

It was that. It was a peasant, but not only peasant, revolt against feudalism and serfdom. I did in fact have a considerable urban component in London, where it centered, and the beginnings of the English proletariat were definitely involved. It lost. Some historians argue that it broke the back of serfdom in England, some disagree.

But it certainly was progressive.

-M.H.-

[theblackmask]

What about this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion

[bcbm]

proto-communist revolts are as old as class society