Peasant Revolts

[Redistribute the Rep]

How would one explain a peasant revolt from a materialist perspective? It is my understanding that peasants are not considered to be a revolutionary class as they have not gained class consciousness. But do the peasant revolts not reflect a form of class consciousness? Also, did these revolts play a significant role in the destruction of feudalism or was that more the bourgeoise gaining power and seizing feudal lands?

[Alexios]

It depends on what peasant revolts you're referring to. If you're talking about the more famous ones, like the English Peasant Revolt and German Peasant Revolt, then you might be surprised to find out that neither of these were really carried out by the peasantry in large part. The English revolt was mostly an act of the middle class, while the German revolt was carried out mainly by independent farmers rather than serfs.

The BBC's In Our Time podcast did a good spot on the English revolt. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0038x8s

[Five Year Plan]

You can read a good article on the politics of the peasantry at https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/harris/1969/12/peasants.htm

The short answer to your question is that the decay of feudalism brought on by advancing forces of production, the rise of cities, and the greater concentration of peasants in villages, corresponded to what some historians (most notably Peter Blickle) have called "communalism," a greater political autonomy from the rent-tanking nobility which translated into increased peasants' organizational capacity and political consciousness for revolting.

[Tim Cornelis]

How would one explain a peasant revolt from a materialist perspective? It is my understanding that peasants are not considered to be a revolutionary class as they have not gained class consciousness.

"have not gained class consciousness" < this is an odd sentence. A class does not 'gain class consciousness' as if it's a permanent feature which it acquires and then never relinquishes. Peasants can be class conscious and act upon their class interest by revolting against feudal landlords. They were not a revolutionary class in feudalism, however, because they lacked the social power to overthrow feudalism and replace it with a new system.

[The Red Star Rising]

Under the Feudal structure, the division between classes was a virtual caste system and the hierarchy was incredibly deeply ingrained. It was a divine order, the way things had been for far longer than anyone had any memory stretching back to. Certainly the general peasantry wasn't educated to the same capacity the current working classes are.

Unlike the more modern concept of revolution, peasant revolts were generally not intended to completely topple the old order, but rather were a tool to try and force their demands to be heard. Usually this demand was "could you please not tax us to the point of starvation and let keep us *some* of our crops?" Though sometimes the revolts were attempts at bringing in some more power for the Peasantry.

And it was quite powerful. In medieval times without farmers at the field there essentially was no economy, and logistics systems certainly were in no condition to try and bring in food from elsewhere in large quantities. So essentially the Aristocracy had two options; accede (and face a loss of prestige and face for not putting the peasant and yeomen rabble in their place), or send in the men at arms and knights and crush them. Generally speaking, peasants fared about as well against the warrior class as you'd expect. As a few dozen knights were often all it took to scatter peasants vastly greater than them in number, little grand change could be affected.

It would take something to even the playing field between the common man and the armoured manshaped tank on an armoured horseshaped tank with high grade stabbing implements and years of experience with slaughtering ill disciplined light infantry for an underclass powerful enough to affect lasting change on a large scale to emerge. It would take the Gun, combined with the professionalization of militaries and the shift of economies away from an almost purely agrarian system for the Knight to lose his ability to basically ensure that any peasant revolt was doomed the moment they lined up on a hill with lances couched.