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- Title
REVOLUTION IN THE REVOLUTION: PEASANTS AND COMMISSARS.
- Authors
Scott, James C.
- Abstract
The article focuses on constituents features of revolution to trace their origin in the structure, culture and history of peasant society. The kind of revisionist, popular history that this analysis encourages seems important for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it promises to uncover the experienced history of what French historians have called mentalites populaires of a large stratum of revolutionary actors as well as values which motivated them. Doing justice to radical movements requires not only the analysis of ideas and activities of radical elites but also the recovery of popular aspirations which made them possible. Secondly, a study of values of rank-and-file rebels can teach a great deal about several occasions when rebellions escape the tenuous control of their would-be leaders and launch out for objectives of their own. Like the society from which it issues, the stratification of rebels embodies its own tensions and contradictions which provide a dynamic and often tragic basis for the internal politics of the movement.
- Subjects
REVOLUTIONS; CULTURAL history; SOCIAL classes; SOCIAL sciences; RESISTANCE to government; SOCIAL movements
- Publication
Theory & Society, 1979, Vol 7, Issue 1/2, p97
- ISSN
0304-2421
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF00158679