Those Illusive Peasants Redux
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18980888 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Garth Massey (Garth Massey is Professor of Sociology at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming., corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 458-461 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-3968 • E-ISSN: 1923-3051 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00083968.1989.10804272 |
| OpenAlex | W988204823 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
Once again we are being treated to the spectacle of peasant-production-as-milch-cow-of-development. At least, that has been the plan. Investing approximately eleven percent of its expenditures in agriculture the revolutionary government of Ethiopia sought to enlist the Ethiopian peasantry nearly forty million strong in the great leap from feudalism to freedom and dignity. Alas, the peasants seem to be quietly resisting their capture. The spectacle of the Chinese troops massacring hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians in Beijing jogged our memory of the pre-Deng days, of the Maoist experiment that seemed to hold such promise for fundamental change in a predominantly rural society. In the wake of the state's recent assertion of its power, we asked: Would the grip of the Party elite hold? Would the hundreds of millions of Chinese acquiesce to continued rule by those who had for so long opposed Mao's commitment to a socialist transformation centred on the advancement of rural society? On the basis of William Hinton's (1989) appraisal of the Responsibility System that has been imposed in place of the collectivism of the Great Leap Forward, it seems that rural China is in for the same treatment peasants everywhere have been given. That this was not in dispute between the Chinese students and the Party elite can only bode ill for the farmers and peasants but may make them the wild card in the continuing struggle over the future of China. Alemneh Dejene describes the students who descended on the Ethiopian countryside in the Development Through Cooperation Campaign as Maoist in orientation. They were intent on building a peasant political base in order to depose the new military regime that overthrew the Emperor Haile-Selassie and laid claim to the state. Their reception by the peasantry and hasty retreat to the city raises doubts about a Maoist label, but it does bring into stark focus the course of the recent Ethiopian experience
China · Development economics · Dignity · Economics · Elite · Peasant · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spectacle · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |