Re}lections on the SPeasantry S. H. FRANKLIN The Paradoyes of Peasant Existence Anyone who takes up the study of peasant life soon discovers for himself the paradoxical quality of that existence. Jacques Weulersse in a memorable passage sketches with two contradictory portraits “la physionomie générale” of the Syrian fellah.! In the first portrait is seen his total devotion to the family, his sense of religion and hospitality, his sense of personal and family honour. There is also his sobriety, en- durance and resignation before fate. In the second portrait the frantic egoism of the family, the puerile superstitions and ignorance appear alongside sloth, cupidity, duplicity, violence and brutality, shiftlessness and indolence. Similar contradictions are observable in other aspects of peasant life, and since, as Dovring reminds us, “It will require de- cades before agriculture ceases to employ and support the majority of the world’s population”,? and since the demand for economic develop- ment in backward areas is subjecting every peasant society in the world to the stress of changes a re-examination of these paradoxes may not be without profit, ey as the role and potentialities of the pea~ santry in these changes is interpreted in vastly different ways according to the prevailing ideologies which divide the world. One widely accepted view of the peasant is that he is a good and careful farmer. The painstaking construction of terraces, the careful application of water and manure, the assiduous weeding and clearing, the scrupulous harvesting, are all cited as evidence of what is termed “the peasants’ love of the land”. But paradoxically, and unfortunately, the results obtained are rarely commensurate with the effort applied. Yields per hectare tend to be low; markedly lower than in areas of capitalistic farming (the contrast within France between the northern southern parts is conclusive); markedly lower than in regions where peasant farming has been profoundly modified (the contrast in tice yields between Japan, and Ceylon, Java and China, is revealing). If these disparities did not exist, if “good” farming was more closely associated with high yields, the present worldwide concern over agri- cultural development would be less warranted. Peasant family life is frequently extolled for its virtues. Here is 1 Weulersse (1946): 249. 2Dovring (1959): 11. S. H. Franklin is Senior Lecturer in Geography at Victoria University of Wellington.2 PACIFIC VIEWPOINT everything that is missing in our dissolute urban existence: cohesion around the property and the parents, religious and conservative attitudes, economic independence, healthy country life, permanence and stability. Writing in 1959 on French agriculture, M. Braibant said, “In agricul- ture the father is the head of the family and chef d’enterprise at the same time, and he commands with the double title. The mother is the queen of the hearth and the hearth is the centre of attraction and con- vergence of the farm and family. Under the direction of their parents the children work according to their capacity and contribute to the success of the farm, they exercise their spirit of initiative, economy, sense of administration and responsibility.” The peasants’ simple life, Braibant wrote, “is less agitated, less noisy, less complicated than that of the town dwellers who are subject to the levelling processes of the collec- tivity. In the countryside he finds time to replenish and renew himself, time to meditate and to search deeply into human and divine affairs both during his working hours and his leisure hours, especially those of the long winter evenings.” Braibant writes in the very best of the romantic tradition favoured by some writers on agrarian affairs, and though his opinions of the value of peasant life may seem exaggerated they are by no means uncommon, or without ideological implications. The romantic school is matched by a school of realist writers who depict the harsher aspects of peasant family life and its impoverishment and disintegration. In Southern Italy Banfield found mistrust and sus- picion rather than solidarity with brothers, sisters and cousins beyond the immediate limits of the conjugal family, while friends were luxuries.* Maxwell’s Ten Pains of Death leaves the impression not of sound family living, but of widespread perversion when poverty delays marriage. The writings of Rocco Scotellaro and Danilo Dolci (when he deals with the peasantry) are in the same depressing vein. The very title of the Abbé Elie Gautier’s book La Dure Existence des Paysans et des Paysannes is indicative. For Novis, Henri Mendras establishes the narrow and friendless quality of life. His comment that most girls at Novis are no longer virgins after the age of 14 disturbs the picture of peasant sobriety.* The Crooks, in their description of Ten Mile Inn, reveal the peasant family in its most desperate straits. The wealthiest families usually numbered seven to eight persons, the middle peasants five. families of the small peasants and the hired labourers numbered thy€e or four, for it was they who usually sold or gave away their children, being un- able to support them. Female infanticide was very common amongst these families and this caused a chronic shortage of women in the village, 3 Braibant (1959): 141. See also Mendras (1955): 749-760. As with all of the quotations from French sources the writer has made free translations. 4 Banfield (1958): Chapter 6. 5 Mendras (1953).REFLECTIONS ON THE PEASANTRY 3 so that there were never sufficient women for the marriageable males. The very poorest of men went without wives, so that the biological destruction of the poorest families was assured.* The romantics divine not only the solidarity of the rural family but also solidarity within the village community itself. Thus Asoka Mehta speaks of the “moral unity of the village . . . basically different from that of a factory. That organic unity has to be accepted and respected.” He argues also, “If the village is recognised in al} matters of adminis- tration and economy as a unit, its organic filaments would become strong again, and it would produce all the elements of organisation that are needed for raising an old stagnant economy to a new vibrant level.”* But without denying the existence of a degree of village solidarity it is the divisions within village life that strike the observer and which render the task of community development one of the most difficult of arts to practise. In France agricultural development is hampered for want of co-operative action in the villages. Class differences are brutally apparent in the agro towns of southern Italy and are the basis for unrest. In India caste appears as a formidable barrier to village solidarity. If the village community is chosen as the vehicle for the development pro- gramme then the work must be sustained in face of the formidable barriers offered by these long standing divisions. If, on the other hand, classes, rather than the village, are made the vehicle for development, then the exacerbation of these divisions plays a significant role in the change. In most peasant societies the fundamentgl cause of division within the village lies in the inequalities of land ownership. Though the society as a whole lives at a low and impoverished level gross variations in wealth are inevitable where land is the principal means of production and where inequalities exist in its ownership. The concentration of the ownership of draught animals, agricultural equipment and ready money intensifies the disparities. Thus the paradox common to many peasant societies of relatively vast inequalities in wealth amidst general poverty. In these circumstances the peasant becomes a man ever in search of land,® and out of such conditions arises the widespread interest of the peasantry in land redistribution. Equally paradoxical is the commonly held opinion of the conservative, stable and permanent nature of peasant existence, contrasted with the changes in peasant society which are evident during long periods of time and the violence which so frequently disturbs that existence. “In every part of the world, generally speaking, peasantry have been a'con- 8Crook (1959): 5-12, 7 Mehta (1953): 67. 8 Rossi-Doria (1948).4 PACIFIC VIEWPOINT servative factor in social change, a brake on revolution, a check on that disintegration which often comes with rapid technological change. And yet in our own days many peasants are changigg very rapidly”.® The traditional aspects are undeniable, but the rarity of change, or the confinement of change to “our days” is to be queried. It is true that change, most frequently, has been extraneous to the peasantry, as has been violence, except when the ferment of the countryside has been embodied in peasant wars; and it may be that the social structure of the peasantry is highly resistant to change. But looked at agronomically, demographically, geographically and in some cases sociologically, change in peasant societies is not to be underrated, as the following examples, chosen at random, are listed to suggest. The rapid adoption of American or Asian crops by the cultivators of China and Africa, associated with shifts in population or in the type of land used, are very significant to the demographer and the geo- grapher.’° Important agronomic and geographic changes are represented by developments like the drainage and development of Lombardy under the aegis of the urban centres," the collapse of Cyprian viticulture following the Turkish conquest’? and the detrimental effects of the Tur- kish occupation upon the agriculture of the Sofia basin even until the last quarter of the nineteenth century.'* Changes in class structure, in the past, are to be found in the late “feudalisation” of the East Euro- pean peasantry and of the paysans of Brittany,” whilst the many resettlements and migrations of the European peasantry, ¢.g., the re- settlement of Albanian and Greek Christians in the Vulture district in the years 1478, 1534 and 1647 attract again the attention of the demographer and the geographer.!° Changes which are clearly of socio- logical interest are to be found in the disinheritance of the Scottish crofters, the expropriation of the Algerian peasantry, the restructuring of society in the Middle Garonne at the end of the eighteenth century and the ensuing “demographic haemorrhage” in the following century;!” or in the changing socio-economic structure of Bengal from the time of the European occupation.'* Archaic elements are more likely to survive within a peasant group and to remain integral parts of the culture, but it is unlikely that during 9 Redfield (1956): 137. 10 Ho (1959): 183-92. 11 Braudel (1949): 62-64. 42 Braudel (1949): 124-25. 18 Birot and Dresch (1956): Vol. I, 65. 44 Warriner (1953). 18 Ariés (1948). 16 Di Lonardi (1925). 11 Deffontaines (1932). 18 Mukherjee (1957).REFLECTIONS: ON THE PEASANTRY 5 the past 150 years many peasant societies have failed to experience important and perhaps significant changes, so that the study of change has become integral to the study of the modern pegsdntry. However grim life may appear in the countrySide, the very worst aspects of rural life (and here lies another paradox) are to be found in the cities. In Southern Italy the writer visited the most isolated group of people he had ever seen. Until 1958 there had been no road to their settlement and their stone houses were windowless, airless, and had earthen floors, they had no social amenities or personal comforts what- soever, and yet their life was not as desperate as had been anticipated. +k was a limited, even a crippled, life but it was not a degraded life. The degradation comes when the peasant, illiterate, ignorant and vocationless, leaves for the towns in search of something better, and ends up in a fetid, crowded, insanitary and vice-ridden packing-case town on the Naples waterfront (or equally in a suburb of Mexico City or in a hovel in Calcutta). The cruelness of rural existence appears when the peasant, hoping for a better existence, unprepared, exposes himself to the bitter competition of city Jife. A proportion do succeed, in business or in crime, the majority afe a countless, nameless and silent back- ground to the tourists’ querulous pleasure. ‘S\\_The most striking paradox of peasant life is that the peasantry, LZ Ys whilst constituting or having constituted the largest and most charac- '/ teristic element of many societies, are considered to be in some manner g / outside of, subordinate to, and estranged from, the commanding and propulsive groups who direct the development of society, or assist in ie the elaboration of its cultural life. The basis for this, some argue, is the self-sufficient or closed nature of the peasant economy. Thus, Weulersse, “But in the Middle East, the countryside was excluded from these ser- vices and their benefits; outside of the cities, no education, justice, public assistance, medicine, highways, or works of any sort... . The brilliant ensemble that to our eyes constitutes the civilisation of the Middle East was only known by and for the townsmen, the peasants being practically excluded.”!° Warriner implies the division in her title, Urban Thinkers and Peasant Policy and forecasts, “So long as these towns values continue to dominate official thinking the problem of agricultural development will persist.”2° And Coulter acknowledges the division by describing how it has been lessened in Hungary during the period of collectivisation. He recognises, however, “ . . . under the Communist regime the peasantry, although excluded to a great extent from government, was forcibly incorporated into Hungarian society”, and it aroused in them the feeling that they were “a very important part 19 Weulersse (1946): 88. 20 Warriner (1959): 81.6 PACIFIC VIEWPOINT of society and of the nation.” Jean Golfin is more pessimistic about the peasants’ future in the socialist state. “Il semble que l’univers socialiste, plus clément a l’ouvrier des villes, crée un prolétariat rural, cest-A-dire un peuple, peut étre évolué économiquement mais qui campe hors de la cité socialiste. . . . ”*? Carlo Levi saw the division in terms of “two very different civilisations, neither of which can absorb the other. Country and city, and pre-Christian civilisation and one that is no longer Christian, stand face to face.”?* The Marxists have never been quite certain where in their scheme of things the peasantry should be included and even in 1961 it is still the proletariat who “guide the millions upon millions of the peasant masses”.** Two views are possible concerning these paradoxes. They arise either because in the process of generalisation the descriptions pertaining to one sort of peasant existence have been contrasted with descriptions pertaining to a quite different sort; or that individually the descriptions and ideas are true for the majority of peasant societies but only as they apply to particular classes within these societies or to particular phases in their historical development. With the present state of knowledge there are few grounds for preferring either view and in all probability there is something to recommend in each one. However, it is more convenient for the present argument to emphasise the second, as it allows one to relate these paradoxes to the differential economic and social effects induced in peasant societies by the process of “agri- culturalisation” which the majority of peasant societies have undergone in the past century. The Agriculturalisation of the Campagnes The impact of industrial society upon peasant society, the penetration of traditional “pre-machinist” rural societies by modern western urban societies—familiar terminologies applied to the vast change that has taken place in the past centuyy. Agriculturalisation obviously refers to some aspects of this change/ but unless it connotes something more specific, if it only substitutes one general term for another, its intro- duction would be unwarranted. The term is introduced for the purpose of emphasising certain aspects of this change. It seeks also to under- score that, historically, peasant societies have rarely pursued purely agrarian economies. e The income from non-agricultural sources has always been significant to the peasants’ welfare, if small in volume. Before the industrial revo- lution industries and handicrafts were dispersed throughout the rural 21 Coulter (1959): 554, 22 Golfin (1961): 39. 23 Levi (1959): 181. *%4 Hsiao Shu (1961): 12.REFLECTIONS ON THE PEASANTRY 7 areas. The centralising effects of the industrial revolution, the destruction of the older industries, led to the simplification of the economy Sf the rural areas. As a result the population became more peg upon agriculture for its income, and experienced a degree of underemployment which was met in’ various ways: by migration; by the intensification of agriculture in the best areas and the extension of farming into marginal areas with comparatively few changes either in agricultural techniques or agrarian institutions; finally, by the elaboration of low productivity tertiary occupations. These developments. were sufficient to produce serious disturbances within the majority of peasant societies in coun- tries where industrialisation was actually taking place; but when these changes were accompanied by accelerated population growth, and a low absolute growth of the secondary industry, the results were disastrous. The tensions and pressures created revealed themselves in various forms of social disorganisation, and even revolt and rebellion. It is important to note that the process of agriculturalisation could produce severe effects even in a country like France, where population growth did not accelerate and where industrialisation did take place, as well as in the countries of Eastern Europe, and Asia, where the effects were more severe and the problems created of greater magnitude. It is obvious that the process has occurred at somewhat different periods during the last century in different societies, and that it is a reversible process, in that the economies of the rural areas can again be made more diversified. The implication is, that such a rediversification is important to the im- provement of rural conditions. The process can be very well observed in Southern Italy. One recalls the destruction of the local industries and handicrafts by northern com- petitors, the rapid population increase, the intensification and extensi- fication of agriculture, migration, the elaboration of low productive tertiary occupations, and social disorganisation revealed in the form of riots and land appropriation by the peasantry. The figures published by SVIMEZ?> show that in 1861, 57.2 per cent of the active popu- lation was employed in agriculture; by 1936 the proportion was 56.9 per cent, a decline of only 0.3 per cent. During the same period the proportion engaged in industry and transport decreased by 2.8 per cent and that engaged in other activities increased by 3.1 per cent. The evi- dence for India is also important, if like the Southern Italian material not conclusive. Clark?* says “ . . . it appears that there was a really marked increase in the proportion engaged in agriculture between 1881 and 1911, and that the proportion has been virtually stationary ever 25 SVIMEZ (1956): 17 and 27. 26 Clark (1960): 499; also Anstey (1954): 59-65, who is less assertive but concurs that there was probably little change since 1891 in the proportion dependent upon agriculture.8 PACIFIC VIEWPOINT since that date”. The period 1881-1921, he notes, was also one of in- creasing real income per head with slight movements since that date. He relates the change to the favourable terms of trade for agriculture which prevailed because of the establishment of export markets follow- ing the provision of cheap transport. Cheap transport, however, allowed the displacement of very large numbers of handicraftsmen, “by cheap manufactured goods, at first from abroad, but to an increasing degree manufactured in the large coastal industrial cities”. Kate Mitchell con- tinues “ . . . modern India has remained an industrially backward country with an increasing proportion of her population dependent upon agriculture as their sole means of livelihood . . . during the period 1911-31 the number of workers employed in all types of industry in- cluding handicrafts declined markedly”.?’ The evidence for these changes in India is considerable but need not detain us.?* An interesting variant occurred in Indo China where as Gourou” recognised, “We can understand how some of the pgasants can continue to exist only when we know that they derive the plone income that they need from an industrial occupation. Industry appears not as f an end in itself, but as an activity linked to agriculture.” Chesneaux®? ys / gives some figures for the decline in handicraft employment, but recalls Mitchell’s comment, “Native handicrafts have survived in Indo China to a far greater extent than in many other colonial areas because of the exceptionally intensive character of French colonial exploitation, which precluded any form of economic development that might have raised the purchasing power of the native population”.*! Mitchell’s book con- tains references to the decline of local industries for most Asian coun- tries. The exception to all this is of course Japan, where the rural stan- dard of living has been “raised by the provision of subsidiary employment in home crafts and local small-scale industries”.*? Both Ruth Trouton and Jozo Tomasevich describe in general terms the impact of industrial society upon peasant society in Jugoslavia, and the decline of local industries, whilst André Blanc in his study of western Croatia specifically recognises that “the (rural) crisis orginated - in the main with the abolition of the ancien régime, which liberated a considerable volume of peasant manpower. But because of th2 very slow development of large villages, towns and industries, the major part of this population could not be employed in other sectors.” Paul Gemaehling in his contribution to the seminar Villes et Campagnes** distinguishes between the agricultural and the rural population, “If the 29 Gourou (1945): 394, 30 Chesneaux (1955): 170. ‘31 Mitchell (1942): 153. S21,L.0, (1960): 138-41. 33 Blanc (1957); 285. 4 Friedmann (1953): 101.REFLECTIONS ON THE PEASANTRY 9 agricultural population is sometimes very numerous, it is not the same for the rural population, that is to say, composed of persons who, living in the countryside and in the manner of the countryside, form the indispensable complement to the activities of the cultivators pro- perly speaking. . . . The world of artisanal activities has been at other times a resource for the country dwellers and has allowed the peasants to live by themselves with a concourse of small local industries. At the present time the artisans have been destroyed by economic and tech- nological progress, by the concentration of industry; the attraction has been the large urban centres. This has been the point of departure for the first wave of migrations. One has witnessed the emigration of these tural artisans towards the towns, the disappearance of local traditional industries, silk, linen, textiles, small metallurgy and local glass in- dustries.” Pierre Deffontaines’ description of the agriculturalisation of the Middle Garonne and its economic and social consequences is an ex- cellent one*’ and Juillard traces a similar process in Alsace. He sets out explicitly the retarded evolution of agrarian institutions,* “That which has changed least is the mode of working the land. And that which has not changed at all, or very little, is the rural landscape elaborated by the pre-industrial civilisation with its morcellement of the properties and minuteness of the holdings. These structures adapted to ancient techniques are no longer suitable to the modern ones. It is this dis- harmony between the present milieu, a legacy of the past, and the facts of moder civilisation from which stems the problems of today’s agri- culture, the incertitude of the young generation before the future, the \ slow urbanisation of the countryside, in one word, the crisis of the tural world.” Origins of the Paradoxes, Definitions of the Peasantry Out of these processes the paradoxes of peasant existence arise, The partial incorporation of the peasantry within a market economy, the greater use of money, the appearance of usury and middlemen, the rise in rents following the increased cdmpetition for land, the weakening of communal bonds and the psi of traditional responsibilities, are the basis for the increasing disp: s within the community, though the general living standards remain low. In the lower classes economic impoverishment and periodic migration in search of work destroy. the cohesion of the family, only among the richer elements of peasant society does family life closely approach the ideals of the romantics. Stimulated by poverty and absence of work the rural migrant makes for the overcrowded city. Systems of farming which once merited the ap- probation “good” are required to sustain greater densities of popu- 85 Deffontaines (1932). ‘36 Juillard (1953): 277.