Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century by Eric R. Wolf; Zapata and the Mexican Revolutionby John Womack,Review by: Unto VesaInstant Research on Peace and Violence, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1972), pp. 45-46Published by: Tampere Peace Research Institute, University of TampereStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40724630 .

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45

we should develop the collection of statistical figures. In short, it is a book example which shows the primacy of ¡theory over "hyperfac- tualism". One can, of course, disagree with the frame of reference of national develop- ment, but anyway it is important to realize that now is the ¡time to discuss the informa- tion collection system of our societies. - Uo- levi Arosalo

Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. Harper and Row, Publishers, New York, Evanston »and London, 1969, xv + 328 pp.

John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, xi + 435 pp.

Two admirable works; neither claiming to be 'peace research' yet highly relevant for it and of interest to anybody desirous of under- standing the revolutionary upheavals of the world in this century.

Professor Wolfs analysis of six peasant wars deals with Mexico, Russia, China, Viet Nam, Algeria and Cuba. It might be ques- tioned, of course, whether all of these are 'peasant wars', but as a matter of fact Prof. Wolf does not claim this. Rather 'the name of the book is somewhat misleading and in wars which one would not readily label as peasant wars he analyses the role played by the peas- ants. Thus his work is more comprehensive than the name implies, and this is one of the merits of the book. Not only is Prof. Wolf very careful in his categorization of peasants (tenants and proprietors, poor and rich, those living near ¡towns and those living in remote villages); he also clarifies the relations of vari- ous sectors of the peasantry to other social classes and strata (working class, soldiers, intellectuals). The success or failure of syn- chronization of these forces has profound consequences for the success of the struggle. He is able to point out convincingly how the degeneration of Mexican and Algerian revo- lutions to pro-bourgeois, mildly reformist movements was caused by the lack of orderly cooperation in various under-dog classes, by the lack of concrete program and by the lack of leading party.

'Peasant Wars' is based on secondary ma-

terials, of which Prof. Wolf, by combining economic and social statistics with /the works of historians, creates six clear, living pictures and finally unites the perspectives of these cases in a superb conclusion vividly characte- rized by the brechtian dictum "it is not com- munism that is radical, it is capitalism'. The content of this conclusion, completely support- ed by the evidence, is that the peasant up- heavals have arisen as a defensive reaction in situations where modern Western capitalism has expanded to societies based on traditional patterns and tried to implant new types of social organization "in which labor is sold, land is rented, capital is freely invested". Commercialization of agriculture, imposition of a market economy not only disrupts the integrity of the social organization by tearing "men up by their roots" and "shaking them loose from the soaial relationships into which they were born", but also produces the coun- ter-reaction by 'awakening' the social classes which have their vital interests in bringing back the traditional patterns of society or in creating new viable ones based on the inter- ests of the people, not of its oppressors.

It is no exaggeration to say that Prof. Wolf's study is social, economic and politi- cal history at its best. The book is highly sti- mulating and interesting and very readable also for any layman.

The same can be said of the comprehensive work by Womack, a young American histo- rian. His detailed analysis of the Mexican re- volution is not so much a story of a leader as an account of the social forces that pro- duced the movement he came to lead and of those forces that opposed his struggle. The book is written in excellent narrative style, the exposition is vivid and the empathy and understandng expressed by the author for the revolutionary ideals have already made many critics include this work among the classics. As the first sentence of the preface indicates "this is a book about country people who did not want to move and therefore got into a revo- lution", the Mexican case fully conforms to the pattern found by Wolf. In this book, too. the lack of links to other social classes and the reluctance (perhaps also inability) to take and keep the power are more thoroughly ex- plored and explained than by Wolf who in

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46

passing mentions them as essential reasons for the non-fulfilment of the revolutionary goals and the degeneration of the revolution. Wo- mack's work also describes the process of the struggle in a more detailed manner, and here one can find first precedents of success- ful guerilla warfare as well as 'pacification' campaigns - destruction of countryside - in this century.

Both of these studies, written by an anthro- pologist and a historian, present important perspectives making it easier for anybody to understand the struggles not only of yesterday but of today and tomorrow as well. - Unto Vesa

Al vin W. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. Heinemann, London 1971, 528 pp.

In the vast amount of books American socio- logy produces every year there is not very much worth a thorough reading. Gouldner's book is - despite its banal name - worth reading: it is both sociologically relevant and amusing. It contains many things: gossips of the living habits of American sociologists; yet another analysis of the Great Man Tal- cott Parsons; keen observations on Goff man's and GarfidkePs sociology; and of course the prediction of the coming crisis of Western So- ciology.

The prediction is directed towards both branches of Western Sociology: the Acade-

mic Sociology of the bourgeois class dominant in the capitalist countries as well as the Marx- ist sociology of ¡the working class dominant in the socialist countries. It is easy to believe in the former crisis, because the capitalist system itself is in crisis. It is more difficult, how- ever, to understand Gouldner's arguments for a 'crisis' in marxist sociology. A leftist reader may easily get the idea that Gouldner is one of the liberals who think critics must be 'balanced' in such a way that every time you criticize the weaknesses of bourgeois sociology, you have to criticize marxism, too - whether there is any real reason or not. At least most of what Gouldner says of the sociology of the socialist countries is maive if not childish. Be- cause Gouldner does not think dialectically, he reaches the superficial conception of the increasing 'convergence' of bourgeois and marxist sociology.

Another disturbing feature is Gouldner's attraction to the thought that the sociologist is a kind of priest whose religion is humanity. This thought is dangerous, because it easily leads to moralization instead of analysis. One could say of Gouldner's text that when it is the most priestly in style, it is sociologically at its weakest.

I also cannot approve Gouldner's desire to form yet another school of his thought: Re- flexive Sociology. Metatheoretical discussion and self-reflexion is so important that it should be practised within each school and not made a separate school of its own. - Antti Bskola

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