ABSTRACT
Six major social and political upheavals, fought with peasant support, have shaken the world of the twentieth century. There are: the Mexican revolution of 1910, the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Chinese revolution which metamorphosed through various phases from 1921 onwards, the Vietnamese revolution which has its roots in the Second World War, the Algerian rebellion of 1954 and the Cuban revolution of 1958. There are only two components of the peasantry which possess sufficient internal leverage to enter into sustained rebellion. These are: a landowning middle peasantry or a peasantry located in a peripheral area outside the domains of landlord control. Middle peasantry refers to a peasant population which has secure access to land of its own and cultivates it with family labour. A peasant rebellion which takes place in a complex society already caught up in commercialization and industrialization tends to be self-limiting, and hence anachronistic.
