ABSTRACT
The problematica of radical movements, and especially the problematica of relations between peasants and urban radicals, cannot be understood without first clearly understanding the different critiques and the different degrees of criticism of the present which each group proposes. Implicit in the infrequent application of the label "radicalism" to rural events seems to be a recognition that peasant movements and peasant protests usually do not quite meet the requirements for its accurate use. Scholars agree that a number of influences increase the likelihood of peasant militancy or, at least, the likelihood that those individual peasants affected by them will become militant. The most obvious, extreme, and historically the most novel form of peasant unrest is a peasant movement which gives prolonged integral support to a revolutionary movement and constitutes its main base. Rural discontent has been endemic to agrarian societies, and has been prevented from crystallizing into outbreaks of rural unrest only by a set of counterforces.
