THE LAST PEASANT WAR

When peasants put up a fight.

At the outset of World War I, agricultural communities in belligerent nations provided many of the soldiers who fought in the conflict. But a large number of those peasant farmers, especially in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, decided either to evade the draft or, once in uniform, desert. These “green cadres” took to the woods near their home communities or in areas away from government control. Their families and neighbors gave them what support they could; in turn, the deserters would help with harvest or other farmwork. Urban aristocrats, landlords, and merchants—especially Jews—were seen as class enemies in farm country. After the war, the green cadres in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Croatia, and other newly independent nations sought to break away from central authority. In the early 1920s, several rural areas declared their own independent peasant nations—all of which were crushed forcibly. More successful were efforts to create political parties supporting agrarian interests. Both right-wing and communist activists tried to cash in on these peasant movements, and for a while there were competing international organizations representing agrarian interests. Beneš, a scholar at University College London, chronicles the ups and downs of these movements and their leaders in more detail than the casual reader might find interesting. With the coming of World War II, the peasant movements often morphed into resistance groups, but both the Nazis and Soviets were relentless in trying to extirpate them. By the mid-1950s, the mechanization of farmwork and the migration to cities did the rest, effectively eradicating any power the peasants ever had.

A thorough overview of a widespread but little-known revolution.