X - SOCIAL CLEAVAGES AMONG THE PEASANTRY

Summary

The ‘country’, or the ‘peasantry’, it must be admitted straight away, is one of those vague formulas, like the ‘bourgeois’, that are hollow shells, meaningless or misleading unless some concrete content is poured into them. They are general omnibus terms. So long as we recognise them as such they can be harmless and even useful; but they should not be allowed to stand in the way of a closer social analysis. Obviously the peasants are not a single undifferentiated mass, nor is the country a homogeneous unit opposed to the town. The question is, on what lines should its internal cleavages be sought.

Historians have tried to fit the rural population into the Marxist pattern by distinguishing what Lefebvre calls variously a ‘rural bourgeoisie’, a ‘bourgeoisie campagnarde’, ‘bourgeoisie paysanne des laboureurs’, ‘bourgeoisie rustique’ To which M. Labrousse adds the descriptions ‘bourgeoisie terrienne’ and ‘bourgeoisie agrkole’ Now undoubtedly among the peasants some were better off and some poor to the point of total destitution. But to describe even the former as a bourgeoisie is rather odd. It will be as well to try to discover the composition of this supposed rural bourgeoisie. Here we immediately run into difficulties.

Lefebvre describes his rural bourgeoisie as including two groups: (i) the grands fermiers, owning little or no land but deriving a substantial income from their activities as agents, stewards, rent collectors, and so on, for landowners or seigneurs; (ii) the farmers or laboureurs with holdings of moderate importance.