Peasants and Political Power in Mexico: a Theoretical Approach

Abstract

December 10, 1848, was the day of the peasant insurrection. Only from this day does the February of the French peasants date. The symbol that expressed their entry into the revolutionary moment, clumsily cunning, knavishly naive, doltishly sublime, a calculated superstition, a pathetic burlesque, a cleverly stupid anachronism, a world historical piece of buffoonery and an undecipherable hieroglyphic for the understanding of the civilized — this symbol bore the unmistakable features of the class that represents barbarism within civilization. The republic had announced itself to this class with the tax collector; it an nounced itself to the republic with the emperor (Marx, 1969: 71).