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UNTIL quite recently, most of the world's workers have been peasants.
It was, however, possible during the first half of the twentieth century
largely to ignore that fact. Attention tends to focus upon what is
changing in societies, and what claimed attention then was the spread
of industrialism, its consequences for industrial workers, and the progress and effects of trade unionism in ameliorating their conditions.
During the second half of our century, more attention is being given
to peasant populations. The peasantry moves towards the centre of the
stage of world history at the very time when the traditional rural way
oflife is in decline and the peasant economy is shrinking. Violence has
often accompanied these changes. The great twentieth-century revolutions have been peasant-based. While the wars of the first half of the
twentieth century were fought in highly industrialised countries, those
of the second half of this century have been fought in areas of peasant
population. The major social and political issues of Third World
countries now arise from the continuing transformation of the
peasantry, whether into a modem workforce or into a mass of onintegrated, poverty-ridden urban slum-dwellers. The way in which
this transformation is carried out affects the prospects for peace. |
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