Social theory and peasant revolution in Vietnam and Guatemala

Abstract

When the first American marines arrived in Vietnam;-in, March }.9~5 they were, according to Phlhp Caputo, who was on6 of them, guided to the beaches of Danang (Tourane in Colonial Vietnam) by maps drawn by French cartographers. Similarly, American policy makers would have found, had they chosen to look, their best guide to the sociology of the quagmire .in the works of such French scholars as Yves Henry and Pierre Gourou. Gourou's classic The Peasants of the Tonkin Delta remains the starting point for all later writing about peasant revolution in Vietnam, but the long American involvement produced what James Scott has called a "boomlet" in the study of peasant revolution in Vietnam and elsewhere. 1 As the United States increases its military involvement in Central America it seems appropriate to inquire whether any of the scholarly theories developed in the earlier experience in Vietnam might generalize to fit still another peasant revolution half a world away. Neither sound foreign policy nor good social theory can be based on "explanations" which in fact apply only to one time and place. Consideration of the Central American revolution and the case of Guatemala in particular should provide information about both. The goal of this article, however, is principally theoretical; to test theories developed to explain one case, Vietnam, in a second and largely independent case, Guatemala. Scholarly analysis of the problem of peasant revolution in Vietnam has led to three different sets of theories, all of which make somewhat different predictions about the causes of peasant revolution in Vietnam and elsewhere and are, furthermore, at least in large part, mutually exclusive. The three theoretical perspectives might be called moral economy, political economy, and class conflict. The first two terms were used by Samuel Popkin in his book The Rational Peasant to distinguish his own perspective on Vietnam, which he calls "political economy," from the perspective he calls "moral economy,"

The Political Economy of Conflict between Indigenous Communities and Dominant Societies: Adivasis, Maoist Insurgents and the State in the Central Indian Tribal Belt

“…The moral economy theory of Scott (1976), built on the work of Wolf (1969), and is concerned with the anomie caused by industrialization and capitalism. While it is widely argued that this framework is most heavily linked with Durkheim (see Tilly 1978;Paige 1983), the term was coined by EP Thompson (1971) and it is in many ways consistent with Marxist analysis (Rule 1988). 1 The moral economy framework argues that the demographic changes, increased production for the market, and the strengthening of the state destroy traditional agrarian structures.…”

“…Communal solidarity tends to be higher among land-owning middle peasants than in other agrarian structures because of the absence from the immediate vicinity of markedly differentiated classes and because they are not mutually competitive. Paige's (1975Paige's ( , 1983 class analysis displays elements that are distinctive to Marxist thinking -most notably the notion that class interest forms the basis for recruitment of participants in political movements. In Wolf and Scott's account the causal variable is the village structure, but for Paige (1975: 9-10):…”

“…They were, in part, mutually exclusive and their supporters could provide some empirical data to defend them against rival theories. Thus, for a decade or so after the publication of The Rational Peasant, there was lively debate between Popkin and his supporters, and structural theorists and theirs (see Tilly 1978;Skocpol 1982;Paige 1983;Rule 1988).…”

Central America Since 1979: Part 1

“…The small guerilla "foco" of the 1960s , The Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), inspired by Che Guevara's example and rhetoric (64) , continues to exist in the present, working mainly in remote areas and with non-Indians (20,107,144). In the 1970s FAR spawned two additional groups, ORPA (Organization of the People in Arms) and the EGP (Guerrilla Army of the Poor), both of which work primarily in the western highlands with Indians (see 10,20,62,107,127,130). Learning from the mistakes of the early FAR, ORPA and.…”

To End with All These Evils

“…Most studies of this upheaval either place it within the larger context of revolutionary activity throughout Central America or focus on structural factors that prevented the dependent capitalist state from integrating all segments of society economically and politically (Williams, 1986: 174-187;Jonas, 1991: 3-9). Examinations that do incorporate the ethnic variable unique to Guatemala often view the struggle as one between a repressive ladino state and an indigenous majority or collapse ethnicity into class (Paige, 1983;Jonas, 1991;C. Smith, 1987).3 8 Although ethnic identity has played an important role in the social upheavals of the late 1970s and early 1980s, little attempt has been made to examine the relationship between cultural change and resistance (for a recent exception, see Wilson, 1995).…”