The revolutions that took place in 1848 may have been prevented, but would they have eventually taken place no matter what? Many peasants were losing the privileges that they once had because the countryside was becoming more and more privately owned. The population was growing as well which added tension. The economic depression of 1845-1846 did not help matters either. Could leaders have prevented these rebellions from happening.
These reasons are very broad and may not account for the cause of rebellion in each country. These factors, however, may have been prevented and may have not lead to a rebellion. The privileges that peasants once had could have not been taken away from them. The peasants had been able to gain access to village commons and were once able to forage through the forests for firewood. The access to village commons was becoming less and less due to them becoming privately controlled. There were increasing limitations on peasant's rights to forage for firewood. If the wealthy people who controlled the area had not become greedy the peasant's unrest could have been prevented.
This is merely my opinion and may not be the case, but if you keep the majority of the population happy then you should not have them rebelling against you. How long could the peasants hold out and remain under the pressing thumb of the monarchy? The peasants may have still rebelled against there country's leaders, but if the leaders had made drastic changes that benefited the peasants this may have never happened. Things could not just stay the same, because peasants did not really have an easy life. Peasant's rights and opportunities for a better life needed to take a major turn for the better or rebellion would have been inevitable no matter what.
I think it's definitely true that rebellion could have been avoided in many places. As an example, England skipped out on all the revolution fun, and I think the reason why revolution never happened there was because their landed elite recognized the need to make concessions in order to maintain power, as odd as that sounds. They gave away some power in order to retain some. They knew if they didn't give up some ground, a rebellion would strip them of a lot more than they would have lost had they just backed off in the first place. I think it's amazing how those in power in other countries didn't pick up on that. It's almost like the nobility/monarchs never quite understood how passionate and upset the lower classes were.
ReplyDeleteI agree that countries wouldn't see rebellion if they kept the vast majority of the population happy, but the ruling class didn't want to give you their power. Would you want to step down from 1,000 achers of land with 50 people working them for you? I would be happy to live that life and would want to keep it no matter what. The point that I am trying to get across is that hundreds of years of the same ruling doesn't change overnight.
ReplyDeleteI agree that if the rulers of these countries had just thrown the lower classes a bone some of the rebellions could have been avoided. After all, we have discussed in class that many of the lower class people were conservative but when pushed to the limit were left with no other choice. However, I wonder if due to the knowledge gained during the enlightenment if people would have still desired a different form of government. Also with the Industrial Revolution there was really no way to avoid the conditions that the working classes faced.
ReplyDeleteThe real question here is to what extent peasants or working class people actually participated in these revolutions.
ReplyDeleteIn some places, peasants and the bourgeoisie had similar goals (removing the last 'corporate' or guild privileges that restricted trade, freeing the economy for free wages labor and ending an restrictions on man's ability to contract out his own labor.) In these cases, peasants and the bourgeoisie could work together.
In other places, like in France, people could agree that they disliked the government of Louis Philippe but disagreed on how to remedy it (change the legal status of people by promoting legal equality and the right to vote or change the social status of people by changing ownership of property or through income redistribution.) As we saw in lecture, peasants weren't crazy about paying taxes or getting lower prices for their crops in order to subsidize the price of bread in Paris.
You could also make the argument that by restricting the tradition rights of peasants in the countryside, the elites helped to a) rationalize and improve agricultural production and b) created a mobile labor force that powered the industrial revolution.