Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Traditional Peasantry.
A Critique of Hobsbawm.
Pat O'Malley*
NOTES
1. It should be stressed that Hobsbawm discusses a range of conditions of existence for social
banditry. These two are selected because they appear to be particularly questionable and
because most other conditions mentioned appear to play a somewhat subsidiary role. Thus,
for example, I leave in abeyance detailed consideration of Hobsbawm's observation that
banditry emerges "during and after periods of abnormal hardship" [1971:24]. Insofar as such
periods constitute (almost by definition) material conditions likely to generate social unrest, I
see no immediate difficulties sufficient to warrant an extensive critique.
2. In that paper, Hobsbawm allows himself to 'assume that most of us, most of the time know
what the term "peasant" refers to' [1973:3]. Yet he admits on the same page that 'beyond a
certain point in the socio-economic differentiation of the agrarian population the term
"peasantry" is no longer applicable. That point itself is often difficult to establish'.
3. For the most complete analysis of this conflict see Coghlan [1969, Volume 2]. An insightful
Leninist interpretation of the earlier stages of land reform is to be found in Baker [1967].
4. These include Joy and Prior [1971: 33, 56-58], Brown [1948: 64-65], Jones [1968: 175: 184]
and Osborne [1970: 8,45].
5. For example, Clune [1955: 86], Ward [1966: 146-7], Coghlan [1969, ii, 960], Brown [1948:
64-5].
6. Kelly is referring in this passage to mortgages of selectors' properties. That afternoon he had
stolen a number of these from the bank at Euroa.
500 The Journal of Peasant Studies
7. The letters are reproduced in tow in Joy and Prior [1971: 188-208], Kelly's diatribe against
the practices of squatters is worth reproducing here, as it indicates how far he identifies the
local squatters (Whitty and Burns) as the common enemies of himself and the poor: 'I heard
again I was blamed for stealing a mob of calves from Whitty and Farrell which I knew
nothing about. I began to think they wanted me to give them something to talk about.
Therefore I started wholesale and retail horse and cattle dealing. Whitty and Burns not being
satisfied with all the picked land on the Boggy Creek and King River and the run of their
stock on certificate ground free and no one interfering with them, paid heavy rent to the
banks for all the open ground so as a poor man could keep no stock, and impounded every
beast they could get, even off Government roads.
If a poor man happened to leave his horse or a bit of a poddy calf outside his paddock they
would be impounded. I have known over 60 head of horses impounded in one day by Whitty
and Burns all belonging to poor farmers so they would have to leave their ploughing or
harvest or other employment to go to Oxley. When they would get there perhaps they would
not have money enough to release them and have to give a bill of sale or borrow money which
is no easy matter.'
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A Critique ofHobsbawm 501
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