--- Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Peasant rebellions are indeed a dime a dozen in the
> history of Europe, and Asia too. They are really
> not
> much diffrent from common banditry or millenary
> movements. They are functional equivalents of
> modern
> gangs - a bunch of armed guys with more or less
> shared
> common group identity centered around common
> activity
> (usually criminal, but not always) or a charismatic
> figure (or both.)
>
Yeah, if you read the History of Pugachev or an account of the revolt under Stepan Razin or any of a billion more such accounts, they were pretty incredible. It starts of with rumors that the government is going to oulaw our religion/take away our women/feed our babies to the Jews/whatever, then the mob acquires lots of opportunistic criminals and bandits and mercenaries, then they start randomly razing cities and hacking apart the male inhabitants and abducting the females. Then they start gorging themselves with plunder, the standing army regroups and kicks their asses, the majority of participants are pardoned and/or slink back to their farms, and the leadership is hung.
Makes me glad I don't live in 18th-century Eastern Europe. :)
(As I'm sure you know, the Soviets played up these events as predecessors to the Bolshevik Revolution.)
Lyubo, bratsy, lyubo, lyubo, bratsy, zhit!
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