348. Hobsbawm, E.J. Primitive Rebels, Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Manchester: Univ. of Manchester Press, 1959.
Some interesting material on otherwise obscure movements and discussion of folk elements in some beliefs. Hobsbawm is concerned largely with the political (or "pre-political") elements of the movements he discusses; the most millennial of these is the recurrent and nameless series of Andalusian anarchist groups, apparently inspired by Bakuninian propaganda. He explains all of these as attempts to adjust to capitalist industrialism in feudal backwaters.
The Andalusian anarchists were poor peasants living in an area that had been de-industrialized, and the movements drew also from the landless and artisans. Their ideology was one of libertarian communism, a just sharing of adversity, not universal wealth. It was puritanical, and was spread by the peasants themselves, the chief of whom were called obreros conscientes, without the intrusion of intellectuals or theorists.
The leaders were wandering preachers, but all members propagandized. Organization was explicitly rejected as were any notions of charisma, though it appears to have been present at least tenuously. Literate members devoted themselves to reading and writing essays and letters to the editors of anarchist journals. Literacy appears to have had some charismatic appeal in itself; those who couldn't read would hear and memorize readings of tracts and spread the word. One leader was called "six fingers," which is reminiscent of the charisma attached to this physical anomaly by other groups: see items 452 and 612. They did not plan any action but waited until it "had to" happen, that is, until rumor suggested the time was ripe. People talked of hearing from the obreros conscientes the "pure truth" which they had been feeling all their lives (p. 67): a charisma of ideas? There were mass conversions.
Action consisted of local general strikes, a simple cessation of work without negotiation or demands. They simply stopped and waited for the End and resumed work a week or so later when nothing happened, to wait again for the time. [This is all very reminiscent of certain aspects of the cargo cults, where rejection of production was supposed to "force god's hand"÷see item 482.] These "messianic strikes" (p. 89) did nothing more than demonstrate readiness for change. They were clear expressions of popular will in spontaneous action but fatally lacked organization.
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