An examination of the switch which occurred in Communist thinking from K. Marx & F. Engels, who believed that the revolution would start in industr countries with a well-developed proletariat, to the Chinese thesis of Marshal Lin Piao (1965), that it would start in the 'world-village' & take over the 'world-city.' The beginning of the switch is traced to Marx himself, who believed that a revolution in Ireland, the source of cheap labor in England, would help to make the bourgeoisoriented English workers more eager for revolution. V. I. Lenin advocated a policy of smychka (alliance) between workers & peasants; J. Stalin, after advocating it for some time, switched to a belief in the primacy of the proletarian revolution. However, Mao Tse-tung's experiences in the 1920's convinced him that the Chinese revolution would be first successful in the villages & then take over the cities-as did, indeed, happen in 1949. Other advocates of a peasant role in the revolution included N. Bukharin, K. Kautsky, & the Dutch Socialist A. Pannekoek. I. Langnas.
