Medieval proletarians could ally with rulers while ancient slaves could not

Evidence

The theoretical frame for The Black Jacobins was, of course, the theories of revolution developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. James asserted that fact rather frequently in the text. It was not, however, entirely the case. From Marx and Engels, he had taken the concept of a revolutionary class and the economic foundations for its historical emergence. But the slaves of Haiti were not a Marxian proletariat. No matter to James: the processes of social formation were the same: … The slaves worked on the land, and, like revolutionary peasants everywhere, they aimed at the extermination of their oppressors. But working and living together in gangs of hundreds on the huge sugar-factories which covered North Plain, they were closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time, and the rising was, therefore, a thoroughly prepared and organized mass movement, (pp. 85-86) Moreover, James seemed willing to challenge Marx and Engels on the very grounds they had laid for the sociological and political significance of early capitalism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1284 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval subaltern groups could ally upward while classical slaves could not — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1867; Mediaeval proletarians could ally and rebel but classical slaves could not; A sub-proletariat can become the conservative bastion of a monarch against bourgeois revolution (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Mediaeval proletarians could ally and rebel but classical slaves could not #expands (0.97)
• Plantation slavery’s gang labor approximated proletarian conditions for revolution #complicates (0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1284