Serbia failed as a Balkan Piedmont because peasantry became politically awake after 1919

Evidence

One may refer to what has been called the function of “Piedmont” in international politico-historical language. Serbia before the war posed as the “Piedmont” of the Balkans. (Moreover France after 1789 and for many years, up to the coup d’etat of Louis Napoleon, was in this sense the Piedmont of Europe.) That Serbia did not succeed as Piedmont succeeded is due to the fact that after the war there occurred a political awakening of the peasantry such as did not exist after 1848. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 550

Categorization

• XREF: This comparative case of a failed ‘Piedmont’ shows the boundary conditions of passive revolution — useful contrast when Islamophobia readings examine how states substitute for leading classes in colonial contexts.