Abstract

In 19th-century Spain, the demands of the working-class movement were not limited to factory workers in the industrialized centers. The peons too, laboring under miserable conditions on the large estates in southern Spain, began to develop a class consciousness and claim political visibility and better working conditions. In many cases, they resorted to drastic measures due to their landlords’ adversarial attitude: the armed plunder of crops, devastation of fields, and death threats against their exploiters. This article analyzes the representation of these peasant uprisings in factual and fictional artifacts of the second half of the 19th century, understanding them as indices of a conflicted negotiation of conviviality at the time. Using Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s 1905 novel _La bodega_ as example, it considers bourgeois nightmare scenarios of a complot of uncivilized, menacing masses, as well as anarchist and socialist visions of a classless society created by direct action.