Chapter 3 analyzes the situation of the peasantry and its contribution to the great Revolutions. Attention is given to the conditions for and against peasant insurrections. Skocpol states that societal political crises alone were not sufficient enough to produce social-revolutionary situations in France, Russia, and China. Urbanites and peasantry were dependent on each other. Peasant revolts have been crucial in almost all successful revolutions to date, especially in the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions. This is not surprising since social revolutions have usually occurred in agrarian countries where peasants made up the major producing class. Peasant revolts destroyed the old agrarian class relations and weakened the military and political supports for liberalism or counterrevolution. Successful revolts by urban workers may not have been necessary in the Revolutions, but peasant revolts against landlords were definitely a necessary ingredient in all three Revolutions. The peasant revolts of the three Revolutions were all directed particularly against landlords. Skocpol defines peasants as primary agricultural cultivators. Because of political and social marginality as well as socio-economic immobility, peasants must bear the burden of combinations of taxes, rents, interest rates, and discriminatory prices. They always have grounds for rebellion against landlords, state agents, and merchants who exploit them. The issue at hand is the degree to which grievances that are always at least implicitly present can be collectively perceived and acted upon. Peasants struggled for concrete goals such as access to more land, or freedom from claims on their surpluses.