“No Farmer = No Food = No Future.” Scrawled on a scrap of cardboard tied to the front of a tractor hurtling into Rome, the slogan summed up the state of a whole community. Early this year, expensive shopping districts and rural highways across Europe were hit by processions of muddy tractors blocking traffic, dumping manure on sidewalks, burning mountains of tires, and even crashing through police barricades. TV footage of insurrectionist farmers being water-cannoned in European city centers created a spectacular image of the meeting of two different historical epochs: the shiny glass city of the modern metropolis invaded by the soil and metal of an older, earthier agricultural reality.

The wave of farmer protesters achieved sweeping victories, winning concessions not only in their individual countries — from Belgium to Bulgaria, Spain to Slovenia — but also at the level of the European Union itself. Yet the Left has not celebrated. Why?

Surely part of the reason is that, in most cases, farmers either sought an outlet in ruling right-wing parties or declared themselves apolitical. But the question remains. Why were left-wing forces distant in a moment of mass mobilization — arguably one of the few times when a movement has actually transcended national borders? What ever happened to the worker-peasant alliance?