Walter Klaassen - Michael Gaismair: Revolutionary and Reformer

Michael Gaismair was one of the most significant radical thinkers and revolutionaries of the era of the Peasant War. In 1525, when the peasants rose up in South Tyrol, Gaismair was chosen as the movement’s leader. From then on, he fought to transform Tyrol into a radical Utopian society, based on equality framed by the “Word of God”. 

Despite his importance, Gaismair is not as well known as other leading figures of the Peasant War. Numerous books have studied Thomas Muntzer, for instance, and other figures of the radical reformation are much better known. Part of the problem, as Walter Klaassen argues in this important biography, is that the material left behind by Gaismair is minimal. A handful of letters, and contemporary references and, most importantly, his outline for the radical constitution of Tyrol.

Gaismair thus has become a figure upon whom many different ideas can be imposed. Despite his radicalism, the Nazis named an SS Regiment after him in 1944 (though Klaassen wrongly describes this as a Wehrmacht Division). Authors of the left, following Engels, have occasionally described Klaassen as a precursor of Communist ideas - mostly based on his draft Constitution.

So what of the real Gaismair? Klaassen’s biography is almost unique in the English language, and he locates Gaismair’s radicalism in the reality of Tyrolean society - a society where the bottom strata suffered under the enormous “weight of oppression”. Klaassen argues that the economic squeezing of the nobility, the rotten corruption of the Church and the demands of growing capitalist institutions such as the Fugger banks, all conspired to squeeze the peasantry and urban workers. While Reformation ideas had some influence, Klaassen argues this was not as important as other areas affected by the Peasant War, as they had not yet penetrated deep into the relatively isolated Tyrolean society. Given these conditions, Klaassen justifiably says that revolt was “inevitable”. 

When the rebellion exploded Gaismair was already reaching radical ideas, influenced in part by Reformation, more by radical Catholic voices but mostly by the evidence of everyday oppression. Gaismair was not a poor man - in fact he had a relatively privileged life. But he was able to identify, and articulate the grievances of the poor.

But Klaassen argues that the final push that Gaismair needed to move into a revolutionary struggle, was the way that Gaismair’s illusions in the ruler, Archduke Ferdinand, were cruelly dashed. In this, Gaismair followed many other medieval and early modern rebels by believing that the king, or monarch, would rule benevolently and according to ancient rights, were it not for cruel and corrupt hangers on. For Gaismair these were principally the clergy, but when Ferdinand moved to cheat and suppress the peasant movement, he was plunged into radical action.

Klaassen shows that Gaismair was a careful and tactical thinker. Despite lacking many texts, we see that Gaismair was able to apply discipline to the movement, at the same time as never breaking the democratic connection he had. He refused, for instance, to attend court, arguing that his “comrades” had to be consulted:

I therefore protest herewith that I am not obligated to appear before this court at this time in the absence of my comrades to reply to the charges… since they have given me no right or direction to reply and have themselves not been invited to appear. 

The movement in Tyrol was not as radical as Gaismair was to become. In the famous Merano Articles, says Klaassen, “nowhere is the basic feudal arrangement challenged”. Eventually, in exile, Gaismair would do just that. His Constitution was a “completely new and different social order” and a “cry for justice”.

The twenty-three points of the Constitution, argue for a radical economic and political restructuring of society that saw power firmly in the hands of the masses. It was an order shaped by the Bible, the highest authority that Graismair knew. It was one that saw the power of the rich and the nobility destroyed - city walls would be knocked down so only villages existed. There were no special privileges and for those that lived in Graismair’s society, the Godless, those that opposed the common good and oppressors were to be exterminated. Democracy in terms of elections of officials and clergy was the rule, but so it was in collective decisions about taxation etc. Crucifixes and adornments in churches were to be scrapped (reflecting the influence of Zwingli on Graismair) and wealth was to be used to help the poor.

Klaassmen argues that this was no precursor to Communism as it was essentially a Biblical Theocracy. But this is inaccurate in the sense that Graismair was simply framing his Constitution with a radical interpretation of the dominant ideology – Christianity. It was explicitly anticapitalist in the sense that Graismair’s interpretation of the Bible saw the operation of capitalist interests like the Fugger banks as unchristian. This is most clear in the section on the Mines, added almost as a postscript which calls for their appropriation in cases where they are owned by “nobility and foreign merchants and companies such as the Fuggers, Hochstetters, Baumgartners, Pimels and their like”. These companies have:

Forfeited their right to them for they bought them with money acquired by unjust usury in order to shed human blood. Thus also they deceived the common man and worker by paying his wages in defective goods… They have made the poor pay for it, their wages have been lowered in order that the smelters can make some profit after buying the ore. They have raised the prices of all consumer goods after they gained a monopoly, and thus burdened the whole world with their unchristian usury… They are now justly punished and their activities prohibited.

Instead the people were to elect a manager to oversee the mining enterprise, and who is accountable for it. “No private person will be permitted to smelt ore”.

It is easy to see how some claim Graismair as a precursor, and despite Klassmen’s demonstration that he drew heavily on biblical references for his Constitution, it is right to celebrate this as an early example of revolutionary thinking.

Despite this mistake of interpretation, Klaassen’s book is an extremely important and insightful biography of Michael Gaismair. He demonstrates how Gaismair’s path to revolution was shaped by his sympathy with ordinary people and sensitivity to the oppressive nature of the world. There’s no doubt that Michael Gaismair could have had a peaceful and affluent life. That the nobility tried repeatedly to assassinate him, and eventually succeeded in Padua in 1532, five or six years after the peasant risings had ended, is testament to the fear that his radical ideas instilled in them. Walter Klaassen’s excellent book is a brilliant introduction to this revolutionary life.

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