Did Marx ever address the failure of preindustrial peasant or slave revolts to overturn feudalism/ servitude and establish a “workers” (farmers) utopia? In particular, did Marx purport to explain why industrialism made a successful peoples’ revolution possible when it apparently never was previously?
Marx said a few things about this. He suggested that peasants, unlike factory workers, did not work closely together and so had fewer opportunities to form organizations such as unions. Thus the real meaning of his comments about the “idiocy of rural life,” where “idiocy” meant more “private, separate,” and his comment about French peasants being like potatoes, that is, even when put in a sack together, they did not become a unified movement but remained separate and isolated from each other.
He also suggested that peasant revolts, of which there had been many, were in a sense doomed because the conditions of production were not highly developed and so scarcity was always a problem. The development of production would end scarcity and make possible the wealth needed for the further, full and equal development of humanity and all its individuals. That would mean ruling classes controlling wealth and capital–were no longer necessary for the development of the economy and society.
It’s also important to note Marx, near the end of his life, came to believe there were great possibilities for peasant revolts in Russia, based on the development of the economy and the collective approach to farming in the peasant mir. He suggested it might be possible for Russia to skip the “capitalist phase” and proceed directly to socialism based on this tradition.
Was Marx saying then that industrialization would eventually produce a “post scarcity” society, and that the Revolution would be simply ensuring that the cornucopia machines’ output was distributed fairly?
Well, Marx rarely said anything simply, and as Mark Twain noted, “In German, a joke is no laughing matter,” but yes, that was a large part of it. He also insisted that production, or the economy, should be run democratically, with producers/workers making the decisions about work and society, not run by–and thus for–a ruling class of any kind. He argued that what we might call participatory democracy had to apply at work as well as outside it, noting you could have all the political rights you wanted but they didn’t mean much if you had to subject yourself to the rule of the boss/capitalist/apparatchik for 8,10, or 12 hours a day.
The Revolution was necessary because history had/has few examples of those in power and those with great wealth giving it up after receiving a polite request from the people. He did suggest it might be possible in England and the US and (if I recall correctly) Holland because of their more democratic political structures.
Oops: left out “for a peaceful taking of power” in the last sentence, after “possible.”
I thought it was Belgium that he referred to, but it’s been a long time since I read that passage. At the time, I think Belgium was more heavily industrialized than the Netherlands, so fit his economic development thesis.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
Marx, 1872, “we do not deny that there are countries – such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland – where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means.” This was a speech given in Amsterdam, so he may have been playing to the crowd. I think it was less the degree of industrialization than the relative democracy of the states he was referring to.
I defer to your expertise, Wise Sir. 
It was a lucky guess!