Peasants vs Rural Workers Question

[bricolage]

In the (long but actually quite interesting) thread about the Indian Maoists killing some soldiers Comrade Alastair wrote;

You, on the other hand, seem to take the attitude that since the proletariat, as the productive class, is the class with decisive power, even in a country like India which is overwhelmingly populated by poor peasants the communists should steer clear of the countryside and instead focus their efforts on the urban proletariat.I thought this was interesting because he makes the distinction between workers in urban areas and peasants in rural areas. At the same time though I find it hard to believe that anyone would say that noone in the countryside is a worker.

So what I'm trying to work out here is how different people/groups/tendencies define the difference between peasants and rural workers. I think it often seems to be very unclear so help would be much appreciated.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

The industrial working class and landless rural peasants are both revolutionary classes in my opinion.

[bricolage]

The industrial working class and landless rural peasants are both revolutionary classes in my opinion.

Ok but that doesn't really answer my question, I wasn't asking who is revolutionary just 'who' it is we can talk about.

It is interesting though you position industrial workers against rural peasants, do you not think there can be rural workers?

[tornwarriorx]

I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure Maoism believes that both are the revolutionary classes, and sometimes actually focuses more on the pesantry. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Ok but that doesn't really answer my question, I wasn't asking who is revolutionary just 'who' it is we can talk about.

It is interesting though you position industrial workers against rural peasants, do you not think there can be rural workers?

I didn't know there was a difference between landless rural peasants and rural workers. What is the difference?

[bricolage]

I didn't know there was a difference between landless rural peasants and rural workers. What is the difference?

Well that's what I'm trying to find out! :)

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Well that's what I'm trying to find out! :)

Oh ok :)

I think the when Maoists talk of peasants they are talking about rural workers primarily.

[Devrim]

The industrial working class and landless rural peasants are both revolutionary classes in my opinion.

I think that the term 'landless peasants' is a bit of a contradiction in terms in any sort of Marxist analysis. A peasant is by definition a land owner.


At the same time though I find it hard to believe that anyone would say that noone in the countryside is a worker.

Of course not, but as pointed out above peasant a rural proletarians are different.


So what I'm trying to work out here is how different people/groups/tendencies define the difference between peasants and rural workers. I think it often seems to be very unclear so help would be much appreciated.

It is about their relationships to the means of production. The peasant is a small owner, a petit-bourgeois. The rural worker is a paid labourer and a proletarian.

I hope that clears it up a little.

Devrim

[Kamerat]

Peasants as in this modern time definition impoverished farmer (not working for a feudal lord), is a property owning class with none working for them and therefor petite-bourgeois.
Workers on the other hand don't own any property. But they both have revolutionary potential in that they have more to gain from a/the revolution. The peasants will lose their property rights on the little land they own but gain a collective ownership of all land.

[The Grey Blur]

Have any of you ever read Marx?

The peasants are small capitalists - they're land owners. Today for the first time in history more people live in towns than the countryside, the era of the peasantry is over - farming is now done on a massive capitalist scale, with landless labour. This is exactly why Maoism is incorrect, the peasantry are not a revolutionary class they are in fact generally the most reactionary due to their traditional existence (ties to religion etc) which the prolteriat lose in the cities broken from all the feudal relationships. Yes the peasantry just like the middle classes should be won to a workers-lead revolution, in the end their interests are better served by socialism than capitalism. Today despite your unscientific descriptions of India as "semi-feudal" or "semi-colonial" the fact is that most people live in the cities, the vast majority of argicultural production in these countries is done in a land-owning capitalist style on a massive scale. You should also read some Trotsky- the small and big bourgeois of these nations are tied in a million ways to capital, foreign and national. Only the proletariat can break this link and lead the revolution. Some of you should pay attention to the constant industrial disputes ongoing in India rather than the guerillas futile activities. Look at the success of marxists in Pakistan, an excellent comparison with the situation in India.

[FSL]

In any case, even if the dominant part of the Indian economy wasn't that involving large-scale capitalist production (in the cities and in the countryside as well), working with the working class would still need to be any communists' principal aim and focus. You don't need the support of 50%+1 of the population to start a revolution, you need the support of the most dynamic segments of the population. Peasants would of course then be better served by allying themselves to workers. So, here we have the main mistake of Maoist theory.


And to repeat what was said, peasant is a term referring to the agricultural producer who owns his land. A small peasant will probably not have any employees, a large one would resemble a capitalist. People working for landowners form the rural proletariat and are just as revolutionary as any other proletarian.

[Spawn of Stalin]

This is exactly why Maoism is incorrect, the peasantry are not a revolutionary class they are in fact generally the most reactionary due to their traditional existence (ties to religion etc) which the prolteriat lose in the cities broken from all the feudal relationships. Yes the peasantry just like the middle classes should be won to a workers-lead revolution, in the end their interests are better served by socialism than capitalism.

I think there are far more reactionary elements within the working class of an industrialised imperialist country, say Britain, than there are within the peasantry of a country like India or Nepal. I think we need to lose this rigid view that unless the workers lead everything absolutely, we are destined for failure, or worse, Stalinism. I'd be interested to know if you believe that the proletariat should lead a revolution in a country where the proletariat are a minority.

[Devrim]

I'd be interested to know if you believe that the proletariat should lead a revolution in a country where the proletariat are a minority.

Do you mean a country like Russia was in 1917?

Devrim

[Vanguard1917]

I'd be interested to know if you believe that the proletariat should lead a revolution in a country where the proletariat are a minority.

Do you believe that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were wrong to emphasise over and again that a socialist revolution in Russia can only come about through the leadership of the working class in Russia?

[Spawn of Stalin]

In that particular instance I would have to say no, but the fact that the proletariat took a leading role was only made possible by the increase in productive forces, or the massive growth the industrial working class had been experiencing since the turn of the century, and by the bourgeois democratic revolution. Also, October Revolution happened nearly a century ago, and as much respect as I have for the event we can not compare it to any other situation in the world today, because there is no other country that is even remotely like Russia circa-1917.

[Psy]

I think that the term 'landless peasants' is a bit of a contradiction in terms in any sort of Marxist analysis. A peasant is by definition a land owner.

Wrong a peasant by definition is bounded to the land thus can't be a land owner, as a class peasants have to give up part of their labor to the landed aristocracy in the form of rent for being bound to their land.

Thus the term landless peasant is not a contradiction in term but a redundancy as all peasants are landless as peasant are legally part of the land just like how live stock are legally part of land.



It is about their relationships to the means of production. The peasant is a small owner, a petit-bourgeois. The rural worker is a paid labourer and a proletarian.

Wrong the difference would be a class bound to the land that are forced to stay on the land by a armed force yet have to pay rent for being on said land. A rural worker is wage slave that works in the outposts of industrial capitalism like railway workers, lumberjacks and miners working in rural areas.

[CartCollector]

A rural worker is wage slave that works in the outposts of industrial capitalism like railway workers, lumberjacks and miners working in rural areas.

Don't forget agricultural workers. Migrant fruit pickers and other hired farm labor work with crops yet aren't peasants, since they rent no land and are paid a wage for their labor power.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Do you believe that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were wrong to emphasise over and again that a socialist revolution in Russia can only come about through the leadership of the working class in Russia?

He distinguishes between a class-strugglist (not liberal) democratic revolution "for a democratic and social republic" and a "socialist" revolution.

In the former, the working class can only be the leading class in developed countries, but nevertheless all the bourgeoisie (as opposed to nationalist petit-bourgeoisie) can play no revolutionary role.

[Glenn Beck]

I think that the term 'landless peasants' is a bit of a contradiction in terms in any sort of Marxist analysis. A peasant is by definition a land owner.

Landless peasants are typically recent victims of "accumulation by dispossession". Wage labor is typically unavailable to them, at least in the immediate. They tend to survive by squatting on private or government owned land.

A peasant in general is someone who practices subsistence agriculture. Though the boundaries can blur in certain situations equating them to petty-bourgeois is not always useful. Peasants rely only secondarily on the market for their subsistence, if they rely on wages they are agricultural workers, if they rely on revenues from the sale of produce or renting out land or any other method of gaining money through the ownership or possession of land they are petty-bourgeois or bourgeois.


Wrong a peasant by definition is bounded to the land thus can't be a land owner, as a class peasants have to give up part of their labor to the landed aristocracy in the form of rent for being bound to their land.

Thus the term landless peasant is not a contradiction in term but a redundancy as all peasants are landless as peasant are legally part of the land just like how live stock are legally part of land.

...

Wrong the difference would be a class bound to the land that are forced to stay on the land by a armed force yet have to pay rent for being on said land.

Those are serfs.

[FSL]

In that particular instance I would have to say no, but the fact that the proletariat took a leading role was only made possible by the increase in productive forces, or the massive growth the industrial working class had been experiencing since the turn of the century, and by the bourgeois democratic revolution. Also, October Revolution happened nearly a century ago, and as much respect as I have for the event we can not compare it to any other situation in the world today, because there is no other country that is even remotely like Russia circa-1917.


Yes, even the countries with the least-advanced economies probably have a stronger working class than Russia did a century ago. Still, why would you bring that up since it's a counter-argument to what you're suggesting?
The proletariat took a leading role because that's what the proletariat does. They're the people who receive half the value of what they produce, they're the people who cooperate with each other in large enterprises to fulfill everyone's needs. It's only obvious they 'll be the ones with an "instinct" for socialism.

[Devrim]

Wrong a peasant by definition is bounded to the land thus can't be a land owner, as a class peasants have to give up part of their labor to the landed aristocracy in the form of rent for being bound to their land.

Thus the term landless peasant is not a contradiction in term but a redundancy as all peasants are landless as peasant are legally part of the land just like how live stock are legally part of land.

As has already been pointed out, what you describe here are 'serfs'.


Landless peasants are typically recent victims of "accumulation by dispossession". Wage labor is typically unavailable to them, at least in the immediate. They tend to survive by squatting on private or government owned land.

That makes sense, but it is by necessity a temporary condition.


A peasant in general is someone who practices subsistence agriculture. Though the boundaries can blur in certain situations equating them to petty-bourgeois is not always useful. Peasants rely only secondarily on the market for their subsistence, if they rely on wages they are agricultural workers, if they rely on revenues from the sale of produce or renting out land or any other method of gaining money through the ownership or possession of land they are petty-bourgeois or bourgeois.

I don't think that this is true. There have always been rich peasants and poor peasants. I am not sure that complete subsistence agriculture really exists any more. Everybody is forced into the market today.

Devrim

[Glenn Beck]

That makes sense, but it is by necessity a temporary condition.



I don't think that this is true. There have always been rich peasants and poor peasants. I am not sure that complete subsistence agriculture really exists any more. Everybody is forced into the market today.

Exactly. Since peasantry is an anachronism under the capitalist system its necessarily a very unstable condition. Most peasants end up dispossessed of the land that provides them their livelihood and end up proletarianized; a few make it as petty producers, at least for some time. Most peasants participate in market activities to some degree, the distinction I make is a primary reliance on self-sufficiency through subsistence farming.

[Psy]

Those are serfs.
Yes but as feudalism gave way to capitalism the landed aristocracy became landed bourgeoisie as the landed aristocracy took bourgeois ownership of their lands and still demanded rent for use of their land as capitalists, their justification just changed and the peasants were now free to leave but there was no where to go as the new landed bourgeoisie took ownership of all the land worth owning thus there was no land that peasants could farm that was not owned.

It was only the opening of the west in Canada,USA and Australia where you started to have farmers that actually owned their own land but then it was clear they were not peasants but petite-bourgeoisie as they hired seasonal wage slaves to bring in crops during harvest seasons and were partaking in capitalist production as the independent farmers took capital invested in the land in hopes to get more capital then they started with.

So peasants as a class only existed as surfs since after feudalism they turned into proletariat and petite-bourgeoisie.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Yes, even the countries with the least-advanced economies probably have a stronger working class than Russia did a century ago. Still, why would you bring that up since it's a counter-argument to what you're suggesting?
I don't think it is a counter argument, it's just true.

The proletariat took a leading role because that's what the proletariat does.
This isn't much of an argument.

They're the people who receive half the value of what they produce, they're the people who cooperate with each other in large enterprises to fulfill everyone's needs. It's only obvious they 'll be the ones with an "instinct" for socialism.
And peasants won't have that same instinct for socialism? Who benefits from agricultural collectivisation? No jokes about the "holodomor", please.

[ComradeOm]

So peasants as a class only existed as surfs since after feudalism they turned into proletariat and petite-bourgeoisieWhile its true that the peasantry is an obsolete class under mature capitalism, your quick sketch of the peasantry (aside from other inaccuracies) excludes a good century or two of capitalism's development. You ignore, for example, that there existed in France a large peasant population a mere 50-60 years ago. By the time of WWII, over a third of the population of the industrially advanced Germany were peasants. Even in parts of Europe today (Galicia and Romania spring to mind) there are peasant communities clinging on. There were/are not serfs

Edit: To the OP, the basic Marxist position on the rural workers and the peasantry* is probably best laid out in Lenin's draft theses on the agricultural question (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/x01.htm) for the ComIntern's Second Congress. I do think Lenin got the peasant question badly wrong in Russia 1917, where conditions differed significantly from Western Europe, but this work is sound and well worth reading. Also of interest, perhaps, is Bulaitis' Communism in Rural France (which I was able to download for free from somewhere) which deals with the PCF's practical attempts to organise amongst the peasantry and the various issues that it faced

*As such as it is. Neither Marx or Engels devoted much a great deal of time to the topic. To talk of a standard Marxist approach, prior to Lenin at least, is probably something of an exaggeration

[Psy]

While its true that the peasantry is an obsolete class under mature capitalism, your quick sketch of the peasantry (aside from other inaccuracies) excludes a good century or two of capitalism's development. You ignore, for example, that there existed in France a large peasant population a mere 50-60 years ago. By the time of WWII, over a third of the population of the industrially advanced Germany were peasants. Even in parts of Europe today (Galicia and Romania spring to mind) there are peasant communities clinging on. There were/are not serfs

Remeber the enclousers happened in 1760 that denied peasents rights to land that previously was legally owned by God and put God's land on the market. After the enclosuers it was impossible for peasents to exist as indepedent class, they either had to own land in the beourgisie sense or accumulate surplus value to pay rent to land owners.

Don't forget we Marxist only view class as relationship to production thus peasents that got title to their own became petit-bourgisie as that was their new relationship to the means of production while that vast majority that earned piece rates from the beourigise were proletraitized which exted to the petite-bouergisie of the peasentry.

So while they technically existed they were not a class onto themselves anymore for example British peasents after 1760 was systamically driven off their land to make way for bourgeois farmers that raised sheep for profit and were hiring more and more wage slaves to tend their lands. Thus even after 1760 the idea of independ peasent was already obselete as capitalism was already destorying the peasents as a class.

[FSL]

And peasants won't have that same instinct for socialism? Who benefits from agricultural collectivisation? No jokes about the "holodomor", please.


It's not simply a matter of calculated benefit. They're tied to their property. They born and bred to think it might someday and with hard work "evolve" into capitalistic property and make them rich. They're in much pain just like small shop-owners are and they'd obviously be better off in socialism. But it's not something they actively pursuit because it's counter-intuitive for them to do so, to fight property when they are among the owners.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

I think many people mix up peasants and farm labours.