Hebrew Hammer
7th June 2011, 07:15
I would like to talk about the peasentry and their revolutionary potential and or their place in a Socialist revolution. To start off, Marx said the following in his Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy:
"i.e. where the peasant exists in the mass as private proprietor, where he even forms a more or less considerable majority, as in all states of the west European continent, where he has not disappeared and been replaced by the agricultural wage-labourer, as in England, the following cases apply: either he hinders each workers' revolution, makes a wreck of it, as he has formerly done in France, or the proletariat (for the peasant proprietor does not belong to the proletariat, and even where his condition is proletarian, he believes himself not to) must as government take measures through which the peasant finds his condition immediately improved, so as to win him for the revolution; measures which will at least provide the possibility of easing the transition from private ownership of land to collective ownership, so that the peasant arrives at this of his own accord, from economic reasons. It must not hit the peasant over the head, as it would e.g. by proclaiming the abolition of the right of inheritance or the abolition of his property. The latter is only possible where the capitalist tenant farmer has forced out the peasants, and where the true cultivator is just as good a proletarian, a wage-labourer, as is the town worker, and so has immediately, not just indirectly, the very same interests as him. Still less should small-holding property be strengthened, by the enlargement of the peasant allotment simply through peasant annexation of the larger estates, as in Bakunin's revolutionary campaign."
This was in Response to Bakunin saying:
"e.g. the krestyanskaya chern, the common peasant folk, the peasant mob, which as is well known does not enjoy the goodwill of the Marxists, and which, being as it is at the lowest level of culture, will apparently be governed by the urban factory proletariat."
I understand that the orthodox Marxist and ML position is (from my understanding) that the peasantry are not a revolutionary class due to the fact that they own land and are tide to this and thus their class interests do not match up with those of Socialism thus it the urban proletariat that is the sole revolutionary class which can smash capital and establish Socialism and the countries peasantry must be directed by them during this phase. In most developed Western countries, I don't think there is currently any peasantry but more, perhaps, rural proletarian farmers. But in most third world countries their still remains the peasant class. My question is, given the experinces of the peasantry in the Chinese revolution and the concept of New Democracy, why can the peasantry not be considered a revolutionary class? Can we not skip capitalism and go from a feudalisitic society to a Socialist society? Also, as previously stated, the main aim of this thread is to discuss this specific class and their role in Socialist revolution.
"i.e. where the peasant exists in the mass as private proprietor, where he even forms a more or less considerable majority, as in all states of the west European continent, where he has not disappeared and been replaced by the agricultural wage-labourer, as in England, the following cases apply: either he hinders each workers' revolution, makes a wreck of it, as he has formerly done in France, or the proletariat (for the peasant proprietor does not belong to the proletariat, and even where his condition is proletarian, he believes himself not to) must as government take measures through which the peasant finds his condition immediately improved, so as to win him for the revolution; measures which will at least provide the possibility of easing the transition from private ownership of land to collective ownership, so that the peasant arrives at this of his own accord, from economic reasons. It must not hit the peasant over the head, as it would e.g. by proclaiming the abolition of the right of inheritance or the abolition of his property. The latter is only possible where the capitalist tenant farmer has forced out the peasants, and where the true cultivator is just as good a proletarian, a wage-labourer, as is the town worker, and so has immediately, not just indirectly, the very same interests as him. Still less should small-holding property be strengthened, by the enlargement of the peasant allotment simply through peasant annexation of the larger estates, as in Bakunin's revolutionary campaign."
This was in Response to Bakunin saying:
"e.g. the krestyanskaya chern, the common peasant folk, the peasant mob, which as is well known does not enjoy the goodwill of the Marxists, and which, being as it is at the lowest level of culture, will apparently be governed by the urban factory proletariat."
I understand that the orthodox Marxist and ML position is (from my understanding) that the peasantry are not a revolutionary class due to the fact that they own land and are tide to this and thus their class interests do not match up with those of Socialism thus it the urban proletariat that is the sole revolutionary class which can smash capital and establish Socialism and the countries peasantry must be directed by them during this phase. In most developed Western countries, I don't think there is currently any peasantry but more, perhaps, rural proletarian farmers. But in most third world countries their still remains the peasant class. My question is, given the experinces of the peasantry in the Chinese revolution and the concept of New Democracy, why can the peasantry not be considered a revolutionary class? Can we not skip capitalism and go from a feudalisitic society to a Socialist society? Also, as previously stated, the main aim of this thread is to discuss this specific class and their role in Socialist revolution.