The Peasantry

[ArabRASH]

I want to raise a question raised by Marxists since the beginning of the movement.

What is to be done with the farmers and the peasants in a revolution? In my eyes there are two options, both with serious negatives.

The first option is for the peasant to own his/her own land. Now i personally favor this, but there is the slight of problem of a situation being brought up where the farmer becomes a little capitalist, holding grain from the public waiting for the prices to rise. This is an obvious problem.

The second is for the farm land to be collectivised, and all orders for growing of any kind of crops would come from the government. Now this may be efficient, but it takes away the freedom of the peasants, and we will not have the support of the peasants prior to the revolution if our policy is collectivisation, whereas we will have the support of them if we promise to abandon land-lords and let them own their own land.

The first scenario has been shown in situations in the USSR such as the Lenin's NEP which led to the kulaks, and although i haven't read enough, i believe Mao told the peasantry he would abolish land-lords and promised the peasants their own land, although i'm not sure if he kept his promise. I know that in China the revolution depended on the peasantry rather than the proletariat, which is probably why he did this.

The second scenario is shown later in Stalinist USSR, and in Cambodia under Pol Pot.

What should our stance be? I'm all for peasant freedom. But what if those peasants turn on us and become businessmen?

[Comrade Nadezhda]

First off, it is important for me to fill in the huge gaps.

It is important to understand the complexity of this issue.

The conflict with the Kulaks existed prior to the NEP. The NEP did not so much hand over land/grain to the Kulaks, but to the poor peasants. The Kulaks were not poor peasants, they were the rural bourgeoisie. They opposed collective farming and carried out acts of sabotage on state farms and properties. The NEP was proposed as a means of dealing with the Kulaks - and strengthening the ties between the peasants and workers.

The NEP was a means of transfering the ownership of the land to the people [workers and peasants]. Yes, it allowed peasants to sell crops, hire labor- but the peasants were not Kulaks, do you see. They did not hold grain from the public, though the Kulaks did. The Kulaks were not granted privilege to do so, however, that does not mean it didn't go on- for the mostpart it was dealt with through what some consider harsh means - but the rural bourgeoisie cannot be given the opportunity for sabotage.

The NEP was to strengthen the economy for the transitional phases to come. The NEP was needed to aid in the progression of the proletarian state. I don't say it isn't "state capitalism" but it is part of DotP [dictatorship of the proletariat] and is necessarily for progression onward.

In regard to later period with Stalin, the need for better methods in dealing with the Kulaks was needed. Tired of the conflict, the 5 year plan was launched and actions were taken against the Kulaks - as a result of their actions against the peasants. Their opposition to collectivisation needed to be crushed. These were means of effectively doing so.

[RNK]

Stalin's regards to the peasantry of the USSR was lacking to say the least and his entire history of relationships with the peasants was strained because he tended to demand too much of them, and give too little.

This opinion comes from Mao's writing/critiques of the Soviet Union and Stalin's economic policies. See A Critique Of Soviet Economics by Mao. Naturally, the opinion comes from a heavy peasant-based outlook (without forgetting the overall idea of proletarian revolution).

Mao wrote directly on how he thought the peasantry should be organized and transformed from peasants to agricultural proletarians. Here's a tidbit:


There are three levels of collective ownership in the Chinese countryside. The smallest unit, the production team, usually consists of between fifteen and thirty-five families. The team is the basic ownership and production unit, owning the land it works, a number of draught animals, and small agricultural tools such as threshers and crushers. The next unit, the production brigade, is made up of from five to fifteen teams. The brigade owns larger means of production too expensive for the team to buy and too large for them to use effectively, such as tractors and irrigation equipment. The brigade also takes care of tasks, such as hill terracing, for which the team is too small. The commune, with a population from several thousand to some fifty thousand, is composed of ten to thirty brigades. In addition to providing overall coordination among the brigades, the communes own and run large industrial enterprises and projects too large for the brigade to handle, such as large water conservancy projects.

Land reform has and continues to play a major role in revolutionary and progressive movements in the 3rd world where landless peasants still reign supreme (in terms of population percentage). While it is true that peasants may, on the surface, be more drawn to promises of ownership, this sort of message isn't exactly truthful, but it is most likely necessary..

Thinking about it, I think the best course of action would be to support the peasantry in attaining their most serious material needs, that being, the removal of the landlords and rich peasants and land reforms to ensure equitable ownership of their own lands. Second would come collectivization, and the true transformation of the peasantry into agricultural proletarians. They must be educated, told the necessity of collectivization, and most importantly, supported and accepted.

[Marsella]

What is to be done with the farmers and the peasants in a revolution?Just a point.

Farmers are not necessarily peasants.

Peasants do not exist in all 'first world' countries.

[ArabRASH]

Farmers are not necessarily peasants.

My bad, I was thinking about that, but didn't know whether there was a distinction or not.


Thinking about it, I think the best course of action would be to support the peasantry in attaining their most serious material needs, that being, the removal of the landlords and rich peasants and land reforms to ensure equitable ownership of their own lands. Second would come collectivization, and the true transformation of the peasantry into agricultural proletarians. They must be educated, told the necessity of collectivization, and most importantly, supported and accepted.

Can't this be misinterpreted as "indoctrination" by some of them? We're trying to convince them that they should NOT own their own land, but some peasants would kill for their own land. Won't there always be a problem until then? Or you think it's very possible that they will actually support collectivisation?

[BobKKKindle$]

In a revolution, the peasantry cannot be the leading class, although, in countries which have, due to imperialism, not undergone extensive industrial development, it may be necessary for the proletariat to forge a temporary alliance with the peasantry during the struggle to establish a workers state.

Once power has been seized and the bourgeoisie has been relegated to the status of an opposing class, with no command of the state apparatus, recognition should be given to all expropriation of land and other property, formerly under the control of hostile landowners, and peasants should, by means of non-coercive measures such as the publication of propaganda, be encouraged to group together and form cooperatives, to which the state shall supply agricultural equipment. In pursuit of this objective, we should always adopt Lenin's principle for engaging with the masses - "patiently explain" - in order to avert the tyranny of Stalin's collectivization programs.

Socialists should not support an equitable distribution of land, as previously advocated by the SRs (such that each family or community is allocated the same area) because agriculture is most efficient when carried out on a large scale.