A dialectical-material analysis of the peasants and their role in the revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie

The peasants on their own

The peasants are social class present in the feudal mode of production that falls under the category of the exploited, by which I mean that a ruling class extracts surplus value from the product of their labor. That is to say, they are in a class struggle against their ruling class which in this case is the class of feudal masters. The ownership status of the peasants differs but there are mainly 2 cases. In the first one the peasants are private owners of a small amount of means of production which they use for the purpose of production for their own consumption, these are either free tenants or semi-free serfs. If there is surplus in their production, peasants will also engage in commodity production. However these peasants, even though they call them ‘free’, are still under the influence and control of the feudal class which extracts surplus value from them in the form of huge taxes and forces them to stay tied to the land so that they remain under that influence.

The other type of peasant may or may not have property but for sure works in the land of their respective feudal lord using their means of production, these are either semi-free serfs or serfs. Surplus extraction is obviously also present here and class antagonisms are more visible.

When class antagonisms are underdeveloped, that is when the contradictions between two classes are not that visible, the material interests of these peasants are usually to just keep more of their production output for themselves, sustain the life of themselves and their families and keep their private property. If for one reason or another, like an increase in the rate of exploitation, class antagonisms start developing, these material interests might expand. For the sake of this analysis, one can assume that this stage of class antagonisms have been reached in a hypothetical feudal society. In such case, what happens? Well assuming that the peasants have reached a conclusion about the root of their problems, that is the existence of the feudal class which exploits them, they will revolt or at least expand their material interests to the point of wanting to abolish the feudal class. They are revolutionary to this point, but onwards no. Why? Imagine they abolished the ruling class. Their former material interests remain in this hypothetical scenario. They will still insist on keeping their own private property to themselves, they don’t want to lose it. The only thing that you can get out of a peasants’ successful revolution is a classless society of small private owners which cannot develop its productive forces further The peasants neither have the material potential or ambition to develop the productive forces to another level. That is because of their material interests which we assumed earlier, and because of the fact that surplus value, for the purpose of economic development, would be very difficult to extract in such an underdeveloped classless society. Most of the production output would be consumed, since production takes more labor than in today’s society, and there would be no left resources for investments in the productive forces, or if there is it would be very little. Because of that, funding the research of intellectuals who do unproductive labor, in the sense that they don’t produce anything that will be exchanged or consumed directly, would be difficult as well and without any research the further development of technology and the productive forces becomes non-existant. That is why an underdeveloped society requires a ruling class which extracts large amounts of surplus in order to advance further. In feudal society, scientific work was mostly funded by aristocrats, royals and the clergy.

If a large amount of the peasants were propertyless in the first place, a peasants’ revolution against the feudal ruling class may also imply the abolition of private property and the introduction of communal property. Even if that is the case, the fact that economic development would be difficult due to the poorly developed forces of labor still remains and society cannot advance further.

The peasants and the proletariat

In the third world, Maoists and other revolutionaries rely on the class collaboration between proletarians and peasants since countries there are not very developed in terms of material conditions. As I said in the above text, peasants on their own are revolutionary only to the extent of a classless society of small private owners or one with communal property but is stagnant in terms of economical development. On the other hand, we know that given developed contradictions between a capitalist and proletarian class, the proletariat can develop new material interests, one of which being the total destruction of the ruling class, that is the abolition of private property. We also know that the existence of a proletariat in most cases implies already developed enough productive forces.

For the purpose of this analysis, let’s assume a hypothetical semi-feudal, semi-capitalist society in which both the contradictions between feudal lords and peasants, and the one between proletarians and capitalists exist. Assuming already developed class antagonisms due to revolutionary activity and a high rate of exploitation, the proletariat will definitely developed interests for the abolition of private property. On the other hand, peasants may or may not develop these interests This depends on their material conditions and the relations between proletarians and peasants. If the peasants are propertyless, these material interests may develop, its possible. If the opposite is true, probably not. However this is not the end, here comes the revolutionary role of the proletariat into consideration. The proletariat and its vanguard party spreading revolutionary ideas through out the entire region in which they operate may result in peasants, propertyless or not, picking up on these ideas and becoming revolutionary to the extent of abolishing private property. That is unless the movement rejects to class collaborate with them.

Of course I will also have to consider the possibility of peasants only agreeing to class collaborate with the proletariat for the purpose of achieving their own ambitions, different from the ones of the proletariat. In such case a successful revolution will not be enough for the complete transition from capitalism to socialism. I will talk more about this scenario since the outcome of the above is as clear as day and doesn’t need more discussion.

Let’s assume that a revolution has been carried out and both ruling classes (feudal and bourgeoisie) are gone from society. Now you have a society of workers commonly owning means of production on one side and the former peasants, which are now petite bourgeoisie on the other side. Classless society is clearly not yet achieved. The resolution of the inner contradictions of the previous state of society have resulted in a society with completely different class contradictions, one between the former proletariat and the former peasantry. I will look more into the petite bourgeoisie now.

Given that there’s obviously commodity production present in the distribution of goods within the petite bourgeoisie class, there is obviously a market. A market implies competition between producers, in this case every member of this class is a producer so every member of this class competes with one another. There are inner contradictions in the petite bourgeoisie class itself which have to be resolved. The constant competition between the members of this class will only lead to one member becoming propertyless and the other gaining more property. The result of these inner contradictions will be the monopolization of all private property of the petite bourgeoisie. That will imply that the petite bourgeoisie is no longer the petite bourgeoisie. Instead a new bourgeoisie class has formed. But hold on, that would imply that there’s a group of propertyless people being exploited by this new bourgeoisie class, no? Yes but no. Remember that a class of workers commonly owning the means of production exists in this scenario. As we said earlier, a result of competition is one person losing property, the other gaining more. The person who just lost his property is highly likely to go and join the class of the workers, selling your labor power to a capitalist would be stupid when you can go somewhere else and not have your surplus value extracted. We have to consider the prespective of the person who just gained property as well though. If he or she has more property, its likely that they can’t operate it by themselves. If they can’t, they have to hire workers, that is wage laborers, butshey can’t because propertyless people are running to the other social class. A resolution of this contradiction might be this person compromising and establishing a cooperative where ownership is shared. Given the analysis above I can only conclude that the petite bourgeoisie’s inner contradictions will resolve themselves by either completely destroying the class or by transforming the class into a class of workers who commonly share ownership of the means of production. In both cases, no class contradictions in the society as a whole will exist since the inner contradictions inside the petite bourgeoisie lead to its downfall as a class.

This was the analysis given that the former proletariat compromises and lets the former peasants exist as a class on their own. These inner contradictions within the petite bourgeoisie class may stay there for many years before they resolve themselves. The other possible option for the former proletariat is to directly take action and eliminate the petite bourgeoisie as a class by taking their property and forcing them to become workers who commonly share ownership. This would be the faster option but it is risky and there’s a chance that things will escalate. The outcome will depend on the combined power of the workers.

Conclusion

I can conclude that peasants on their own are not able of achieving socialism, or if they did society would stagnate. The only way for that to work would be if a radicalized proletariat exists along them, which also assumes developed enough productive forces. In that case, the inner contradictions of society have a variety of ways to resolve themselves but the final outcome, assuming a successful revolution of the peasants and the proletariat, is always socialism, that is a classless society with workers commonly owning the means of production without a petite bourgeoisie or something else beside them.