THE ‘POLITICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY’ AND THE ‘AGRARIAN QUESTION’

What has become known as the ‘agrarian question’ was a central concern for Marxism in thinking emancipation in the 20th century, because the relatively small proletariat, which was meant to be the subject of history in overwhelmingly rural countries such as Russia, China, Vietnam or Cuba, of necessity had to convince the masses of the rural poor in the countryside that ‘its’ revolutionary politics were also in the interest of the peasantry. The proletariat was thus seen by theory as ‘leading’ politically (i.e. subjectively) a much broader coalition of social forces than itself. Political activists and militants had therefore to understand the oppression of the peasantry as well as its reactions to such oppression. Other than the ‘national question’, which was directly concerned with the liberation of peoples (including minority nationalities) from colonial oppression, it was the ‘correct resolution’ of the ‘agrarian question’ that held the key to a successful ‘transition to socialism’; in fact, both the national and agrarian questions were often thought simultaneously in the context of what was eventually known as the Third World and its ‘development’. In Africa, that question was to be resolved through ‘rural development’ everywhere – in other words, by state action.