ABSTRACT
One of the central issues in Russian Marxism's analysis of the peasantry was the question of its differentiation into the classes of capitalism. Such a development had been predicted by Plekhanov and evidence for it had been sought and provided by Lenin. However, after the Revolution of 1917 with its widespread redistribution of the land there grew up a strong current of opinion in Soviet ruling circles which tended to play down the question of renewed capitalist development in the countryside, and which, as a consequence, gave low priority to research on the differentiation of the peasantry.
