ABSTRACT
The Agrarian Question in Socialist Transitions This essay constructs a preliminary argument concerning the position of the peasantry in the twin transitions: the first, to industrialisation, and the second, towards socialism. Within orthodox Marxian theory, the two transitions are also sequential; with the socialist order emerging from the crisis, breakdown and overthrow of the capitalist system which in its maturity becomes a fetter upon further development, and 'begets with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation' [Marx, 1969: 144]. At this juncture, the process of proletarianisation has been completed in the economy as a whole, including the agricultural sector, where the petty peasant producers and artisans have
been separated from their means of production and have been reduced to the status of sellers of labour power, while the landlords and/or sections of the middle and rich peasantry have emerged as capitalist farmers who treat agriculture as a branch of industry integrated fully with the rest of the economy. However, this bit of Marx's theory of history was drafted without the benefit of hindsight and, thus far, history has resisted conforming to what was expected of it. The first socialist revolution broke the capitalist chain not at the strongest but rather at the weakest link; and subsequent socialist transitions have also been initiated through revolutionary movements in arenas which display low initial levels of economic, especially industrial, development. At the time of the revolutionary break with the past, none of the present roll of socialist economies boasted an advanced industrial sector; in none of them was the process of rural proletarianisation anywhere near completion. Indeed, in most cases, on both counts, the situation was as far from the Marxian postulation as could be imagined. As such, these countries have entered the socialist transition not through the crossroads of industrialisation; instead, they have launched upon the twin transitions simultaneously.
