ABSTRACT
The overwhelming majority of everything that is in the country belongs to the working class and the peasantry. The overwhelming majority of economic activity originates with the workers’ state, the peasant farms, or the small businesses of the artisans and handi-craftsmen. The defenders of the bourgeois order, defenders of the landlords and capitalists, continually buzzed in every ear with the claim that the laboring masses—the workers and peasants—would be unable to guide and manage the economy even if they wished to do so. The fact that the laboring masses are running things by themselves has enormous significance not just for people but for the toilers throughout the world. Under capitalism, under the domination of the bourgeoisie, the city has always been a parasite in relation to the village. The well-to-do tavern-keeper, the village moneylender, and the kulak are all referred to as peasants.
