Introduction

In Part I below, an account is given by Terry Cox of the research of the Agrarian Marxists, of their critique of existing approaches to the study of peasant class differentiation, their theoretical and methodological innovations, and some of the details of their research approaches and their findings. This is followed in Part II by an analysis by Gary Littlejohn of state policy in relation to the Soviet rural class structure in the 1920s. This draws on the work of Kritsman and offers an interpretation of how it can be located in the context of the wider debates on the nature of the NEP period and the lessons to be drawn for policies of socialist construction. Part III is a condensed and edited translation by Gary Littlejohn of Kritsman's book, The Class Stratification of the Soviet Countryside, which is referred to above. This offers an interesting illustration of Kritsman's work and an insight into the complexity of the society he undertook to study.