Historical Background

During the 18th century, the population grew in certain areas and required an expansion of food resources with the transition to a higher system of production. Kautsky describes this important transition: "Such a system had already developed in England, where, due to special conditions, the foundations of feudal agriculture were undermined by a series of revolutions, from the reforms of Henry VIII to the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, and in which the way was opened for the development of intensive capitalist agriculture, which replaced grazing with stable farming and the cultivation of fodder crops, and introduced tuber crops alongside cereals. But it became clear that it was impossible to introduce the results of that revolution on the European continent in a general way without revolutionizing the existing property relations".

The old mode of production became intolerable, at least for the larger farmers, who produced a considerable surplus for the market. "The mode of production of the Middle Ages was perfectly suited to the needs of a society of equals, who all had the same standard of living and produced for their own use (...) Now the market arose with its changing needs, and inequality developed among the members of the village, some of whom produced on their land just what they needed for themselves, while others produced a surplus. The former, the smallholders, continued to produce for their own consumption and were strongly attached to the community of origin, while for the latter it became an obstacle, since whatever the market demanded, they could not produce on their land except what was prescribed by the territorial community".

It was therefore necessary to eliminate this compromise between land communism and private property, to divide up the common pastures, to abolish the common cultivation of the fields and the obligation to cultivate, to centralize the various small properties and thus make the landowner the sole owner of the land, who could then exploit it according to the needs of the market.

But this development did not produce a class among the rural population capable of forming the backbone of this revolution. Agriculture depended on the social development of the capitalist mode of production in the cities. "The revolutionary force and initiative that agriculture had not been able to produce by itself was brought to it from the cities. The economic development of the city had completely transformed the situation in the countryside and made a transformation of property relations necessary. The same development created in the cities those revolutionary classes which, rising up against feudal power, brought political and legal revolution to the countryside, where they carried out the transformations that had become necessary, often amid the jubilation of the peasant masses, but sometimes also in spite of their resistance".

The urban bourgeoisie attempted this reorganization but failed to complete it. Only when the revolutionary classes of Paris rose in 1789 under the political leadership of the bourgeoisie, which called on the enslaved peasants to shake off the feudal yoke, only then did the transformation of rural property relations develop rapidly and decisively in France and, subsequently, in neighboring countries.

“In France, the transformation took place outside the law and with violence, that is, with a shock, and in such a way that the peasants not only freed themselves from their yoke but also obtained land belonging to the confiscated property of the clergy and emigrants, to the extent that the bourgeoisie itself did not seize it”.

In Prussia, on the other hand, the transformation was the consequence of the defeat at Jena. Throughout Germany, this did not happen violently, but legally and peacefully, slowly and hesitantly, with efforts to obtain the consent of the lords, who were the protagonists of the whole movement, which had not yet come to an end in 1848. The peasants paid dearly for this peaceful and legal path, both with cash and with new taxes. F. Engels writes in his introduction to Wilhelm Wolf’s work, “Schlesische Milliarde”: "We can calculate that the sum paid by the peasants to the nobility and the treasury to free themselves from taxes (...) amounted to one billion marks. A billion to redeem, without having to pay taxes anymore, a tiny part of the land that had been taken from them for 400 years! A tiny part, because the nobility and the tax authorities reserved the lion’s share for themselves".

In Russia, too, after the Crimean War, the peasants were freed not only from serfdom, but also from the best part of their land.

Although with limited results, the peaceful and legal revolution that developed led to the abolition of feudal burdens on the one hand and the remnants of primitive communism on the other, and thus to the establishment of private land ownership, paving the way for capitalist agriculture.

In Prometheus, November 1950, the inexorable advance of capitalism is described.

"Feudal characteristics persisted in Germany around 1850 because, less so than on the left bank of the Rhine, the landed nobility had even retained jurisdiction over its subjects, i.e., the lord acted as civil and criminal judge. In southern Italy, even before the French Revolution, the system of state judiciary culminating in royal power was in full swing. Those privileges had been claimed in vain by the barons since the centuries of the Angevin and Aragonese monarchies.

"The famous land equalization, the pride of Rome’s liberal economic achievements, after ‘all power to the bourgeoisie’ was realized, formed one of the bases for capitalist accumulation in Italy, channeling, together with the skillful handling of banking policy, the proceeds of land rent from the tattered pockets of the former barons into the coffers of the aforementioned industrial and financial bourgeoisie. It is well understood that, in the process of capitalist development, many owners of so-called fiefdoms were transformed into industrialists, merchants, bankers, and various types of capitalists".

Capitalism and Agriculture

Kautsky highlights the dialectic of the question:

"There is no doubt that agriculture does not develop according to the same pattern as industry, but follows its own laws. This does not mean, however, that the development of agriculture is opposed to that of industry and that it is irreconcilable with it. We believe, on the contrary, that we can show that both are rushing toward the same goal, if we do not consider them separately from each other, but as common parts of an overall process".

And again: "The Marxist theory of the capitalist mode of production does not, however, consist simply in reducing the development of this mode of production to the formula ‘elimination of small enterprises by large enterprises,’ so that anyone who knows this formula by heart has the key to the whole of modern economy in his pocket. If we want to study the agrarian question according to Marx’s method, we cannot simply ask whether small farms have a future in agriculture; we must instead study all the changes to which agriculture is subject in the course of the capitalist mode of production.“

In ”Commodities Will Never Feed the People", published in 1953, we write in the introductory prospectus: “While manufacturing industry can move its plants anywhere (...) the fact that land is immovable and indestructible (in general) creates another degree of limitation (...) This is of exceptional importance (...) in our discipline (...) it has a capital influence on the economic constitution of society, on the conditions and degree of well-being of its members”.

In our “Comunismo” no. 51 of December 2001, we summarized the “Fili del Tempo” (Threads of Time) on the Agrarian Question published in the 1953 and 1954 issues of Programma Comunista. In the chapter “Rural Economy and History”, we wrote: "Research on the changing forms of production and agricultural economy, which until yesterday were a predominant part of the entire social economy, must be extended to the entire human historical cycle. Marxism makes a decisive critique, on a purely scientific basis, of the molecular division of land, which is the cause of stagnation and endless misery. In this regard, it is important to establish the primacy of the historical method in order to clarify the social method.“

The text continues on the theme described in the previous chapter: ”The factors of land limitation and so-called declining fertility are relevant. In Germany, for example, there is a prevalence of land for civic use and state property, while in Latin countries there is the complete development of the allodial system (private ownership). The Germans, few in number on vast lands, use the centuries-old system of three fields: of three equal plots of land, one is cultivated with wheat, the most nutritious cereal, one with rye, barley or oats, less nutritious cereals, and one is left fallow (fallow land). For a long time, it was not land but livestock, kept on common pastures, that was the object of value and trade. Pecunia (money) derives from pecus (livestock). Private property derives both from the division of collective land among families and from violence, slavery, and conquest. Among the Germanic peoples, communal farming disappeared very late, while in Italy, individual division was pre-Roman (the god Terminus made land ownership sacred and inviolable) due to the very distant knowledge of crops (vines, olive trees, fruit trees, irrigation) superior to that of cereals. In Italy, feudal forms had little influence and disappeared rapidly between the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the era of the communes, when agriculture was highly intensive (vegetable gardens and orchards) and even fully capitalist.

The following chapter, “Exit from feudalism”, framed the transition: "In the feudal relationship, the serf provided his master with a rent in kind or in labor with days of work in his garden and with a share of the produce of his small field; we are therefore in a natural economy. The modern landowner, the landowner, on the other hand, enjoys a cash rent. At the same time, land ownership becomes alienable, and the agricultural worker, who was previously bound to the land, becomes free. Initially, this process is not determined solely by the unstoppable need to give free rein to the productive forces of manufacturing, but is also accompanied by an equal exaltation of the productive forces of agriculture".

Kautsky traces the ‘natural’ transition from one mode of production to another: ‘In feudal times, there was no agriculture other than small-scale farming, and the lands of the nobility were cultivated with the same tools used by small farmers. Capitalism was the first to create the possibility of large-scale agriculture, which was technically more rational than small-scale farming’.

Let us continue from “Communism” 51: "The feudal agrarian economy, characterized among other things by the superimposition of land work and minimal domestic industry, keeps rural production away from the market. The capitalist economy draws small farms into the commercial vortex. The pretended independence of the very small farm leads to an immensely greater burden of work for the owner of the small piece of land. But, within capitalist limits, one cannot count on the disappearance of small-scale production in agriculture".

Returning to Kautsky: “The farmer did go to the market, but only to sell the surplus of what he produced and to buy only what he needed, apart from iron, which he used as sparingly as possible. His comfort and luxury depended on the outcome of the market, but not his existence. This self-sufficient community was indestructible”.

On the current mode of production, Kautsky again: “The development of industry and commerce also created new needs in the cities. As new and more sophisticated tools penetrated the countryside, the exchange relationship between town and country became all the more active”.

Furthermore, militarism, by attracting the sons of peasants to the cities, became the main cause of the spread of tobacco and alcohol consumption.