Engels 1894: The Peasant Question in France and Germany

Part 2: Germany

In one point our French comrades are absolutely right:
No lasting revolutionary transformation is possible in France against
the will of the small peasant. Only, it seems to me, they have not got
the right leverage if they mean to bring the peasant under their influence.

They are bent, it seems, to win over the small peasant forthwith,
possibly even for the next general elections. This they can hope to achieve
only by making very risky general assurances in defence of which they are
compelled to set forth even much more risky theoretical considerations.
Then, upon closer examination, it appears that the general assurances are
self-contradictory (promise to maintain a state of affairs which, as one
declares oneself, is irretrievably doomed) and that the various measures
are either wholly without effect (usury laws), or are general workers'
demands or demands which also benefit the big land-owners or finally are
such as are of no great importance by any means in promoting the interests
of the small peasants. In consequence, the directly practical part of the
programme of itself corrects the erroneous initial part and reduces the
apparently formidable grandiloquence of the preamble to actually innocent
proportions.

Let us say it outright: in view of the prejudices arising out
of their entire economic position, their uprising and their isolated mode
of life, prejudices nurtured by the bourgeois press and the big land-owners,
we can win the mass of the small peasants forthwith only if we can make
them a promise which we ourselves know we shall not be able to keep. That
is, we must promise them not only to protect their property in any event
against all economic forces sweeping upon them, but also to relieve them
of the burdens which already now oppress them: to transform the tenant
into a free owner and to pay the debts of the owner succumbing to the weight
of his mortgage. If we could do this, we should again arrive at the point
from which the present situation would necessarily develop anew. We shall
not have emancipated the peasant but only given him a reprieve.

But it is not in our interests to win the peasant overnight, only
to lose him again on the morrow if we cannot keep our promise. We have
no more use for the peasant as a Party member, if he expects us to perpetuate
his property in his small holding, than for the small handicraftsman who
would fain be perpetuated as a master. These people belong to the anti-Semites.
Let them go to the anti-Semites and obtain from the latter the promise
to salvage their small enterprises. Once they learn there what these glittering
phrases really amount to, and what melodies are fiddled down from the anti-Semitic
heavens, they will realize in ever-increasing measure that we who promise
less and look for salvation in entirely different quarters are after all
more reliable people. If the French had the strident anti-Semitic demagogy
we have, they would hardly have committed the Nantes mistake.

What, then, is our attitude towards the small peasantry? How shall
we have to deal with it on the day of our accession to power?

To begin with, the French programme is absolutely correct in stating:
that we foresee the inevitable doom of the small peasant, but that it is
not our mission to hasten it by any interference on our part.

Secondly, it is just as evident that when we are in possession
of state power, we shall not even think of forcibly expropriating the small
peasants (regardless of whether with or without compensation), as we shall
have to do in the case of the big landowners. Our task relative to the
small peasant consists, in the first place, in effecting a transition of
his private enterprise and private possession to cooperative ones, not
forcibly but by dint of example and the proffer of social assistance for
this purpose. And then, of course, we shall have ample means of showing
to the small peasant prospective advantages that must be obvious to him
even today.

Almost 20 years ago, the Danish Socialists, who have only one
real city in their country — Copenhagen — and therefore have to rely
almost exclusively on peasant propaganda outside of it, were already drawing
up such plans. The peasants of a village or parish — there are many big
individual homesteads in Denmark — were to pool their land to form a single
big farm i order to cultivate it for common account and distribute the
yield in proportion to the land, money, and labor contributed. In Denmark,
small landed property plays only a secondary role. But, if we apply this
idea to a region of small holdings, we shall find that if these are pooled
and the aggregate area cultivated on a large scale, part of the labor power
employed hitherto is rendered superfluous. It is precisely this saving
of labor that represents one of the main advantages of large-scale farming.
Employment can be found for this labor in two ways. Either additional land
taken from big estates in the neighborhood is placed at the disposal of
the peasant co-operative, or the peasants in question are provided with
the means and the opportunity of engaging in industry as an accessory calling,
primarily and as far as possible for their own use. In either case, their
economic position is improved and simultaneously the general social directing
agency is assured the necessary influence to transform the peasant co-operative
to a higher form, and to equalize the rights and duties of the co-operative
as a whole as well as of its individual members with those of the other
departments of the entire community. How this is to be carried out in practice
in each particular case will depend upon the circumstance of the case and
the conditions under which we take possession of political power. We may,
thus, possibly be in a position of offer these co-operatives yet further
advantages: assumption of their entire mortgage indebtedness by the national
bank with a simultaneous sharp reduction of the interest rate; advances
from public funds for the establishment of large-scale production (to be
made not necessarily or primarily in money but in the form of required
products: machinery, artificial fertilizer, etc.), and other advantages.

The main point is, and will be, to make the peasants understand
that we can save, preserve their houses and fields for them only by transforming
them into co-operative property operated co-operatively. It is precisely
the individual farming conditioned by individual ownership that drives
the peasants to their doom. If they insist on individual operation, they
will inevitably be driven from house and home and their antiquated mode
of production superseded by capitalist large-scale production. That is
how the matter stands. Now, we come along and offer the peasants the opportunity
of introducing large-scale production themselves, not for account of the
capitalists but for their own, common account. Should it really be impossible
to make the peasants understand that this is in their own interest, that
it is the sole means of their salvation?

Neither now, nor at any time in the future, can we promise the
small-holding peasants to preserve their individual property and individual
enterprise against the overwhelming power of capitalist production. We
can only promise then that we shall not interfere in their property relations
by force, against their will. Moreover, we can advocate that the struggle
of the capitalists and big landlords against the small peasants should
be waged from now on with a minimum of unfair means and that direct robbery
and cheating, which are practiced only too often, be as far as possible
prevented. In this we shall succeed only in exceptional cases. Under the
developed capitalist mode of production, nobody can tell where honesty
ends and cheating begins. But always it will make a considerable difference
whether public authority is on the side of the cheater or the cheated.
We, of course, are decidedly on the side of the small peasant; we shall
do everything at all permissible to make his lot more bearable, to facilitate
his transition to the co-operative should he decide to do so, and even
to make it possible for him to remain on his small holding for a protracted
length of time to think the matter over, should he still be unable to bring
himself to this decision. We do this not only because we consider the small
peasant living by his own labor as virtually belonging to us, but also
in the direct interest of the Party. The greater the number of peasants
whom we can save from being actually hurled down into the proletariat,
whom we can win to our side while they are still peasants, the more quickly
and easily the social transformation will be accomplished. It will serve
us nought to wait with this transformation until capitalist production
has developed everywhere to its utmost consequences, until the last small
handicraftsman and the last small peasant have fallen victim to capitalist
large-scale production. The material sacrifice to be made for this purpose
in the interest of the peasants and to be defrayed out of public funds
can, from the point of view of capitalist economy, be viewed only as money
thrown away, but it is nevertheless an excellent investment because it
will effect a perhaps tenfold saving in the cost of the social reorganization
in general. In this sense, we can, therefore, afford to deal very liberally
with the peasants. This is not the place to go into details, to make concrete
proposals to that end; here we can deal only with general principles.

Accordingly, we can do no greater disservice to the Party as well
as to the small peasants than to make promises that even only create the
impression that we intend to preserve the small holdings permanently. It
would mean directly to block the way of the peasants to their emancipation
and to degrade the Party to the level of rowdy anti-Semitism. On the contrary,
it is the duty of our Party to make clear to the peasants again and again
that their position is absolutely hopeless as long as capitalism holds
sway, that it is absolutely impossible to preserve their small holdings
for them as such, that capitalist large-scale production is absolutely
sure to run over their impotent antiquated system of small production as
a train runs over a pushcart. If we do this, we shall act in conformity
with the inevitable trend of economic development, and this development
will not fail to bring our words home to the small peasants.

Incidentally, I cannot leave this subject without expressing my
conviction that the authors of the Nantes programme are also essentially
of my opinion. Their insight is much too great for them not to know that
areas now divided into small holdings are also bound to become common property.
They themselves admit that small-holding ownership is destined to disappear.
The report of the National Council drawn up by Lafargue and delivered at
the Congress of Nantes likewise fully corroborates this view. It has been
published in German in the Berlin Sozialdemokrat of October 18 of
this year. The contradictory nature of the expressions used in the Nantes
programme itself betrays the fact what the authors actually say is not
what they want to say. If they are not understood and their statements
misused, as has already happened, that is of course their own fault. At
any rate, they will have to elucidate their programme and the next French
congress revise it thoroughly.

We now come to the bigger peasants. Here as a result of the division
of inheritance as well as indebtedness and forced sales of land we find
a variegated pattern of intermediate stages, from small-holding peasant
to big peasant proprietor, who has retained his old patrimony intact or
even added to it. Where the middle peasant lives among small-holding peasants,
his interests and views will not differ greatly from theirs; he knows,
from his own experience, how many of his kind have already sunk to the
level of small peasants. But where middle and big peasants predominate
and the operation of the farms requires, generally, the help of male and
female servants, it is quite a different matter. Of course a workers' party
has to fight, in the first place, on behalf of the wage-workers — that
is, for the male and female servantry and the day laborers. It is unquestionably
forbidden to make any promises to the peasants which include the continuance
of the wage slavery of the workers. But, as long as the big and middle
peasants continue to exist, as such they cannot manage without wage-workers.
If it would, therefore, be downright folly on our part to hold out prospects
to the small-holding peasants of continuing permanently to be such, it
would border on treason were we to promise the same to the big and middle
peasants.

We have here again the parallel case of the handicraftsmen in
the cities. True, they are more ruined than the peasants, but there still
are some who employ journeymen in addition to apprentices, or for whom
apprentices do the work of journeymen. Let those of these master craftsmen
who want to perpetuate their existence as such cast in their lot with the
anti-Semites until they have convinced themselves that they get no help
in that quarter either. The rest, who have realized that their mode of
production is inevitably doomed, are coming over to us and, moreover, are
ready in future to share the lot that is in store for all other workers.
The same applies to the big and middle peasants. It goes without saying
that we are more interested in their male and female servants and day laborers
than in them themselves. If these peasants want to be guaranteed the continued
existence of their enterprises, we are in no position whatever to assure
them of that. They must then take their place among the anti-Semites, peasant
leaguers, and similar parties who derive pleasure from promising everything
and keeping nothing. We are economically certain that the big and middle
peasants must likewise inevitably succumb to the competition of capitalist
production, and the cheap overseas corn, as is proved by the growing indebtedness
and the everywhere evident decay of these peasants as well. We can do nothing
against this decay except recommend here too the pooling of farms to form
co-operative enterprises, in which the exploitation of wage labor will
be eliminated more and more, and their gradual transformation into branches
of the great national producers' co-operative with each branch enjoying
equal rights and duties can be instituted. If these peasants realize the
inevitability of the doom of their present mode of production and draw
the necessary conclusions they will come to us and it will be incumbent
upon us to facilitate, to the best of our ability, also their transition
to the changed mode of production. Otherwise, we shall have to abandon
them to their fate and address ourselves to their wage-workers, among whom
we shall not fail to find sympathy. Most likely, we shall be able to abstain
here as well from resorting to forcible expropriation, and as for the rest
to count on future economic developments making also these harder pates
amenable to reason.

Only the big landed estates present a perfectly simple case. Here,
we are dealing with undisguised capitalist production and no scruples of
any sort need restrain us. Here, we are confronted by rural proletarians
in masses and our task is clear. As soon as out Party is in possession
of political power, it has simply to expropriate the big landed proprietors,
just like the manufacturers in industry. Whether this expropriation is
to be compensated for or not will, to a great extent, depend not upon us
but the circumstances under which we obtain power, and particularly upon
the attitude adopted by these gentry, the big landowners, themselves. We
by no mens consider compensation as impermissible in any event; Marx told
me (and how many times!) that, in his opinion, we would get off cheapest
if we could buy out the whole lot of them. But, this does not concern us
here. The big estates, thus restored to the community, are to be turned
over by us to the rural workers who are already cultivating them and are
to be organized into co-operatives. They are to be assigned to them for
their use and benefit under the control of the community. Nothing can as
yet be stated as to the terms of their tenure. At any rate, the transformation
of the capitalist enterprise into a social enterprise is here fully prepared
for and can be carried into execution overnight, precisely as in Mr. Krupp's
or Mr. von Stumm's factory. And the example of these agricultural co-operatives
would convince also the last of the still resistant small-holding peasants,
and surely also many big peasants, of the advantages of co-operative, large-scale
production.

Thus, we can open up prospects here before the rural proletarians
as splendid as those facing the industrial workers, and it can be only
a question of time, and of only a very short time, before we win over to
our side the rural workers of Prussia east of the Elbe. But once we have
the East-Elbe rural workers, a different wind will blow at once all over
Germany. The actual semi-servitude of the East-Elbe rural workers is the
main basis of the domination of Prussian Junkerdom and thus of Prussia's
specific overlordship in Germany. It is the Junkers east of the Elbe who
have created and preserved the specifically Prussian character of the bureaucracy
as well as of the body of army officers — the Junkers, who are being reduced
more and more to ruin by their indebtedness, impoverishment, and parasitism,
at state and private cost and for that very reason cling the more desperately
to the dominion which they exercise; the Junkers, whose haughtiness, bigotry,
and arrogance, have brought the German Reich of the Prussian nation [3]
within the country into such hatred — even when every allowance is made
for the fact that at present this Reich is inevitable as the sole form
in which national unity can now be attained — and abroad so little respect
despite its brilliant victories. The power of these Junkers is grounded
on the fact that within the compact territory of the seven old Prussian
provinces — that is, approximately one-third of the entire territory of
the Reich — they have at their disposal the landed property, which here
brings with it both social and political power. And not only the landed
property but, through their beet-sugar refineries and liquor distilleries,
also the most important industries of this area. Neither the big landowners
of the rest of Germany nor the big industrialists are in a similarly favorable
positions. Neither of them have a compact kingdom at their disposal. Both
are scattered over a wide stretch of territory and complete among themselves
and with other social elements and compete among themselves and with other
social elements surrounding them for economic and political predominance.
But, the economic foundation of this domination of the Prussian Junkers
is steadily deteriorating. Here, too, indebtedness and impoverishment are
spreading irresistibly, despite all state assistance (and since Frederick
II, this item is included in every regular Junker budget). Only the actual
semi-serfdom sanctioned by law and custom and the resulting possibility
of the unlimited exploitation of the rural workers, still barely keep the
drowning Junkers above water. Sow the seed of Social-Democracy among these
workers, give them the courage and cohesion to insist upon their rights,
and the glory of the Junkers will be put to an end. The great reactionary
power, which to Germany represents the same barbarous, predatory element
as Russian tsardom does to the whole of Europe, will collapse like a pricked
bubble. The "picked regiments" of the Prussian army will become Social-Democratic,
which will result in a shift of power that is pregnant with an entire upheaval.
But, for this reason, it is of vastly greater importance to win the rural
proletariat east of the Elbe than the small peasants of Western Germany,
or yet the middle peasants of Southern Germany. It is here, in East-Elbe
Prussia, that the decisive battle of our cause will have to be fought and
for this very reason both government and Junkerdom will do their utmost
to prevent our gaining access here. And should, as we are threatened, new
violent measures be resorted to to impede the spread of our Party, their
primary purpose will be to protect the East-Elbe rural proletariat from
our propaganda. It's all the same to us. We shall win it nevertheless.