The ‘private plot’ in Soviet agriculture

The paper examines the main components of Mexican agrarian populism, and the attractions of the populist position in the light of the current crisis within the Mexican agricultural sector. It is suggested that the ‘campesinistas’ (agrarian populists) have incorporated various aspects of marxist analysis, but have nevertheless emphasised ways in which their approach pans company with that of most marxists in Latin America. According to writers like Gustavo Esteva, perhaps the leading ‘campesinista’, the peasant economy in the process of developing can co‐exist with capitalism for a protracted period, and considerable doubt exists as to whether the peasant economy is ‘ultimately’ inconsistent with capitalist development. The agrarian populists look to the peasantry in Mexico as a vehicle for rural development, believing that a better understanding of the internal logic of peasant production might facilitate an alternative series of policy measures. The weaknesses of the ‘campesinista’ position are explored, and doubts expressed about the viability of the populist stance as long as Mexico has the option of importing basic foodcrops.     

The agrarian question and class contradictions in South Africa: Some theoretical considerations

The article first considers two dominant approaches to black rural social formations in South Africa, those of neo‐classical populism and radical political economy, examining their ideology and politics as well as their theoretical inadequacies. The major part of the article then provides a general interpretation of the theory and politics of the agrarian question in Marxism, which has strategic implications for the current phase of national democratic struggle in South Africa, as for democratic and socialist struggles elsewhere. This discussion concentrates on issues concerning the land question, the agriculture/industry contradiction and the worker‐peasant alliance, petty commodity production and class differentiation vs. a homogenised rural mass ('the people'), and the centrality of the agrarian question to national democratic struggles and those for socialist transformation.     

African peasantries: A theoretical framework∗

The paper seeks to contribute to a framework for the investigation of the specific historical conditions and contemporary manifestations of the agrarian question in sub‐Saharan Africa. The latter is distinguished, inter alia, by the timing and modes of incorporation of African social formations in the international economy, and by the forms of intervention of the colonial and post‐colonial states in the absence of features classically associated with the agrarian question elsewhere, such as large landed property, the political power of landlords, and the formation of an agrarian bourgeoisie. The forms and degrees of subsumption of peasant simple commodity production in the circuit of capital, a process in which the state plays a central role, are seen as moving towards a situation in which peasant producers are constituted as ‘wage‐labour equivalents’.     

Agrarian crisis and social differentiation in Mexico

This article explores the double crisis of Mexican agriculture: one relating to the capitalist sector, the other to the peasant economy. An analysis of cash crops in contrast with subsistence crops is provided, using production and prices data for the 940–83 period. Then, based on the 1970 census, we present a spectrum of social differentiation of agrarian producers in Mexico which reflects the extent to which the peasant economy had been eroded by that year. By contrasting these data with those of 1960, we illustrate how the middle peasantry tends to disappear.     

Neo‐populism and Marxism: The Chayanovian view of the agrarian question and its fundamental fallacy

The neo‐populist viewpoint on the agrarian question, developed in Russia from the late 19th century against Marxist theory, enjoys a modified revival in India today. The theoretical core of the neo‐populist framework consists in the idea of an economically undifferentiated, virtually homogeneous peasantry, which shows extreme stability and viability vis a vis the competition of capitalist production; and is of superior efficiency with respect to yield. There is a basic logical fallacy underlying this view, consisting in the positing of identical conditions of production for units with differing objectives of production—’subsistence’ for peasant holdings and ‘profit’ for capitalist holdings—in a situation where they coexist and are linked through markets. In fact capitalist production cannot emerge at all unless it is accompanied by a rise in output and surplus per unit area compared to petty production, which presupposes technical change. The logical necessity of differing conditions of production, implies that all the neo‐populist propositions are invalid.     

Extreme but not exceptional: Towards an analysis of the agrarian question in Uganda

The article presents an analysis of the social relations of production and their contradictions in African peasant agriculture, which combine the ‘dull compulsion’ of market forces on petty commodity producers with various forms of extra‐economic coercion. Two paths of accumulation from below and from above are distinguished, the latter based in possession of, or access to, state power. Class formation and agrarian crisis are investigated through the mechanisms and effects of the two types of accumulation, illustrated by data on two villages in different areas of Uganda, which provide an extreme but not exceptional case of the agrarian question in contemporary African conditions. The analysis allows some strategic political conclusions to be suggested.     

The view from below: Cuban agriculture in the ‘special period in peacetime’

This article examines the changes taking place in Cuban agriculture at the local level as a result of the demise of the socialist trading bloc and Cuba's subsequent economic crisis. Based on fieldwork in three municipalities of Cuba, the authors describe new developments in each of the three main sectors of Cuban agriculture: state farms, production co‐operatives and individual peasant producers. They conclude that the dominant trend of this period is the tendency toward decentralisation of the state farm sector ‐ culminating in the historic September 1993 decision to form production co‐operatives on the state farms — counterpoised to renewed attempts to impose greater state control over peasant producers. Overall, they find a good deal of experimentation and heterogeneity in the actual implementation of state policy at the local level.     

The peasant image and agrarian change: Representations of rural society in nineteenth‐century French painting from millet to van Gogh

In the upsurge of rustic themes in French painting during the second half of the nineteenth century is articulated a range of urban responses to agrarian and industrial transformation of country and city at the time. The recreation through art of ‘peasant culture’ was rooted in preoccupations about work and production, changing social relations and forms of sociability, the idea of the nation and the growth of political consciousness. This article examines some of the processes underlying the abundant production of peasant images ‐ the role of patronage, the growing importance of contemporary art criticism in formulating and diffusing values and sensibilities — as well as the complex and, at times, contradictory strains within the iconography of rural life in nineteenth‐century French art.     

Understanding the silent majority in authoritarian populism: what can we learn from popular support for Putin in rural Russia?

ABSTRACT

This study distinguishes and challenges three main assumptions/shortcomings regarding the silent majority – the majority of the ‘ordinary’, ‘simple’, ‘little’ people, who are the main supporters of authoritarian populism. The silent majority is commonly portrayed as (1) consisting of ‘irrational’, ‘politically short-sighted’ people, who vote against their self-interests; (2) it is analysed as a homogeneous group, without attempting to distinguish different motives and interests among its members; (3) existing studies often overlook the political economy and structures of domination that gave rise to authoritarian populism. I address these shortcomings while analysing the political behaviour of rural Russians, who are the major supporters of Vladimir Putin. I reveal that the agrarian property regime and power relations in the countryside largely define the political posture of different rural groups. Less secure socio-economic strata respond more strongly to economic incentives, while better-off villagers tend to support the regime's ideological appeals. Furthermore, Putin's traditionalist authoritarian leadership style appeals to the archetypal base of the rural society – namely, its peasant roots – and, therefore, finds stronger support among the farming population. Finally, this study reveals that collective interests prevail over individual interests in the voting behaviour of rural dwellers, who support the existing regime despite the economic hardship it imposes upon them.     

Changes in peasant food production and food supply in relation to the historical development of commodity production in pre‐colonial and colonial Tanganyika∗

This paper explores the dynamic interaction between peasant food production and commodity production under conditions of the increasing penetration of capital and consequent erosion of pre‐capitalist modes of production in pre‐colonial and colonial Tanganyika (Tanzania). It is argued that while the law of value inherent in commodity production definitely served to effect more specialisation of labour in peasant production, nevertheless,it was bounded by the limits of labour productivity attainable in peasant household production units. Shortfalls in peasant food production appeared as the most glaring consequence of the labour productivity constraint. The role of the colonial state was critical, not merely in the sense of acting to increase peasant commodity production. The colonial state also intervened strategically to dispense famine relief in times of serious food shortfalls, which guaranteeing peasant subsistence, altered its character from that of unreliability to that of regularity. Since peasant subsistence formed the necessary base for peasant commodity production, state famine relief ensured the persistence of peasant commodity production but not its proliferation, the latter again being indicative of the labour productivity constraint.     

Agrarian reform and the transition to socialism in Chile, 1970–1973

The purpose of this article is to examine Popular Unity's agrarian policy in the light of the failure of the revolutionary forces to capture power and initiate a transition to socialism in Chile. We argue that Popular Unity's agrarian policy reflects the limitations and contradictions of its strategy to power. Although Allende's agrarian reform was extensive, drastic and rapidly executed, it nevertheless limited the peasantry's contribution to the revolutionary struggle for power. In the first part we briefly examine the agrarian legacy left by the Christian Democrat government of Frei to the Popular Unity and present the agrarian programme of Allende's government. We proceed in the second part with an analysis of peasant mobilisation and organisation, focusing on land seizures and peasant councils. In the third part we devote our attention to the organisation and functioning of the expropriated latifundia, which constituted the reformed sector, and examine why socialist relations of production failed to develop. Finally, in the fourth part, we attempt an assessment of Popular Unity's agrarian policy from the viewpoint of the accumulation of revolutionary forces in the rural sector by highlighting some of its contradictions.     

Land reform and Agrarian change in India and Pakistan since 1947: 1

Analysing the class character of land reform in India and Pakistan the author makes a distinction between ideology and programme. Judged by its ideology, land reform in India is sharply anti‐landlord and pro‐peasant and is thus a mobiliser of peasant support for the ruling elite. The programme of land reform, however, serves primarily the interests of an emerging intermediate class of under‐proprietors and big peasants. This intermediate class makes a joint front with the rural poor to curb the privileges of landlords. But it makes a common cause with the landlords to thwart any prospect of agrarian radicalism turning into a pro‐poor agrarian programme. In Pakistan the conflict between the old landlords and the emerging intermediate class is not as sharply articulated as in India and land policy therefore had a more pronounced pro‐landlord bias than was the case in India. In Pakistan at best it denotes the tension between the old moribund and a new dynamic landlord class.?     

Frontier expansion and settlement in lowland Bolivia

This article examines the expansion of cash crop production into the lowland Bolivian frontier and explores the dynamics of class formation that shaped peasant political consciousness. It discusses the factors that moulded local‐level response to the conditions created by capitalist development: the process of social differentiation that affected settlers and the relationship between subsistence agriculture and wage labour; the tensions between settlers and large‐scale entrepreneurs; and changing state policies and economic conditions. It concludes that rigid analytic distinctions between peasants and proletarians ignore the historical development of production relations in Bolivia.     

Book reviews

During the past two decades agrarian (‘land and farm’) reforms have been widespread in the transition economies of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), following earlier ones in Asia (China and Vietnam). However, independent family farms did not become the predominant sector in most of Eastern Europe. A new dual (or bi-modal) agrarian structure emerged, consisting of large farm enterprises (with much less social functions than they had before), and very small peasant farms or subsidiary plots. The paper compares five case studies, looking at agrarian actors, property rights, state influence, and rural poverty. These are Russia, Armenia, Moldova and Uzbekistan in the EECCA region, and China's Xinjiang province in Asia. The paper concludes that state influence is still substantial, property rights regimes are quite diverse and rural poverty remains medium to high. State-led agrarian reform, in particular where a redistributive (or restitution-based) land reform was implemented led in some cases to land-based wealth redistribution, but policies and institutions were lacking to support the individual farm sector. More often the outcome was a rapid transfer of land in the hands of corporate farm enterprises, reversing the initial process of ‘re-peasantization’. It seems that the old ‘Soviet dream’ of mega-farm enterprises in the ‘transition to capitalism’ has regained prominence, with huge agro-holdings ‘calling the shots’, providing an insecure future for agricultural workers, peasants and farmers.     

Reworking the metabolic rift: La Vía Campesina,agrarian citizenship,and food sovereignty

Amidst increasing concerns about climate change, food shortages, and widespread environmental degradation, a demand is emerging for ways to resolve longstanding social and ecological contradictions present in contemporary capitalist models of production and social organisation. This paper first discusses how agriculture, as the most intensive historical nexus between society and nature, has played a pivotal role in social and ecological change. I explore how agriculture has been integrally associated with successive metabolic ruptures between society and nature, and then argue that these ruptures have not only led to widespread rural dislocation and environmental degradation, but have also disrupted the practice of agrarian citizenship through a series of interlinked and evolving philosophical, ideological, and material conditions. The first section of the paper thus examines the de-linking of agriculture, citizenship, and nature as a result of ongoing cycles of a metabolic rift, as a ‘crucial law of motion’ and central contradiction of changing socio-ecological relations in the countryside. I then argue that new forms of agrarian resistance, exemplified by the contemporary international peasant movement La Vía Campesina's call for food sovereignty, create a potential to reframe and reconstitute an agrarian citizenship that reworks the metabolic rift between society and nature. A food sovereignty model founded on practices of agrarian citizenship and ecologically sustainable local food production is then analysed for its potential to challenge the dominant model of large-scale, capitalist, and export-based agriculture.     

Land reform and agrarian change in India and Pakistan since 1947: II

Analysing the actual processes and patterns of agrarian change following land reforms in India and Pakistan the author shows how radical land reform ideology without a radical land‐reform programme has dual consequences — beneficial for the emerging dynamic landlord or intermediate classes and agonising and unsettling for the rural poor. The latter are deprived of the elements of paternalism and security existing even within the old exploitative system without the provision of a new framework of security.

These dual consquences have been reinforced further by recent technological changes and the impetus to commercialism from these changes. The forced shift from secure to insecure, feudalistic to commercial, tenancy or the decline of tenancy resulting from eviction of tenants and resort to self‐cultivation by landlords coupled with growing economic differentiation between rich and poor peasants denote new and more naked sources of social tension and conflict than the old. They herald especially in India a new phase of agrarian instability in which the discontent of the rural poor may grow and cumulate and may even provide the impulse for a radical agrarian programme in tune with a radical agrarian ideology.?     

Commentary: Food regime for thought

This essay engages with Henry Bernstein's critical survey of food regime analysis, focusing on the claim that my interpretation of the food regime takes a misguided ‘peasant turn’. I argue Henry's representation loses sight of my reformulation of the ‘agrarian question’, as more than analysis of the uneven process by which capital subordinates landed property, and therefore of the class fate of the peasantry, as such. Rather it is about social and ecological fate on a global scale, involving questions of ecosystem survival, precarious labor circuits, urban slum proliferation, privatization of states, financialization, intellectual (property) rights, climate change mitigation and so on. Significantly, global recognition of these connections to processes of agro-industrialization and enclosure was informed by a ‘peasant’ mobilization that would be unthinkable within the terms of the classical agrarian question. Peasant organizations catalyzed challenge to the neoliberal food order institutionalized in the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, in a time of massive dispossession. Politicizing neoliberal ‘food security’ as an agribusiness project, the ‘food sovereignty’ counter-movement used a politics of strategic essentialism to unmask the undemocratic and impoverishing architecture of the ‘free trade’ regime privileging corporate rights over state and citizen rights. In effect, this counter-movement performed a food regime analysis from within, importantly reaching beyond a peasant project. This essay revisits the comparative-historical method by which the food regime trajectory can be understood, as a contradictory set of interacting forces and relations that complicate and shape and reshape its politics, and yet allow identification of emergent possibilities.     

Migration in colonial India: The articulation of feudalism and capitalism by the Colonial State

In this article a particular factual model of the way in which imperialism worked with respect to the Indian economy, which is widely accepted, is contested. The model in question assumes that though imperialism acts to transform agriculture—disintegrating and dissolving the traditional village structure—because it also thwarted industrialisation, backwardness in agriculture and dependence were maintained: the transformation of agrarian relations of production is contrasted with the stagnation of industrial growth, and the latter is held to be the causal factor. Against this it is argued that an examination of colonial migration reveals both the specific characteristics of the colonial working class it produced and the continuing existence of feudal ties of dependence in agriculture. The situation is best conceptualised in terms of the existence within the Indian social formation of feudal (agrarian) and proto‐capitalist (mines, plantations, factories) modes of production, articulated in such a way that the main costs of reproduction of labour power that was sold in the capitalist sector were borne in the non‐capitalist agrarian sector. The article concentrates on the period from the 1880s to the 1930s.     

Food security,food sovereignty,and local challenges for transnational agrarian movements: the Honduras case

This article examines the complicated histories of two competing development tropes in postwar Honduras: food security and food sovereignty. Food security emerged as a construct intertwined with land security and national food self-sufficiency soon after the militant, peasant-led movement for national agrarian reform in the 1970s. The transnational coalition, La Vía Campesina, launched their global food sovereignty campaign in the 1990s, in part to counter the global corporate industrial agro-food system. Cultural and political analysis reveals challenges for each trope. Food security resonates with deeply held peasant understandings of seguridad for their continued social reproduction in insecure social and natural conditions. In contrast, the word sovereignty, generally understood as powers of nation states, faces semantic confusion and distance from rural actors' lives. Moreover, Honduras's national peasant unions, weakened by funding cuts and neoliberal assaults on agrarian reform, diverted by their own efforts to help establish the transnational La Vía Campesina, have been unable and, in some cases, unwilling to campaign effectively for food sovereignty. In addition, a parallel network of NGO-supported sustainable agriculture centres has largely embraced the peasant understandings of food security, while remaining skeptical of ‘mismanaged, modernist’ agrarian reform and the food sovereignty campaign. Attention turns to structural analysis of the steady decline of agriculture, economy and social life in the Honduran countryside, while also identifying potentially hopeful local-national solidarities between peasant union and sustainable agriculture leaders within the popular resistance movement to the recent military coup. This article finds that transnational agrarian movements and food campaigns tend to ignore local peasant understandings, needs, and organisations at their own peril.     

Classifying Non‐European,pre‐colonial social formations: More than a quarrel over a name

The hypothesis of free peasant production in pre‐colonial India as opposed to bonded labour in Medieval Europe as the basis of denying the existence of feudalism in Indian history is critically examined. Apart from theoretical limitations, the validity of free peasant production is found questionable in light of historical evidence on the agrarian structure of Rajasthan, India, underlining the need for more issue oriented regional studies. It is suggested that in order to overcome the Euro‐centric view of feudalism it is necessary to use non‐Europen pre‐capitalist social formations as a reference point for comparative‐historical analysis. The colonial mode of historiography has led to the marginalization of princely India in Indian historical discourse. Bringing princely India from the margin to the mainstream is necessary in order to de‐colonise the discourse on Indian history. Classifying pre‐colonial social formations is more than a quarrel over a name: it is an important prerequisite if we are to understand the problem of colonial hegemony and popular resistance.