Marx, Engels e la questione agraria

“It is clear that there is no reason to assume, as Marx seems to, that the demand for the nationalisation of land is economically and politically relevant to all capitalist societies. In fact Engels does acknowledge this in a preface to ‘The Peasant War in Germany’ when he talks about the decision of the First International which we referred to earlier: “Here we come to the famous decision of International Working Men’s Association in Basle that it is in the interest of society to transform landed property into common national property. This resolution was adopted mainly for countries where there is big landed property, and where, consequently, these big estates are operated by one master and many labourers. This state of affairs is still largely predominant in Germany, and, therefore, next to England the decision was most timely precisely for Germany.” (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. II, pp. 164-5). This implication is clear that the demand for nationalisation of land is not relevant to the economies where small to medium peasantry dominates; and for Engels the demand is more political than economic because he sees the nationalisation of land as a means of undermining the power of landlords and estate owners.” [Athar Hussain Keith Tribe, Marxism and the Agrarian Question. Volume 1. German Social Democracy and the Peasantry, 1890-1907, 1981]