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"For most of its history, nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat." They certainly were in the context we are speaking of here. Official So
by PrismCrystal 2y ago
"For most of its history, nearly everyone in the USSR was a farmer, so not proletariat." They certainly were in the context we are speaking of here. Official Soviet terminology, apparently starting at least from Lenin but I haven’t checked this thoroughly, divided the proletariat into rural proletarians (in Russian селские пролетарии) and urban proletarians (городские пролетарии). In any event, in colloquial contexts the word serves handily to refer to a life of rather menial trudging wherever it’s lived.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoOf course Lenin had an interest in selling the idea that everyone is actually proletariat. In reality by Marx's definition, proletariat are those who don't own the means of production (and are therefore stuck in earning by selling their labour), whereas farmers at least until the NEP died, mostly owned their own farms which means they did own the means of their production, which is also why farmers, or virtually everyone in the USSR outside the cities hated the communists. But I got your point.
- PrismCrystal 2y ago[flagged]