CHAPTER X. THE MODERN AGRICULTURAL CLASSES 104

The vagueness of class distinctions at a primitive stage of economic development--The peasantist conception of class antagonism in the village--Results of statistical investigation--Farmers deriving a net profit from agriculture--Farmer and business man--Concentration of the land and a strong patriarchal household--The employing farmer developing side by side with the dissolution of the compound family--The rural proletariat--Lack of land--The dissolution of the patriarchal family complete--The Russian proletarian as wage-laborer and employer at the same time--The transitional class--Deficit in the balance of farming resulting from the division of the co-operative family--The farmer as wage laborer--Imminent transition into the proletarian class--“The struggle of generations” in the village a reflected form of class antagonism.