When most people think of Karl Marx, they think of the class struggles of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Much of Marx’s work focuses on this, but there is another class that Marx also mentions: the peasantry. Although Marx spends much less time discussing the peasantry, he most famously analyzed the peasantry of France in The Eighteenth Brumaire and included their role in communism in The Communist Manifesto

Marx defines the peasantry as essentially farmers. In his time, the peasantry made up a majority of the population in countries like France. The peasantry are described as being almost completely self-sufficient, lacking any kind of reliance or cooperation with other people. Marx has a specific way of referring to a group of peasants. He writes that a group of farmers “makes up a village; a bunch of villages makes up a Department. Thus the large mass of the French nation is constituted by the simple addition of equal magnitudes—much as a bag with potatoes constitutes a potato-bag” (The 18th Brumaire 98). This is in contrast to the proletariat, who are an urban population that actively rely on specialized labor and cooperation. Because of their loose connection, the peasantry lack any unifying identity, which makes understanding their interests difficult.

Marx argues that the class interest of the peasantry was to get land and maintain their control over land.  After all, farming requires land. The first French revolution sought to give peasants their land, free from control of a lord. “After the first Revolution had transformed the semi-feudal peasants into freeholders, Napoleon confirmed and regulated the conditions in which they could exploit undisturbed the soil of France which they had only just acquired, and could satiate their youthful passion for property” (The 18th Brumaire 100). While owning land is typically the quality of the bourgeoisie, what separates the peasants from them is the peasants work their own land. Marx points to the praising of Napoleon by the peasantry to show that peasants supported those who support land redistribution to the peasants. Marx believes that most peasants “want to see themselves and their small holdings saved and favored by the ghost of the Empire” (The 18th Brumaire 99). The interest of the peasantry was then to maintain control over land. Overall, most peasants were conservative and wanted to maintain the status quo. There were some peasants that ran contrary to the conservative peasant, however. For example, there were revolutionary peasants who sided with the proletariat in their struggle, a group that grew larger as time went on, which will be discussed later. The split attitudes of the peasantry goes back to Marx’s assertion that the peasantry is far less united than other classes because of their independence from each other. But overall, most peasants simply wanted to keep their land and maintain stability and didn’t care for the proletariat’s struggles. This changed as time went on, as Marx explains.

Since the peasantry were a mass of ununited people, they often served the political interests of other classes. The bourgeoisie and proletariat struggled over the ability to control the peasantry. The bourgeoisie aimed to keep the peasantry conservative, whereas the proletariat worked to create a revolutionary peasantry. Under historical materialism, the side which the peasantry favored was a result of their economic condition. As mentioned before, the peasantry were given land under Napoleon, transforming the peasantry from a feudal society to a bourgeois society. This action put the peasants in competition with the bourgeoisie. Consequently, the peasantry increasingly formed an opposition to them and instead sided with the proletariat. 

Obviously, the peasantry was fond of Napoleon I, since he was responsible for giving the peasantry their land. The peasantry also supported Louis Bonaparte, primarily because of name. Marx argues however, that Louis Bonaparte worked against the interests of the peasantry. He writes, “Historical tradition gave rise to the French peasants’ belief in the miracle that a man named Napoleon would bring all glory back to them. And there turned up an individual who claims to be that man because he bears the name Napoleon” (The 18th Brumaire 98). Put simply, the peasantry was too naive to understand that Louis Bonaparte was working against them. Bonaparte helped the bourgeoisie reach into the peasant’s world. “Therefore the interests of the peasants are no longer, as under Napoleon, in accord with, but are now in opposition to bourgeois interests, to capital” (The 18th Brumaire 102). Marx alluded to an increasingly revolutionary peasantry, as bourgeoisie society continued to increase its reach into agriculture.

Marx ultimately comes to the conclusion that the peasantry must be led by the urban proletariat. Marx makes this clear, writing “the Communists, therefore, are… the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others” (The Communist Manifesto 22). The goal of their unity is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish a more classless society.