A Historical Analysis of the Proposal and Creation of the Worker-Peasant Alliance

The worker-peasant alliance is a major issue concerning the success or failure of the proletarian revolution. In the history of the international communist movement, who proposed and created the worker-peasant alliance? In 2010, there was a discussion in *Marxist Studies* [1]1 Engels, “The Peasant Question in France and Germany,” *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 27, p. 485.. One side argued that “Marx and Engels’ views on the role of peasants in the proletarian revolution were never positive,” that they “did not say that peasants would form an alliance with the working class,” and that they “did not say that the proletariat should regard peasants as its allies.” The other side countered, “It is difficult to accept the claim that Marx and Engels had no idea that peasants could become an allied army of the proletarian revolution, nor any idea that the proletarian revolution required a worker-peasant alliance.” The issue discussed in these two articles concerns whether Marx and Engels proposed the worker-peasant alliance, and this discussion had already occurred in the 20th century.

工农联盟是关系到无产阶级革命成败的重大问题。在国际共产主义运动史上是谁提出并创建了工农联盟呢 2010年《马克思主义研究》有过一次讨论，一方提出“马克思和恩格斯对农民在无产阶级革命中作用的看法一直不是正面的”，“没有说农民会同工人阶级结成联盟”，“没有说无产阶级应该把农民看作自己的同盟者”;另一方反驳，“马克思和恩格斯没有农民可以成为无产阶级革命的同盟军的思想，也没有无产阶级革命需要有工农联盟的思想，这是难以令人接受的”。两文讨论的问题关系到马克思恩格斯是否提出了工农联盟，而这一讨论在20世纪就发生了。

I. Two Interpretations of Who Proposed the Worker-Peasant Alliance

一、是谁提出工农联盟的两种解读

In 1947, the Soviet Union published a Chinese two-volume edition of *Selected Works of Lenin* based on the 1943 Russian two-volume edition, which served as a common text for China’s ideological circles and cadres studying Lenin’s thought in the 1950s and 1960s. The “Preface to the 1946 Russian Original Edition” written by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) stated for the first time in the history of the international communist movement and the development of Marxism that Lenin’s 1894 work *What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats* “first put forward the idea of a revolutionary alliance of workers and peasants.” [2]2 The First International (International Workingmen’s Association, 1864–1876) and the Second International (1889–1916) were the two main international organizations of socialist and workers’ parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1954, the Soviet Union compiled and published the first collection in the history of Marxism specifically devoted to the worker-peasant alliance, *Lenin on the Worker-Peasant Alliance*, which was published in Chinese in 1956. The editors, the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute under the Central Committee of the CPSU, again pointed out: “The idea that a revolutionary alliance between workers and peasants is the main means for overthrowing the tsarist system, the landlords and the bourgeoisie, and for creating a communist society, was first put forward by Lenin in his book *What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats*, published in 1894.”

1947年，苏联依照1943年出版的《列宁文选》两卷本出版了中文版两卷本《列宁文选》，是我国二十世纪五六十年代思想界和干部学习列宁思想通用的文本。书中联共(布)中央马恩列学院撰写的《一九四六年俄文原版序》在国际共产主义运动史和马克思主义发展史上第一次提出，列宁1894年著作《什么是“人民之友”以及他们如何攻击社会民主党人?》“初次提出了工农革命联盟思想”。1954年，苏联汇编和出版了马克思主义发展史上第一本专门论述工农联盟的文集《列宁著 论工农联盟》，于1956年出版中文版，编者苏共中央马恩列斯学院再次指出：“关于工农结成革命联盟是推翻沙皇制度、地主和资产阶级以及创建共产主义社会的主要手段这一思想，是由列宁在发表于一八九四年的《什么是“人民之友”以及他们如何攻击社会民主党人?》一书中初次提出的。”

Following the translation and publication of the first Chinese edition of the *Complete Works of Lenin* in 1955, China independently compiled and published the second Chinese edition of the *Complete Works of Lenin* in 1984. For the first time, a “Preface” was added at the beginning of each volume to interpret the content and important theoretical viewpoints of the articles in that volume, a practice that has continued. The “Preface” to Volume 1 of the second edition of the *Complete Works of Lenin* offered the first interpretation by China’s ideological circles of the 1894 work *What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats*: “While criticizing the Narodniks [3]3 Marx, “Letter to the Editorial Board of *Otechestvennye Zapiski*” (1877), *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 24, p. 200., Lenin demonstrated the basic program and strategy of the Social-Democrats, elucidated the historical mission of the working class, and put forward the ideas of a worker-peasant alliance and the transformation of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution.” It can be said that China’s ideological circles concurred with the views of the Soviet ideological circles. The “Explanation” to Volume 1 of the third edition of the *Selected Works of Lenin* published in 1995 and the “Explanation to Volume 1” of the revised third edition published in 2012 continued the above idea—that Lenin “put forward the ideas of a worker-peasant alliance and the transformation of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution.” The author believes that this interpretation contains the following subtext: since the worker-peasant alliance was first proposed by Lenin in 1894, Marx and Engels before him did not propose it.

继1955年我国翻译出版《列宁全集》中文第1版之后，1984年，我国自行编译出版《列宁全集》中文第2版，第一次在每卷开篇增写一篇《前言》，解读本卷文章的内容和重要理论观点，并把这一做法延续下来。《列宁全集》第2版第1卷《前言》第一次对1894年著作《什么是“人民之友”以及他们如何攻击社会民主党人?》作出我国思想界的解读：“在批判民粹派的同时，列宁论证了社会民主党人的基本纲领和策略，阐明了工人阶级的历史使命，提出了工农联盟和民主革命转变为社会主义革命的思想。”可以说，我国思想界认同苏联思想界的观点。1995年出版的《列宁选集》第3版第1卷《说明》和2012年出版的《列宁选集》第3版修订版《第一卷说明》，继续了上述思想——列宁“提出了工农联盟和民主革命转变为社会主义革命的思想”。笔者以为，上述解读含有这样一个潜台词：既然工农联盟是列宁于1894年首次提出的，那么之前的马克思恩格斯没有提出工农联盟。

Starting in 1956, China gradually translated and published the first Chinese edition of the *Complete Works of Marx and Engels* based on the second Russian edition of 1955. In the “Explanation to Volume 7” translated in 1959, the Soviet ideological circles interpreted Marx’s work *The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850*: “This work by Marx devotes considerable space to analyzing the condition and role of the peasantry, its relationship with the proletariat… Based on the experience of the class struggle in France, it drew very important theoretical and political conclusions: the proletariat must form an alliance with the peasantry.” Subsequently, the “Explanation to Volume 8” interpreted *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*: “With the bankruptcy of small-scale peasant farming and its exploitation by usurer-capitalists, increasing numbers of peasant masses will shake off the corrosive influence of ‘Napoleonic ideas.’ The peasants’ reason, their correctly understood interests, the development of contradictions between them and the bourgeoisie—all this will inevitably lead the peasants to act in concert with the working class… ‘…the peasantry sees the urban proletariat, charged with the mission of overthrowing the bourgeois system, as its natural ally and leader.’” “This conclusion of Marx is a development of the idea of a worker-peasant alliance under the leadership of the working class, which Marx had already expressed in *The Class Struggles in France*.” Does this argument by the Soviet ideological circles mean that they had changed their earlier view that Lenin “first put forward the idea of a revolutionary alliance of workers and peasants”? China’s Central Compilation and Translation Bureau was not influenced by this. The third edition of the *Selected Works of Lenin* in 1995 and the revised third edition in 2012 still adhered to the theoretical understanding of the Soviet ideological circles from the 1940s and 1950s, presenting two different interpretations compared to the *Selected Works of Marx and Engels* published in the same year.

自1956年开始，我国依照《马克思恩格斯全集》俄文1955年第2版，陆续翻译出版《马克思恩格斯全集》中文第1版。在1959年译出的《第七卷说明》中，苏联思想界对马克思著作《1848年至1850年的法兰西阶级斗争》作出解读：“马克思这本著作用很大的篇幅来分析农民的状况和作用、分析它和无产阶级的相互关系……根据法国阶级斗争的经验，作出了非常重要的理论上的和政治上的结论：无产阶级必须同农民结成联盟。”其后《第八卷说明》对《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》作出解读：“随着小农经济的破产，随着高利贷资本家对它的盘剥，将有愈来愈多的农民群众摆脱‘拿破仑观念’的腐蚀。农民的理智，他们的被正确理解的利益，他们和资产阶级之间矛盾的发展，——这一切必然会使农民同工人阶级采取一致的行动……‘……农民就把负有推翻资产阶级制度使命的城市无产阶级看作自己的天然同盟者和领导者。’”“马克思的这一结论是他在‘法兰西阶级斗争’中就已表述过的工人阶级领导下的工农联盟这一思想的发展”。苏联思想界这一论点，是否意味着他们改变了此前认为是列宁“初次提出了工农革命联盟思想”的论点呢?我国中央编译局未受其影响，1995年《列宁选集》第3版和2012年《列宁选集》第3版修订版依然坚持了苏联思想界二十世纪四五十年代的理论认识，与同年出版的《马克思恩格斯选集》作出了两种不同的解读。

The second edition of the *Selected Works of Marx and Engels*, published in the same year as the *Selected Works of Lenin*, added an “Explanation” to each volume for the first time, analyzing and interpreting the selected articles by Marx and Engels. The “Explanation” to Volume 1 of the second edition of the *Selected Works of Marx and Engels* in 1995 and the “Explanation to Volume 1” of the third edition in 2012 consistently held that it was Marx’s *The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850*, published in 1850, that “solved the problem of the proletariat’s allies in the revolution” and “put forward the idea that the worker-peasant alliance is the most important prerequisite for the success of the proletarian revolution.” Subsequently, it further argued that in *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*, “this work… elaborated the idea that the worker-peasant alliance is an important prerequisite for the success of the proletarian revolution.” This also concurred with the argument in the “Explanation” of the first Chinese edition of the *Complete Works of Marx and Engels*, which was translated from the Russian edition.

与《列宁选集》同年出版的《马克思恩格斯选集》第2版，第一次在每卷增写一篇《说明》，分析和解读本卷所选的马克思恩格斯文章。1995年《马克思恩格斯选集》第2版第1卷《说明》和2012年《马克思恩格斯选集》第3版《第一卷说明》一致认为，是1850年马克思发表的《1848年至1850年的法兰西阶级斗争》“解决了无产阶级在革命中的同盟军问题”，“提出了工农联盟是无产阶级革命成功的最重要前提的思想”。其后进一步认为，马克思在《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》“这部著作中……阐述了工农联盟是无产阶级革命成功的重要前提的思想”，这也是认同了依照《马克思恩格斯全集》俄文版译出的《马克思恩格斯全集》中文第1版的《说明》的论点。

The author believes that the “Prefaces” written by the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, interpreting the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, hold high representativeness and guidance in China’s ideological and theoretical circles, broadly influencing China’s Marxist academic community. The “Explanations” written by the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau for the 1995 second edition of the *Selected Works of Marx and Engels* have, over the past thirty years, more deeply influenced China’s Marxist academic community. The view that Marx first proposed the worker-peasant alliance has not only become a consensus in China’s theoretical circles but has also become the general argument in subsequent articles and works on the history of the international communist movement and the development of Marxism, both domestically and internationally. To this day, China’s Marxist academic community has not discussed these two contradictory interpretations of the worker-peasant alliance. The author believes that to resolve this contradiction, it is necessary to clarify the actual situation of the worker-peasant relationship and the ideas of the European socialists represented by Marx and Engels.

笔者认为，中央编译局撰写的《前言》对马克思恩格斯列宁思想的解读，在我国思想界和理论界有着很高的代表性与指导性，广泛地影响着我国马克思主义学界。中央编译局撰写的1995年《马克思恩格斯选集》第2版的《说明》，三十年来更深地影响了我国马克思主义学界，认为是马克思首先提出工农联盟，不仅成为我国理论界的共识，而且成为其后国内国际共产主义运动史和马克思主义发展史文章著作的通论。上述两种矛盾的关于工农联盟的解读，我国马克思主义学界至今没有作出过讨论。笔者认为，解决上述矛盾，须厘清以马克思恩格斯为代表的欧洲社会主义者的工农关系及其思想的实际情况。

II. The Worker-Peasant Relationship among 19th-Century European Socialists

二、19世纪欧洲社会主义者的工农关系

The worker-peasant relationship and the ideas of 19th-century European socialists are closely linked to the tortuous revolutionary path they experienced over half a century. To detach from this historical process and selectively quote Marx and Engels’ writings on the worker-peasant relationship to argue that they proposed the worker-peasant alliance cannot reflect the historical truth.

19世纪欧洲社会主义者的工农关系及其思想，密切关联着他们所经历的半个世纪的曲折革命道路，脱离这一历程，摘引马克思恩格斯关于工农关系的文字，论证他们提出了工农联盟，不能反映历史的本来面目。

Articles in China’s Marxist academic community studying Marx and Engels’ ideas on the worker-peasant relationship often cite statements like the following:

我国马克思主义学界研究马克思恩格斯的工农关系思想的文章，常常引述他们这样一类话：

— In January 1848, Engels pointed out in *The Movement of 1847*: “There is no doubt that the day will come when the ruined peasantry will unite with the proletariat, and then the proletariat will develop to a higher stage and declare war on the bourgeoisie.”

——1848年1月，恩格斯在《1847年的运动》中指出：“毫无疑问，总有一天贫困破产的农民会和无产阶级联合起来，到那时无产阶级会发展到更高的阶段，向资产阶级宣战。”

— In March 1850, when Marx and Engels drafted the *Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League*, they wrote: “Just as the democrats unite with the peasants, so the workers must unite with the rural proletariat.”

——1850年3月，马克思恩格斯起草《共产主义者同盟中央委员会告同盟书》时写道：“正如民主派同农民联合起来那样，工人也应当同农村无产阶级联合起来。”

—In 1852, Marx’s *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* held that, as the oppression and exploitation suffered by the peasantry continuously intensified, and as small-scale landed property increasingly disintegrated, “the peasantry sees its natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat, whose task is the overthrow of the bourgeois order.”

——1852年，马克思著《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》认为，随着农民受到的压迫剥削不断加重，随着小块土地所有制日益加剧的解体，“农民就把负有推翻资产阶级制度使命的城市无产阶级看作自己的天然同盟者和领导者”。

However, the Marxist scholarly community in China has generally failed to notice that the above understanding of the peasantry and the worker-peasant relationship expressed by Marx and Engels during the revolutionary period of 1848 was their ideological understanding when, as young men, they first participated in the bourgeois revolution and the proletarian revolution. This understanding later underwent significant changes as their social experience and accumulation of revolutionary struggle grew richer.

但是，我国马克思主义学界普遍没有注意到，上述马克思恩格斯在1848年革命时期发表的对农民及其工农关系的认识，是他们在青年时代初次参加资产阶级革命和无产阶级革命时的思想认识，后来随着社会阅历和革命斗争经验的积累与丰富而发生了很大的变化。

The first to change ideologically was Engels. At the end of 1848, in *From Paris to Bern*—a work half travel sketch, half social survey—Engels remarked, “I have spoken with hundreds of peasants in various parts of France, and they all hate Paris, and especially the Paris workers, with a bitter hatred.” They opposed the Paris workers’ revolution and voted “for Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.” This experience completely changed Engels’s view of the peasantry and the worker-peasant relationship; thereafter, he never again held that the peasantry could, on its own, recognize the need for an alliance with the working class.

首先在思想上发生变化的是恩格斯。1848年底，恩格斯在《从巴黎到伯尔尼》这篇半是旅行散记半是社会调查的美文中谈到，“我曾经和法国各地的成百个农民谈过话，他们对巴黎，特别是对巴黎工人都切齿痛恨”，他们反对巴黎工人革命，投票“选举路易-拿破仑·波拿巴”。这次经历彻底改变了恩格斯对农民及工农关系的看法，此后再无农民可以自己认识到须与工人阶级联盟的思想。

Marx’s change in understanding of the peasantry and the worker-peasant relationship took a longer period. After the defeat of the 1848 revolution, Marx reflected on the history of that defeat. In May 1852, the pamphlet *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* was published in New York, USA; only a small number of copies were shipped back to Germany, and “it was never sold on the real book market.” The work was almost unknown to the European intellectual world. In 1869, Marx published the second edition of the work in Germany, deleting the following passage from the first edition: “Once the French peasantry becomes disillusioned with the Bonapartist restoration of the empire, it will abandon its faith in its small plot of land; then the entire state edifice built upon this small-scale landed property will collapse, and the proletarian revolution will obtain a chorus without which its solo in all peasant countries would become a swan song.” In the preface to the second edition, Marx said: “If I were to revise the book now, it would lose its distinctive character. I have therefore confined myself to correcting typographical errors and removing allusions that are no longer intelligible.” It must be pointed out here that the Chinese first edition of the *Complete Works of Marx and Engels* (1961) and the Chinese first edition of the *Selected Works of Marx and Engels* (1972), compiled and published by China itself, both carried the second edition of *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*. From the main text to the notes, neither contained the above passage deleted by Marx. In 1995, China published the second edition of the *Selected Works of Marx and Engels*; Volume 1 also included the second edition of *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*. For the first time, the passage Marx had deleted from the first edition was printed below the main text as an “editor’s note” for readers’ reference, and the volume’s *Explanation* offered this interpretation: “Marx elucidates the inevitability of the peasantry forming an alliance with the working class. He incisively analyzes the economic and political condition of the peasantry under capitalism, pointing out that, as bourgeois rule intensifies, the peasantry becomes increasingly revolutionary and recognizes the opposition between its own interests and those of the bourgeoisie. Therefore, they ‘see their natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat, whose task is the overthrow of the bourgeois order.’ At the same time, because of peasant support, ‘the proletarian revolution will obtain a chorus without which its solo in all peasant countries would become a swan song.’” This was the first time the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau interpreted, through the *Explanation*, Marx’s statement that the peasantry would, based on its own circumstances, “see its natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat, whose task is the overthrow of the bourgeois order.” It was also the first interpretation of this “editor’s note” in the *Selected Works*—that is, the passage Marx had deleted—and it deeply influenced the Marxist scholarly community in China. For thirty years, articles have continuously argued that Marx proposed the worker-peasant alliance. The author believes that we should respect Marx’s decision to delete this passage when he republished his own work in 1869. Using contemporary thinking to argue about Marx’s revision of his own work often only adds ambiguity. Therefore, this passage, which Marx himself deleted, should not be used as a basis for contemporary arguments that Marx proposed the worker-peasant alliance. Subsequently, what prompted a major change in Marx’s understanding of the peasantry and the worker-peasant relationship was the Paris Commune revolution. It was precisely through this failed revolutionary struggle that Marx came to recognize “the profound contradiction between urban producers and rural producers, between the industrial proletariat and the peasantry.” In 1875, four years after the defeat of the Paris Commune struggle, Marx continued to reflect on the situation of revolutionary struggle over more than twenty years since the 1848 revolution and made a judgment about the peasantry that differed from his youthful period during the 1848 revolution: “Wherever the peasant exists in large numbers as a private proprietor, wherever, as in the countries of Western Europe, the peasantry even constitutes a majority to a greater or lesser extent, wherever the peasant has not disappeared and has not been replaced by agricultural wage laborers, as in England, the following situation will arise,” namely, “the peasantry will hinder and ruin every workers’ revolution, as has happened in France up to now.”

马克思对农民及工农关系认识的变化经过了一段较长的时期。1848年革命失败后，马克思思考革命失败的历史，1852年5月在美国纽约出版单行本《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》，只有少部分成书运回德国，“没有在真正的书籍市场上出售过”，该书几乎不为欧洲思想界所知。1869年，马克思在德国出版该书第2版，删除了第1版里这样一段文字：“法国农民一旦对拿破仑帝制复辟感到失望，就会把对于自己小块土地的信念抛弃；那时建立在这种小块土地上面的全部国家建筑物，都将会倒塌下来，于是无产阶级革命就会得到一种合唱，若没有这种合唱，它在一切农民国度中的独唱是不免要变成孤鸿哀鸣的。”马克思在第2版序言里说了这样一段话：“现在如果对本书加以修改，就会使它失掉自己的特色。因此，我只限于改正印错的字，并去掉那些现在已经不再能理解的暗语。”这里须指出的是，1961年《马克思恩格斯全集》中文第1版和1972年我国自行编译出版的《马克思恩格斯选集》中文第1版刊载的是《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》第2版，从正文到注释，都没有上述被马克思删除的这段文字。1995年，我国出版《马克思恩格斯选集》第2版，第1卷收录的也是《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》第2版，第一次把马克思从该书第1版删除的上述这段文字以“编者注”的方式印在正文下面，供读者参阅，并在本卷《说明》中作了这样的阐释：“马克思阐明了农民与工人阶级结成联盟的必然性。他精辟地分析了资本主义制度下农民的经济和政治状况，指出在资产阶级统治加强的情况下农民日益革命化，认识到自身利益与资产阶级利益的对立。因此，他们‘就把负有推翻资产阶级制度使命的城市无产阶级看作自己的天然同盟者和领导者’。同时，由于农民的支持，‘无产阶级革命就会得到一种合唱，若没有这种合唱，它在一切农民国度中的独唱是不免要变成孤鸿哀鸣的。’”这是中央编译局通过《说明》首次解读马克思认为农民会根据自身的情况“把负有推翻资产阶级制度使命的城市无产阶级看作自己的天然同盟者和领导者”这句话，也是首次对选集这一“编者注”即马克思删除的这段文字作出解读，深深地影响了我国马克思主义学界，三十年来不断有文章论证马克思提出了工农联盟。笔者认为，我们应当尊重马克思1869年再版自己这本著作时删除这段文字的做法，以今人的思想论说马克思修订自己著作的做法往往会徒增歧义，因而这段马克思自己删除的话不宜作为今人论证马克思提出工农联盟的根据。其后，促使马克思对农民及工农关系的认识发生重大变化的是巴黎公社革命。正是经过这次失败的革命斗争，马克思认识到“在城市生产者和农村生产者之间、在工业无产阶级和农民之间是存在着深刻的矛盾的”。1875年，即巴黎公社斗争失败四年后，马克思继续思考1848年革命以来二十多年革命斗争的情况，对农民的认识作出了不同于青年时代1848年革命时期的论断：“凡是农民作为私有者大批存在的地方，凡是像在西欧大陆各国那样农民甚至多少还占多数的地方，凡是农民没有消失，没有像在英国那样为农业短工取代的地方，就会发生下列情况”，即“农民会阻碍和断送一切工人革命，就像法国迄今所发生的那样”。

The above changes in the ideological understanding of Marx and Engels merely provide a historical fact: the wish of European socialists during the era of the 1848 European bourgeois revolution that the working class and the peasantry could actively unite with each other was unrealizable for both sides. It took half a century of proletarian revolutionary struggle for people to truly and theoretically grasp the essence of this issue. In 1901, Karl Kautsky, analyzing the new draft program of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, said the following words, which Lenin called “perfectly correct and very important”: “Socialism, like the class struggle of the proletariat, is rooted in modern economic relations; like the class struggle of the proletariat, it arises from the struggle against the poverty and distress that capitalism causes among the masses. But socialism and the class struggle arise side by side, not one from the other; they arise under different premises… Socialist consciousness is something that must be brought into the proletarian class struggle from without, not something that arises spontaneously from within this struggle.” “The task of the Social Democratic Party is to instill into the proletariat this consciousness of its position and its tasks.” Lenin keenly grasped the profound scientific content in Kautsky’s view, distilled it, and successfully applied it to an extremely important aspect of the proletarian revolutionary struggle—the building of the proletarian party. In *What Is to Be Done?*, he emphasized: “The workers, by themselves, cannot possibly have a Social Democratic consciousness. This consciousness can only be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is capable of developing only trade-union consciousness.” Undoubtedly, neither the working class nor the peasantry can recognize the social essence of their own problems, nor can they generate a mutual revolutionary desire; thus, a socialist consciousness of the worker-peasant alliance cannot arise spontaneously. From this emerges a basic sociological principle: scientific socialism cannot arise spontaneously among the working masses; it must be brought to them under the leadership of a strong proletarian party, through education, before it can be recognized by the working masses.

上述马克思恩格斯思想认识的变化只是提供一种历史事实，即欧洲社会主义者在1848年欧洲资产阶级革命年代关于工人阶级和农民可以主动互相联合的愿望，对于双方来说都是不会实现的。而人们真正从理论上深刻认识到这一问题的实质，经历了半个世纪的无产阶级革命斗争。1901年，卡·考茨基分析奥地利社会民主党的新纲领草案，说了这样一段被列宁称之为“十分正确而重要的话”:“社会主义这种学说，也同无产阶级的阶级斗争一样，根源于现代经济关系，也同无产阶级的阶级斗争一样，是从反对资本主义所引起的群众的贫穷和困苦的斗争中产生的，但社会主义和阶级斗争是并列地产生的，而不是一个从另一个中产生出来，它们是在不同的前提下产生的……社会主义意识是一种从外面灌输到无产阶级的阶级斗争中去的东西，而不是一种从这个斗争中自发地产生出来的东西。”“社会民主党的任务就是把认清无产阶级的地位及其任务的这种意识灌输到无产阶级中去。”列宁敏锐地感悟到考茨基这一观点中深邃的科学内容，提炼出来，成功地运用到无产阶级革命斗争的一个极其重要的方面——无产阶级政党建设，在《怎么办?》一书中强调“工人本来也不可能有社会民主主义的意识。这种意识只能从外面灌输进去，各国的历史都证明：工人阶级单靠自己本身的力量，只能形成工联主义的意识”。无疑，无论工人阶级还是农民既不能认识到自身问题的社会本质，也不能产生互动的革命愿望，也就不会自发地产生工农联盟的社会主义意识。由此，形成了一条社会学基本原理，即科学社会主义是不能在工人群众中自发产生的，须在坚强的无产阶级政党领导下，经过教育才能被工人群众认识到。

In 1848, the *Communist Manifesto*, which marks the birth of Marxism, contains the following passage on the peasant question: “The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests; they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.” This classic exposition from the early years of the birth of Marxism established the basic stance and viewpoint of Marx and Engels on the worker-peasant relationship throughout their lives, and had a profound influence on how the workers’ parties of the First International and the Second International thought about and handled the relationship between the working class and the peasantry. The *Communist Manifesto*’s view of the peasantry as a social middle stratum is theoretically correct. However, analyzing a problem in theory is not the same as solving it in practice. Transforming the scientific socialism of books into policies and strategies capable of guiding actual revolutionary struggle is a highly variable and extremely complex practical activity and intellectual project. A famous case is that 27 years after the publication of the *Communist Manifesto*, and 4 years after the failure of the Paris Commune uprising in France, the German Workers’ Party, considering its action strategy, drafted the Gotha Program in 1875, which included the following clause concerning the peasant question: “To it [the working class], all other classes are only one reactionary mass.” [1]1 Engels, “The Peasant Question in France and Germany,” *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 27, p. 485. When the Party’s program contained such an understanding harmful to uniting the social middle strata, Marx and Engels immediately wrote the “Critique of the Gotha Program” and sent letters to the German Workers’ Party to correct it. In the 19th-century international communist movement, given that the influential German Workers’ Party held such a simplistic and one-sided view of the middle classes, including the peasantry, it is not difficult to understand the tumultuous and regrettable revolutionary course they subsequently experienced.

1848年，标志着马克思主义诞生的《共产党宣言》关于农民问题有这样一段话：“中间等级，即小工业家、小商人、手工业者、农民，他们同资产阶级作斗争，都是为了维护他们这种中间等级的生存，以免于灭亡。所以，他们不是革命的，而是保守的。不仅如此，他们甚至是反动的，因为他们力图使历史的车轮倒转。如果说他们是革命的，那是鉴于他们行将转入无产阶级的队伍，这样，他们就不是维护他们目前的利益，而是维护他们将来的利益，他们就离开自己原来的立场，而站到无产阶级的立场上来。”这段马克思主义诞生初年的经典论述，奠定了马克思恩格斯一生关于工农关系的基本立场和观点，对第一国际、第二国际各工人政党思考和处理工人阶级与农民的关系影响深远。《共产党宣言》视农民为社会中间阶层的观点，在理论上是正确的。但是，在理论上分析一个问题，与在实践中解决这个问题不是一回事，把书本上的科学社会主义理论转变为可以指导实际革命斗争的政策策略，是一项变数极大且非常复杂的实践活动和思想工程。一个著名的案例是，《共产党宣言》发表27年后，也就是法国巴黎公社起义失败4年后，德国工人党思考行动策略，于1875年制定《哥达纲领》，写下了这样一则涉及农民问题的条款：“对它(工人阶级)说来，其他一切阶级只组成反动的一帮。”党的纲领里出现这样有害于团结社会中间阶层的认识，马克思恩格斯当即著文《德国工人党纲领批注》，致信德国工人党加以纠正。在19世纪国际共产主义运动中，颇有影响的德国工人党对包括农民在内的中间阶级的认识如此简单、片面，也就不难理解其后他们所经历的跌宕而令人痛惜的革命历程。

From the February Revolution of 1848 to the Paris Commune uprising of 1871, although the European proletariat suffered two defeats, these more than twenty years of armed struggle for state power were indeed the most heroic and glorious era and brilliant chapter of the European proletarian revolutionary movement. During this period, European socialists represented by Marx and Engels pondered the path forward and the forms of struggle for the revolutionary movement, tending to link the two major issues of armed struggle and improving the worker-peasant relationship.

从1848年二月革命到1871年巴黎公社起义，尽管欧洲无产阶级历经两次失败，但这二十多年夺取国家政权的武装斗争，确是欧洲无产阶级革命运动最可歌可泣的辉煌年代和灿烂篇章。这期间，以马克思恩格斯为代表的欧洲社会主义者思索革命运动前进的道路与斗争方式，趋于将武装斗争与改善工农关系这两个重大问题联系起来。

— In April 1856, Marx wrote to Engels: “How well we understand our brave brothers on the other side of the Rhine! The whole thing in Germany will depend on the possibility of backing the proletarian revolution by some second edition of the Peasant War. Then it will be splendid.” [2]2 The First International (International Workingmen’s Association, 1864–1876) and the Second International (1889–1916) were the two main international organizations of socialist and workers’ parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This was the first time Marx, in clear and emotionally charged language, proposed that a close worker-peasant relationship was extremely important for armed struggle and for the German proletarian revolution. However, this idea, close to that of a worker-peasant alliance, remained for a long time only in their private correspondence, unknown to the workers’ parties of the First and Second Internationals for thirty years, and was not transformed into a method of thought or policy strategy capable of influencing workers’ parties to actively connect with the peasantry.

——1856年4月马克思致信恩格斯：“我们是多么了解莱茵河彼岸我们那些英勇的兄弟呵!德国的全部问题将取决于是否有可能由某种再版的农民战争来支持无产阶级革命。如果那样就太好了。”这是马克思以明确而富有感情的语言，第一次提出密切工农关系以进行武装斗争，对德国无产阶级革命是极端重要的。可是，这个接近工农联盟的思想，长时间存留在他们二人信件里，三十年不为第一国际、第二国际工人政党所知，没有转化为可以影响工人政党主动联系农民的思想方法和政策策略。

— In February 1870, before the Paris Commune uprising, Engels incorporated the idea from Marx’s April 1856 letter into his published monograph, the “Preface to the Second Edition of *The Peasant War in Germany*,” publicly presenting it to the German workers’ movement of the time: “To win the mass of the agricultural proletariat and agricultural day-labourers, and to win them for the movement, is the first and most pressing task of the German workers’ movement. Once the mass of the agricultural day-labourers has learned to understand its own interests, there can be no more feudal, bureaucratic, or bourgeois reactionary government in Germany.” [3]3 Marx, “Letter to the Editorial Board of *Otechestvennye Zapiski*” (1877), *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 24, p. 200. However, the German Workers’ Party never paid attention to the idea in Engels’ text, described as “the first and most pressing task of the German workers’ movement,” an idea that could practically lead to a worker-peasant alliance. They never transformed this theoretical idea into methods and strategies capable of guiding the German working class to actively improve relations with the peasantry. One year later, not in Germany, but in France, the Paris Commune armed uprising broke out—the first time the European proletariat seized state power from the bourgeoisie. This was the pinnacle of the 19th-century international communist movement!

——巴黎公社起义前的1870年2月，恩格斯将上述马克思1856年4月与他通信的思想写进了他公开发表的专著《〈德国农民战争〉第二版序言》，向那时的德国工人运动公开提出：“唤起这个阶级(笔者注：农业无产阶级和农业短工)并吸引它参加运动，是德国工人运动首要的最迫切的任务。一旦农业短工群众学会理解自己的切身利益，在德国就不可能再有任何封建的、官僚的或资产阶级的反动政府存在了。”但是，恩格斯文中提出的“是德国工人运动首要的最迫切的任务”，这一在实践上可能导向工农联盟的思想，德国工人党始终没有重视，没有将这一理论思想转变为能够指导德国工人阶级主动改善与农民关系的方法和策略。一年后，不是在德国，而是在法国，爆发了欧洲无产阶级第一次夺取资产阶级国家政权的巴黎公社武装起义。这是19世纪国际共产主义运动的顶峰!

Four years after the defeat of the Paris Commune revolution, in 1875, Marx developed an understanding and judgment of the peasantry different from his views during the 1848 revolution. Forty-six years after the 1848 revolution, the elderly Engels, in his book *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*, made a retrospective and summary consistent with Marx’s 1875 understanding: “The hazy socialist passions of the February Revolution of 1848 were swept away at one blow by the reactionary vote of the French peasantry,” and “this single feat of the peasantry alone cost the French people how dearly,” so that by the end of the 19th century, “the French people are still suffering the consequences of this feat.” [4]4 Marx, *The Civil War in France*, *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 22, p. 332.

巴黎公社革命失败4年后，1875年马克思对农民作出不同于自己1848年革命时期的认识和论断。在1848年革命46年后，晚年恩格斯著书《法德农民问题》作出同上述马克思1875年认识一致的回顾和总结：“1848年二月革命的朦胧的社会主义的激情，很快就被法国农民的反动投票一扫而光”，“单是农民的这一勋业就索取了法国人民多少代价”，直到19世纪末，“法国人民至今还深受这一勋业的后果之苦”。

The above historical reflections by Marx and Engels on the revolutions since 1848 transcended their earlier understanding of the peasantry and represent the mainstream of their intellectual development on the peasant question. Some Chinese scholars believe that the view that “Marx and Engels’ view of the role of the peasantry in the proletarian revolution was never positive” is consistent with historical reality.

上述马克思恩格斯对1848年革命以来的历史反思，超越了他们前期关于农民的认识，是他们在农民问题上思想认识发展的主流。我国有学者认为，“马克思和恩格斯对农民在无产阶级革命中作用的看法一直不是正面的”是符合历史实际的。

The Paris Commune armed uprising had failed. How to scientifically understand and summarize the Paris Commune revolution, which was a glorious defeat, was a major historical task facing all European socialists and the First International. This would be extremely closely related to the ideological and organizational construction of the European working class after the failure of the Paris Commune revolution and the entire direction of the proletarian revolutionary movement. However, by 1876, the First International was dissolved. Following the German Workers’ Party’s drafting of the Gotha Program in 1875, which determined “to strive for a free state and a socialist society by all legal means” and to participate in elections for the Reichstag, in May 1880, Jules Guesde, leader of the newly formed French Workers’ Party, together with Marx’s son-in-law Paul Lafargue, visited Marx in London. Together they drafted the French Workers’ Party’s electoral program for participation in the French National Assembly, which contained no text concerning the worker-peasant relationship. From then on, European socialists and the workers’ parties of various countries fully embarked on the parliamentary road.

巴黎公社武装起义失败了，如何科学认识、总结虽败犹荣的巴黎公社革命，是摆在全体欧洲社会主义者和第一国际面前的重大历史任务，这将极其密切地关系到巴黎公社革命失败后欧洲工人阶级思想上组织上的建设及其整个无产阶级革命运动的走向。但是，到1876年，第一国际解散了。继德国工人党1875年制定《哥达纲领》，确定“用一切合法手段去争取建立自由国家——和——社会主义社会”，参加国民议会竞选之后，1880年5月，新成立的法国工人党领导人茹·盖得偕同马克思女婿拉法格赴伦敦拜见马克思，共同起草了法国工人党参与法国国民议会的竞选党纲，其中没有关于工农关系方面的文字。从此，欧洲社会主义者和各国工人政党全面走上议会道路。

European socialists and the First and Second Internationals were long based in cities, far from the countryside and the peasantry. What impact did this environment and experience have on their thinking about how to conduct revolutionary struggle? In March 1895, the elderly Engels published his “Introduction to Karl Marx’s *The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850*” (hereinafter referred to as the “Introduction”), which reflected the thoughts, judgments, and conclusions of that generation after half a century of revolution regarding the path and forms of struggle of the proletarian revolution. It contains two notable passages:

欧洲社会主义者和第一国际、第二国际长期身处城市，远离农村和农民，这样的环境和经历，对他们思考如何进行革命斗争会产生怎样的影响呢 1895年3月，晚年恩格斯发表《卡·马克思〈1848年至1850年的法兰西阶级斗争〉一书导言》(下文简称《导言》)，反映了他们那一代人历经半个世纪革命，对无产阶级革命道路及其斗争方式作出的思考、判断和总结，有这样两段引人注目的话：

— “In France, the socialists are increasingly recognizing that lasting victory is impossible unless they first win over the great mass of the people—here, the peasants. Patient propaganda work and parliamentary activity are also regarded there as the immediate tasks of the Party. Successes were quickly achieved. The socialists not only won many municipal councils, but also hold fifty seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and have already overthrown three cabinets and one president of the Republic.”

——“在法国，社会主义者也日益认识到，除非预先把人民中的广大群众——这里就是农民——争取过来，否则就不可能取得持久的胜利。耐心的宣传工作和议会活动，在那里也被认为是党的当前任务。成绩很快就做出来了。社会主义者不但夺得了许多市镇委员会，而且已经有50个社会主义者在议院中占有议席，他们已经推翻了共和国的三个内阁和一个总统。”

— “The conditions of struggle have also fundamentally changed. The old type of insurrection, the barricade street fighting that had played a decisive role everywhere before 1848, is now largely obsolete... We should cherish no illusions about this.”

——“斗争的条件也已经发生了根本的变化。旧式的起义，在1848年以前到处都起过决定作用的筑垒巷战，现在大大过时了……我们对此不应抱什么幻想”。

In this publicly published “Introduction,” Engels emphasized that “patient propaganda work and parliamentary activity were also regarded there as the Party’s current tasks.” This is one of the main themes of the “Introduction,” expressing full affirmation of the parliamentary struggle methods adopted by the workers’ parties of France and Germany and the Second International, as well as a vision of a bright future. The other main theme connected with this is that “what deserves to be examined more carefully here” is “the method of struggle of 1848,” namely the “old-style insurrection” of urban street barricade fighting, which “today is in every respect already outdated.” Although in letters to friends written after the publication of the “Introduction,” Engels still expressed ideas of not abandoning violent revolution, these private exchanges of thought, which were not made public at the time, had no influence on the action strategies of the workers’ parties of France and Germany and the Second International.

在这篇公开发表的《导言》中，恩格斯强调“耐心的宣传工作和议会活动，在那里也被认为是党的当前任务”，这是《导言》的主调之一，展现了对法德两国工人政党和第二国际所采取的议会斗争方式的充分肯定和对美好前景的展望。与此相联系的另一个主调是，“值得在这里比较仔细地加以探讨”的是“1848年的斗争方法”，即城市街垒巷战的“旧式的起义”，“今天在一切方面都已经过时了”。尽管在《导言》发表后，恩格斯写给友人的书信里依然表达了不放弃暴力革命的思想，但是这些在当时未公开的私人之间的思想交流，对法德两国工人政党和第二国际的行动策略没有影响。

How to understand the two main themes elaborated in the “Introduction” is a point of divergence in China’s intellectual circles. Some scholars believe that “Engels, with immense theoretical courage and a spirit of seeking truth from facts, made new theoretical judgments and breakthroughs in understanding regarding the process and struggle strategies of the proletarian socialist revolution,” arguing that this represented an exploration of a new revolutionary path through the parliamentary struggle of the workers’ parties of France and Germany. The author agrees with this analysis; but this is only half the story. The other half is that history has already proven that this exploration was not successful.

如何认识《导言》所阐述的两大主调，我国思想界存在分歧。有学者认为，“恩格斯以巨大的理论勇气和实事求是的精神对无产阶级社会主义革命进程与斗争策略作出了新的理论判断和认识突破”，认为这是通过法德两国工人政党实施议会斗争，探索一条新的革命道路。笔者同意这一分析；但是这话只说了一半，还有另一半，即历史已经证明，这一探索没有成功。

The fact that 19th-century European socialists did not produce the thought and action of a worker-peasant alliance has deeper historical factors. The 19th century was the era of bourgeois revolutions in Europe. A major difference from the later bourgeois revolutions in Russia and China is that the European bourgeois democratic revolutions, represented by those in Britain, France, and Germany, were entirely completed under the leadership of the domestic bourgeoisie, resolving the rural peasant land question in a manner favorable to the bourgeoisie. After these revolutions, the entire peasant class was deeply influenced by the domestic bourgeoisie, becoming members of the camp of the rising domestic bourgeoisie. Their major political role was to become supporters and backers of the domestic bourgeois parties, manifesting as an important voting force in the elections of those bourgeois parties. Under the long-term malicious propaganda and influence of the bourgeois parties, the relationship between European peasants, as voters, and the urban working class was very poor. This gave rise to a problem: from any perspective, the European workers’ parties in the European proletarian revolution had a very arduous political task: they had to pull the peasants (here mainly referring to working peasants) out of the bourgeois camp and unite them under the banner of the proletarian revolution. Undoubtedly, for European socialists and workers’ parties, improving the worker-peasant relationship was a difficult and heavy task, which ultimately became a historical regret!

19世纪欧洲社会主义者没有产生工农联盟的思想和行动，有着更为深层的历史因素。19世纪是欧洲资产阶级革命年代，与后来的俄国和中国的资产阶级革命一个很大不同是，以英法德为代表的欧洲资产阶级民主革命，完全是在本国资产阶级领导下完成的，以有利于资产阶级的方式基本解决了农村农民土地问题。经过这场革命，整个农民阶级受到本国资产阶级深刻影响，成了这场革命中崛起的本国资产阶级营垒的成员，其重大政治作用是成了本国资产阶级政党的拥护者和支持者，表现为本国资产阶级政党竞选的重要票选力量。在资产阶级政党长期恶意宣传和影响下，作为选民的欧洲农民与城市工人阶级的关系非常不好。由此产生一个问题，无论从哪个角度讲，欧洲无产阶级革命中欧洲工人政党都有一个十分艰巨的政治任务，就是必须把在资产阶级营垒里的农民(这里主要指劳动农民)拉出来，团结在无产阶级革命的旗帜下。无疑，对欧洲社会主义者和工人政党来说，改善工农关系是一件艰难而沉重的任务，最终成为了历史遗憾!

Fifty-two years after the Paris Commune Revolution, in 1923, commemorating the sixth anniversary of the October Revolution, Stalin wrote an article titled “The October Revolution and the Intermediate Strata.” Regarding the 1848 European Revolution and the 1871 Paris Commune Revolution, he wrote these few profound sentences: “One of the reasons for the defeat of the French Revolution of 1848 was that it did not gain the sympathy and response of the French peasants. One of the reasons for the collapse of the Paris Commune was that it encountered the resistance of the intermediate strata, first and foremost the peasants.” — Stalin’s explanation of the reasons for the failure of these two European revolutionary movements was concise and to the point. It not only objectively and truthfully revealed the actual state of worker-peasant relations in the 19th-century European communist movement but also profoundly pointed out the reasons why the 19th-century European proletarian revolution could not succeed. From Stalin’s words, it is not difficult to see that although European socialists and workers’ parties had gone through two bloody struggles — the 1848 Revolution and the 1871 Paris Commune Uprising — they had not completed the major historical task of scientifically understanding and summarizing the lessons of these two revolutionary failures. Stalin’s “The October Revolution and the Intermediate Strata” is a key for China’s Marxist academic circles to understand and analyze the reasons for the failure of the Paris Commune Revolution and the direction of the European proletarian revolutionary movement.

巴黎公社革命52年后，1923年纪念十月革命六周年，斯大林著文《十月革命与中间阶层》，针对欧洲1848年革命和1871年巴黎公社革命，写下了这样几句寓意精深的文字：“1848年法国革命失败的原因之一，就是它没有得到法国农民的同情和响应。巴黎公社崩溃的原因之一，就是它遇到了中间阶层首先是农民的抗拒。”——斯大林对欧洲这两次革命运动失败原因的阐释，言简意赅，一语中的，不仅客观而真实地揭示出19世纪欧洲共产主义运动中工农关系的实际面貌，而且极其深刻地指出了19世纪欧洲无产阶级革命不能成功的原因所在。从斯大林的话里不难看出，欧洲社会主义者和工人政党虽历经1848年革命和1871年巴黎公社起义两次铁血斗争，却没有完成科学认识和总结这两次革命失败的经验教训这一重大历史任务。斯大林的《十月革命与中间阶层》，是中国马克思主义学界认识和分析巴黎公社革命失败原因和欧洲无产阶级革命运动走向的一把钥匙。

III. Historical Facts and Historical Issues Reflected in *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*

三、《法德农民问题》反映出的历史事实和历史问题

After nearly half a century of the European proletarian revolutionary movement, in November 1894, the elderly Engels published *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*, which for the first time in the history of the international communist movement and the development of Marxism raised the concept of the “peasant question.” Accurately interpreting this work is an important key to analyzing whether Marx and Engels had the idea of a worker-peasant alliance. This work reveals at least four major historical facts, on the basis of which a judgment can be made in accordance with seeking truth from facts.

欧洲无产阶级革命运动历经近半个世纪，1894年11月，晚年恩格斯发表《法德农民问题》，在国际共产主义运动史和马克思主义发展史上第一次提出“农民问题”的概念。准确解读这篇著作，是辨析马克思恩格斯是否具有工农联盟思想的重要法门。这篇著作揭示了至少四件重大历史事实，可以据此作出实事求是的判断。

*The Peasant Question in France and Germany* opens with these few sentences: “The bourgeois and reactionary parties are greatly astonished that the socialists have suddenly everywhere put the peasant question on the agenda. Strictly speaking, we should be astonished that this has not happened long ago.” What historical situation does Engels refer to when he says “the socialists have suddenly everywhere put the peasant question on the agenda”? Why were the bourgeois parties “greatly astonished” by this? — At the Tenth Congress of the French Workers’ Party in Marseille in September 1892, the first land program was adopted, not only for the French Workers’ Party but also for European socialists and workers’ parties of various countries, 44 years after the birth of the *Communist Manifesto* in 1848. This program was revised at the Twelfth Congress of the French Workers’ Party in Nantes in September 1894. In October of the same year, Vollmar, one of the leaders of the German Social Democratic Party, gave a supplementary report on the land program at the Party’s Frankfurt Congress, discussing the peasant question and sparking internal party debate. The opening few sentences of *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* expose a very significant historical situation in the history of the international communist movement: that it was not until the end of the 19th century, after half a century, that European socialists and workers’ parties “put the peasant question on the agenda,” and this event even caused the “bourgeois and reactionary parties” in society to be “greatly astonished.” This historical situation profoundly indicates that for decades, European socialists and workers’ parties had little voice and almost no influence in the vast social field of the rural peasantry. This is the first major historical fact exposed in the opening of *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*: that European socialists and workers’ parties had not set foot in the peasant movement. Based on the fact that Engels lamented that European socialists and workers’ parties had “not happened long ago” to pay attention to the peasant question, it can be judged that they had never engaged in the peasant movement nor put forward the idea of a worker-peasant alliance. The historical situation that European socialists and workers’ parties “had not happened long ago” to pay attention to the peasant question, which also made Engels “astonished,” has long been overlooked by China’s Marxist academic circles. This should indeed make China’s Marxist academic circles “astonished” and deserves great attention and in-depth study. The historical facts and historical issues exposed in the opening of *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* are the gateway to understanding this article.

《法德农民问题》开篇即是这样几句话：“资产阶级的和反动的政党，对目前社会主义者突然到处都把农民问题提上了议事日程，感到非常惊奇。按理说，我们倒应该对这件事情没有早已发生而感到惊奇。”恩格斯说的“目前社会主义者突然到处都把农民问题提上了议事日程”是一种什么历史情况呢?为什么资产阶级政党为此而“感到非常惊奇”呢?——在1892年9月马赛法国工人党第十次代表大会上，通过了不仅是法国工人党，也是1848年《共产党宣言》诞生44年后，欧洲社会主义者和各国工人党制定的第一份土地纲领；在1894年9月南特法国工人党第十二次代表大会上对该纲领又作了修订。同年10月，德国社会民主党领导人之一福尔马尔在党的法兰克福代表大会上作关于土地纲领的补充报告，讨论农民问题，引发了党内争论。《法德农民问题》开篇寥寥数语，暴露出国际共产主义运动史方面一件非常重大的历史情况，即直至19世纪末，历经半个世纪，欧洲社会主义者和工人政党才“把农民问题提上了议事日程”，此事竟引得社会上的“资产阶级的和反动的政党”“感到非常惊奇”。这一历史情况极其深刻地表明，几十年来，欧洲社会主义者和工人政党在农村农民这一广阔的社会领域言少声微，几无影响。这是《法德农民问题》开篇暴露出来的欧洲社会主义者和工人政党没有涉足农民运动的第一件重大历史事实。根据恩格斯感慨欧洲社会主义者和工人政党“没有早已”关注农民问题这一事实，可以作出判断，他们一直没有涉足农民运动，也没有提出工农联盟的思想。欧洲社会主义者和工人政党“没有早已”关注农民问题而使恩格斯也“感到惊奇”这一历史情况，一直为我国马克思主义学界所忽视，实在是应当使我国马克思主义学界“感到惊奇”，给予极大的关注和深入的研究。《法德农民问题》开篇暴露出的这一历史事实和历史问题，是读懂这篇文章的入门。

The second major historical fact reflected in *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* is that the French Workers’ Party, founded in 1879, only turned its attention to the peasant question more than a decade later, producing a land programme that was “full of contradictions” and highly controversial. Engels stated frankly and explained: “Our French comrades are completely right on one point: without the will of the small peasant, no lasting change is possible in France. I merely feel that they have not found the correct method of approaching the peasant.” [1]1 Engels, “The Peasant Question in France and Germany,” *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 27, p. 485. The historical situation Engels revealed and the conclusion he drew are entirely correct! What needs further interpretation here is that Engels’ conclusion—that “our French comrades” “have not found the correct method of approaching the peasant”—was not an isolated case limited to the French Workers’ Party, but a widespread and unresolved problem among 19th-century European socialists and the workers’ parties of the First and Second Internationals. [2]2 The First International (International Workingmen’s Association, 1864–1876) and the Second International (1889–1916) were the two main international organizations of socialist and workers’ parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It took them half a century to “place the peasant question on the agenda,” and they still “had not found the correct method of approaching the peasant.” This situation clearly demonstrates how greatly they neglected the peasantry. How could 19th-century European socialists and workers’ parties, who had not “approached the peasant” for decades, be said to possess “a series of basic principles of theory on the peasant question,” or a “complete and systematic” theory of the peasant question? This is obviously untenable. Such an approach, which artificially elevates the ideas of Marx and Engels contrary to the actual circumstances, is inadmissible. As Marx criticized the Russian populists, “if you insist on transforming my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historico-philosophical theory of the general path of development,” “you will do me too much honor and at the same time too much insult.” [3]3 Marx, “Letter to the Editorial Board of *Otechestvennye Zapiski*” (1877), *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 24, p. 200.

《法德农民问题》反映出的第二件重大历史事实是，法国工人党1879年成立，十几年后方关注农民问题，拿出的却是一份“矛盾百出”而颇有争议的土地纲领。恩格斯直言不讳地揭示并阐明：“我们的法国同志有一点是完全正确的：违反小农的意志，任何持久的变革在法国都是不可能的。我只是觉得，他们没有找到接近农民的正确方法。”恩格斯揭示的这一历史情况并作出的结论，完全正确!这里须进一步解读的是，恩格斯的这一结论，即“我们的法国同志”“没有找到接近农民的正确方法”，不是一个仅仅发生在法国工人党身上的个案，而是19世纪欧洲社会主义者和第一国际、第二国际各工人政党普遍存在且一直没有解决的问题。他们历经半个世纪才“把农民问题提上了议事日程“，且一直“没有找到接近农民的正确方法”，这一情况十分清楚地表现出他们是多么地忽视农民。几十年没有“接近农民”的19世纪欧洲社会主义者和工人政党，又何来“关于农民问题理论的一系列基本原理”，何来“完整而系统的”农民问题理论呢?这显然是说不通的。这种不符合实际情况而硬是拔高马克思恩格斯思想的做法是不可取的，即如马克思批评俄国民粹派“一定要把我关于西欧资本主义起源的历史概述彻底变成一般发展道路的历史哲学理论”，“会给我过多的荣誉，同时也会给我过多的侮辱”。

The Paris Commune revolution failed in March 1871, and in April Marx wrote *The Civil War in France*, pointing out that “there exists a profound antagonism between the town producer and the rural producer, between the industrial proletariat and the peasant.” [4]4 Marx, *The Civil War in France*, *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 22, p. 332. Had this situation changed 23 years later? — No. The third major historical fact revealed in *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*: “Since the workers’ movement began, the bourgeoisie of Western Europe, especially in regions where small-scale peasant landownership predominates, has had little difficulty in making the peasant regard the socialist worker as a *partageux*, i.e., a ‘divider of property,’ as a lazy, greedy city dweller who seeks to rob the peasant of his property, and thus to make the peasant suspicious and hateful of him.” From the words of Marx and Engels, we can clearly see the truth of why the urban working class in 19th-century Europe failed to “approach the peasant” for decades, and it also reveals the true nature of the relationship between European socialists and workers’ parties on the one hand and the peasantry on the other. From this it can be inferred that if the relationship between European socialists and workers’ parties and the peasantry was distant and indifferent, how could there be any talk of a worker-peasant alliance?

1871年3月巴黎公社革命失败，4月马克思著书《法兰西内战》指出，“在城市生产者和农村生产者之间、在工业无产阶级和农民之间是存在着深刻的矛盾的”。23年过去了，这一情况改变了吗?——没有。《法德农民问题》揭示的第三件重大历史事实：“自从工人运动发生以来，西欧的资产者，特别是在农民小块土地所有制占优势的地区，不用很费气力就能使得农民把社会主义工人想象成partageux， 即‘均产分子’，想象成设法抢夺农民财产的一群懒惰而贪婪的城里人而怀疑和憎恨他们。”从马克思恩格斯的话中，可以清楚地看出19世纪欧洲城市工人阶级为什么几十年未能“接近农民”的真相，也透视出欧洲社会主义者和工人政党与农民相互关系的真相。由此可以推断，欧洲社会主义者和工人政党与农民的关系淡漠疏远，又谈何工农联盟呢?

The fourth major historical fact revealed in *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* is that the main subject of the article concerns the participation of the workers’ parties of France and Germany in elections for the national parliament. This situation profoundly and clearly shows how the peasantry was positioned in the thinking of European socialists and the workers’ parties of the Second International. In Chinese Marxist academic circles, when interpreting *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*, it is common to cite this sentence: “In order to win political power, this party must first go from the cities to the countryside, and must become a force in the countryside.” Many commentators look only at the literal meaning of this sentence and mechanically link it to the Chinese Communist Party’s move from the cities to the countryside to carry out the agrarian revolution in 1927, drawing a parallel and regarding “Engels’ idea as the precursor of the New Democratic Revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party.” Most commentators do not deeply consider under what circumstances Engels made this proposal to the workers’ parties of France and Germany, what problem of the French and German workers’ parties it addressed, what he was calling on them to do by “going from the cities to the countryside,” and how they were to win political power. — To put it simply, the proposal in *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* that the workers’ parties of France and Germany should “go from the cities to the countryside” has nothing in common with the Chinese Communist Party’s move into the countryside after the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927. In the perspective of European socialists, and in the perspective of the workers’ parties of France and Germany and the entire Second International, the political and ideological positioning of the peasantry was completely different from that of the Chinese Communist Party. So what was their positioning of the peasantry? What was the essence of their relationship with the peasantry? Two words: voters! As early as 1848, Engels emphasized: “The French peasants have over six million votes, more than two-thirds of all French votes.” The real situation in 1894 was that the French Workers’ Party “wanted, overnight, to win over the small peasant as much as possible, even in the very next general election.” *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* advised and urged the workers’ parties of France and Germany to “go from the cities to the countryside” and connect with the peasantry in order to “win over the small peasant in the general election,” to compete with bourgeois parties for the peasant vote, and to use the vote to “win political power”! Voters and votes were the essence of the relationship between 19th-century European socialists and workers’ parties and the peasantry. Reading the *Chronology of the Life and Work of Marx and Engels*, one finds no trace of their going into the countryside to participate in the peasant movement; they consistently analyzed and discussed the peasantry as part of the intermediate strata of society. It can be said that “the peasant question” as a specialized theoretical concept and a relatively independent major practical and theoretical issue in the proletarian revolution had not yet systematically emerged in Marx’s thought. The concept of “the peasant question” proposed by Engels in his later years, with its main content being participation in parliamentary elections of bourgeois states and the voter relationship with the peasantry, was not of the same type as the later concepts of “the peasant question” of Lenin and Mao Zedong, which had as their main content struggle against the landlord and bourgeois classes. The worker-peasant alliances once proposed in the former Soviet Union and in China were the result and manifestation of struggle against the landlord and bourgeois classes, developed in the course of armed struggle to seize state power from the bourgeoisie, and had clear targets, means, and goals of revolutionary struggle.

《法德农民问题》坦露的第四件重大历史事实是，文章讲的主要事情是关于法德两国工人政党参与国民议会竞选的问题。这一情况，十分透彻而深刻地显现出农民在欧洲社会主义者和第二国际工人政党思想上是一种怎样的定位。我国马克思主义学界解读《法德农民问题》，普遍引述文中这句话：“为了夺取政权，这个政党应当首先从城市走向农村，应当成为农村中的一股力量。”不少论者仅仅看这句话的字面意思，生硬地与我们中国共产党人在1927年从城市深入农村开展土地革命相联系，相比拟，视“恩格斯的这一思想是中国共产党领导的新民主主义革命的先声”。多数论者没有深思恩格斯向法德两国工人党提出“为了夺取政权”这一建议，是在什么情况下，针对法德两国工人政党的什么问题说的，号召他们“从城市走向农村”去干什么?怎么夺取政权?——简明地说，《法德农民问题》建议法德两国工人政党“从城市走向农村”，与中国共产党在1927年大革命失败后深入农村，没有共同之处。在欧洲社会主义者视野里，在法德两国工人政党和整个第二国际视野里，农民在他们思想上政治上的定位与中国共产党完全不同。那么他们对农民的定位是什么呢?他们与农民关系的实质是什么呢?两个字：选民!早在1848年恩格斯就强调：“法国农民拥有600多万张选票，占法国全部选票的2/3以上。”1894年的真实情况是，法国工人党“想要在朝夕之间，尽可能甚至就在最近一次的普选中把小农争取过来”。《法德农民问题》建议、督促法德两国工人政党“从城市走向农村”，联系农民，是为了在“普选中把小农争取过来”，与资产阶级政党争夺农民这部分选票，用选票来“夺取政权”!选民，选票，是19世纪欧洲社会主义者和工人政党与农民相互关系的实质。阅读《马克思恩格斯生平事业年表》，没有找到他们深入农村参与农民运动的足迹，一直是把农民视为社会中间阶层的一部分来分析和论述的。可以说，“农民问题”作为一个专门的理论概念和无产阶级革命中一个相对独立的重大实践与理论的问题，在马克思思想里还没有系统产生。恩格斯晚年提出的“农民问题”概念，以参加资产阶级国家议会竞选及其和农民的选民关系为主要内容，与后来列宁、毛泽东的以与地主资产阶级斗争为主要内容的“农民问题”概念不是一个类型。曾经的苏俄和我国提出的工农联盟，是与地主资产阶级斗争的结果和表现，是在实行武装夺取资产阶级国家政权的斗争中发展起来的，有着鲜明的革命斗争的对象、手段和奋斗目标。

In writing *The Peasant Question in France and Germany*, Engels sincerely advised the workers’ parties of France and Germany to “go from the cities to the countryside.” However, this advice had no effect; they did not heed Engels’ proposal, which had significant political orientation and policy functions, and did not “go from the cities to the countryside,” thus missing this opportunity to “approach the peasant” that might have influenced and changed them! What did have an effect on them was another passage. The article optimistically predicted that “in the parliaments of Germany, France, and Belgium,” “the steadily increasing number of socialist deputies” meant that “the seizure of political power by the socialist party has become a foreseeable event in the near future.” It was precisely based on this optimistic assessment of the electoral situation that the article proposed and elaborated policy recommendations regarding small, middle, and large peasants “once our party has taken state power.”

恩格斯写作《法德农民问题》，诚恳告诫法德两国工人政党要“从城市走向农村”。但是这一忠告没有发生作用，他们没有听从恩格斯这一具有重大政治导向和政策功能的提议，没有“从城市走向农村”，失去了这次“接近农民”而可能影响和改变自身的机会!而对他们起作用的是另一番话。文中乐观地展望“德国、法国、比利时的议会里”，“不断增多的社会党议员”，使得“社会党夺取政权已成为可以预见的将来的事情”。正是出于对选情发展形势的乐观预判，文章提出并阐释“我们的党一旦掌握了国家政权”后关于小农、中农、大农方面的政策建议。

The actual historical situation and deep-seated historical problems of European socialists and the First and Second Internationals reflected in *The Peasant Question in France and Germany* open a historical door for Chinese Marxist academic circles to comprehensively review their historical activities and to study their relationship with the peasantry and the original features of their thought in a truth-seeking manner. The history of the 19th-century international communist movement shows that, starting from the Second International, European socialists and workers’ parties moved further and further away from the revolutionary path of the worker-peasant alliance, leaving a major historical task urgently needing resolution for the 20th-century proletarian revolutionary movement.

《法德农民问题》反映出的欧洲社会主义者与第一国际、第二国际的实际历史情况和深层历史问题，为我国马克思主义学界全面回顾他们的历史活动，实事求是地研究他们的工农关系及其思想的本来面貌，开启了一扇历史的大门。19世纪国际共产主义运动的历史表明，从第二国际始，欧洲社会主义者和工人政党距离工农联盟的革命道路越来越远了，留给20世纪无产阶级革命运动一项亟须解决的重大历史任务。

IV. Lenin Proposed and Established the Worker-Peasant Alliance

四、 列宁提出并创建了工农联盟

Who was it that proposed and established the worker-peasant alliance, thereby opening the door to victory for the proletarian revolutionary movement?

是谁提出并创建了工农联盟，从而打开了无产阶级革命运动胜利的大门呢?

The person who truly first attempted and preliminarily resolved the issue of the worker-peasant alliance in both practice and theory was Lenin. The Russian socialists represented by Lenin had the bitter experience of prolonged exile in the countryside by the Tsarist government, understood the Russian countryside and peasantry, and possessed the life foundation and emotional basis for generating the idea of a worker-peasant alliance.

真正从实践和理论上第一次尝试并初步解决工农联盟问题的人是列宁。以列宁为代表的俄国社会主义者多有被沙皇政府长期流放农村的苦难经历，了解俄国的农村和农民，具有产生工农联盟思想的生活基础及思想感情。

Soviet intellectual circles believed that it was Lenin who proposed and established the worker-peasant alliance, and that the worker-peasant alliance was a product of Leninism.

苏联思想界认为，是列宁提出并创建了工农联盟，工农联盟是列宁主义的产物。

As mentioned earlier, in the late 1940s, Soviet intellectual circles first proposed that it was Lenin who “first put forward the idea of a revolutionary worker-peasant alliance” in *What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats* (1894).

前文提到，20世纪40年代末，苏联思想界第一次提出是列宁在《什么是“人民之友”以及他们如何攻击社会民主党人?》(1894年)“初次提出了工农革命联盟思想”。

In 1954, the Soviet Union published *On the Worker-Peasant Alliance*, the first theoretical collection in the history of Marxism devoted exclusively to the worker-peasant alliance. Its editors, the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute under the Central Committee of the CPSU, held that: “The idea that a revolutionary alliance of workers and peasants is the principal means of overthrowing the tsarist system, the landlords and the bourgeoisie, and of creating a communist society, was first put forward by Lenin in his 1894 work *What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats*. In this work Lenin demonstrated that the Russian working class, in alliance with the peasantry, would overthrow tsarist autocracy, and then, in alliance with the working people and the exploited masses, and side by side with the proletariat of other countries, would march along the high road of open political struggle all the way to a victorious communist revolution. In his later works Lenin demonstrated that the worker-peasant alliance is the supreme principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” “Lenin’s idea of the worker-peasant alliance became the guiding principle for all the activities of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which he founded. The worker-peasant alliance was the most important condition for the Soviet people’s victories of world-historical significance and for the consolidation and strengthening of the Soviet socialist state.” This thesis of Soviet intellectual circles is based on solid historical facts and can be considered valid.

1954年，苏联出版《论工农联盟》，是马克思主义发展史上第一本专门论述工农联盟的理论文集。编者苏共中央马恩列斯学院认为：“关于工农结成革命联盟是推翻沙皇制度、地主和资产阶级以及创建共产主义社会的主要手段这一思想，是由列宁在发表于一八九四年的《什么是“人民之友”以及他们如何攻击社会民主党人?》一书中初次提出的。列宁在这一著作里论证了：俄国工人阶级和农民结成联盟就会推翻沙皇专制制度，然后和劳动人民及被剥削群众结成联盟，并与其他国家的无产阶级并排，就将循着公开政治斗争的大道一直走向胜利的共产主义革命。列宁在自己以后的著作里论证了：工农联盟是无产阶级专政的最高原则。”“列宁关于工农联盟的思想，成了列宁所创立的苏联共产党全部活动的指导原理。工农联盟，是苏联人民获得世界历史意义胜利、苏维埃社会主义国家得以巩固和强盛的最重要的条件。”苏联思想界这一论点，有坚实的历史事实为根据，是可以成立的。

In actual revolutionary struggle, the proposal of the idea of a worker-peasant alliance and the establishment of such an alliance are not separable, independent processes. When Lenin used the verbal expression “worker-peasant alliance,” he was already ideologically planning, operationally laying out, and implementing the joint struggle of workers and peasants against the landlord class and the big bourgeoisie. The fusion of his practice and thought was like a river formed from streams that increasingly surges forward. This is why it is said that “theory is the ideological expression of practice.”

在实际革命斗争中，提出工农联盟思想和建立工农联盟不是可以分开的各自独立的过程。列宁在使用“工农联盟”这一文字表述时，已经在思想上谋划、行动上布局并实施工农共同反对地主阶级和大资产阶级的斗争了，其实践与思想之紧密融合如一条由溪流汇成而日趋奔腾的江河。这就是为什么说“理论是实践的思想表现”。

The history of the proletarian revolutionary struggle over more than a century shows that only by fighting on the front line of the struggle against the enemy, and by personally experiencing and directing all aspects of the revolutionary struggle, can one acquire genuine revolutionary practice and empirical knowledge, which can then be sublimated into theoretical thought that truly reflects and guides the actual revolutionary movement. In 1930, during the brutal war to establish the Jiangxi Revolutionary Base Area, Mao Zedong wrote *Oppose Book Worship* and pointed out: “The correct, unswerving struggle tactics of the Communist Party can by no means be produced by a few people sitting in a room; they can only be produced in the course of the masses’ struggle, that is, they can only be produced through actual experience.” This is an absolutely true truth, a revolutionary experience and ideological understanding watered with blood. The worker-peasant alliance is such a question. It is not a scholastic concept that can be discussed in pure thought or in books divorced from the actual revolutionary movement, but a concrete question of revolutionary practice, saturated with and linked to every aspect of the proletarian revolutionary struggle, like blood flowing through the human body, permeating the three aspects of Party building, armed struggle, and the united front within the body of the proletarian revolution, deeply influencing and determining the mutual distinction and articulation between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian socialist revolution, and concerning the revolutionary path and mode of struggle of the proletarian movement. Therefore, the proposal and formation of the worker-peasant alliance require the proletarian party to have ample historical preparation and to possess a series of basic elements. One of the most fundamental tasks is that the proletarian party must strive for leadership of the revolution within the bourgeois revolution—absolutely not acting as “the politically weak assistant of the bourgeoisie,” but rather “becoming the leader of the people’s revolution.” This was precisely the product and innovation of Lenin leading the Bolshevik Party in its deep participation in the Russian bourgeois revolution!

一百多年来无产阶级革命斗争的历史表明，只有战斗在对敌斗争第一线，亲身经历和指挥革命斗争的各个方面，才能获得真实的革命实践和经验认识，由此升华为能够真实反映和指导实际革命运动的理论思想。在1930年创建江西革命根据地的残酷战争中，毛泽东著书《反对本本主义》指出：“共产党的正确而不动摇的斗争策略，决不是少数人坐在房子里能够产生的，它是要在群众的斗争过程中才能产生的，这就是说要在实际经验中才能产生。”这是千真万确的真理，是用鲜血浇灌出的革命经验和思想认识。工农联盟就是这样的问题。它不是一个可以脱离实际革命运动而在单纯思维里或书本上讨论的学理主义概念，而是一个具体的革命实践问题，饱含着、关联着无产阶级革命斗争的方方面面，似血液融游于人身，渗透在无产阶级革命躯体的党的建设、武装斗争和统一战线三个方面，深度影响和决定着资产阶级民主革命与无产阶级社会主义革命之相互区别和衔接，关涉无产阶级运动的革命道路和斗争方式。因而，工农联盟的提出和创建须要无产阶级政党具有雄厚的历史准备，须要具备一系列基本要素。其中一项最基本的工作是，无产阶级政党要在资产阶级革命中争夺对革命的领导权——绝不充当“政治上软弱无力的资产阶级助手”，而是“成为人民革命的领导者”。这恰恰是列宁率领布尔什维克党深度参与俄国资产阶级革命的产物和创新!

Whom does the leadership of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution lead?—primarily the peasantry. What is the core of the peasant question?—the land question. The land question and the peasant question are like the palm and back of the hand; they are the central question of the bourgeois revolution. History and reality tell people that peasants all over the world love land! Seizing the land of the landlords is the sole source of the revolutionary transformation of the peasantry’s actions and thinking, enabling them to grow into a revolutionary force. Only by leading the peasantry to complete this historical task can the proletariat produce and form a firm worker-peasant alliance with them; only with a firm worker-peasant alliance can it carry out and complete the bourgeois revolution under proletarian leadership—there is no shortcut. If the proletariat fails to unite with and rely on the broad masses of peasants, and relies only on its own strength, it will certainly be utterly defeated under the combined attack of feudal forces and the bourgeoisie, and revolutionary success will be hopeless. These revolutionary experiences and theoretical ideas concerning the peasant question and the worker-peasant alliance are not problematic for the intellectual circles of the Soviet Union and China, but they had not yet emerged in the European communist movement of the 19th century.

资产阶级革命中的无产阶级领导权是指领导谁呢?——主要是领导农民。农民问题的核心是什么呢?——是土地问题。土地问题和农民问题如同手心手背，是资产阶级革命的中心问题。历史和现实告诉人们，全世界的农民没有不爱土地的!夺取地主土地，是农民的行为及其思想发生革命性转变从而成长为革命力量的唯一源泉。无产阶级只有领导农民完成这一历史任务，才能产生和形成与农民的牢固的工农联盟；有了牢固的工农联盟，才能进行和完成无产阶级领导的资产阶级革命，没有捷径可走。而无产阶级未能联合并依靠广大农民，仅靠自身力量，定会在封建势力和资产阶级的联合进攻下一败涂地而革命成功无望。这些关于农民问题和工农联盟的革命经验及其理论思想，对于苏联和中国思想界来说都不是问题，但是在19世纪的欧洲共产主义运动中还没有产生。

In parliamentary elections, as Engels said, “the Social Democratic Party now conducts the workers’ movement by obeying the law,” that is, all parties abide by the constitution and laws of the bourgeois state, treating everyone equally and viewing the peasantry as voters. In the worker-peasant alliance, the proletarian party unites with, relies on, and leads the peasantry, viewing them as close comrades-in-arms in the common struggle against the landlord class and the big bourgeoisie, and thus as the allies of the proletarian revolution. The peasantry as voters in the bourgeois state’s parliament and the peasantry as members of the worker-peasant alliance arising from the bourgeois revolution are not the same thing; the action strategies and theoretical ideas concerning the peasant question in these two cases are as different as clouds and mud. These are two completely different positions and attitudes toward the peasantry, with clearly demarcated lines between friend and foe, belonging to two completely different modes of struggle and revolutionary paths. The democratic historical task of opposing the landlord class is the primary and fundamental task of the proletariat leading the peasantry to form a worker-peasant alliance. The worker-peasant alliance and its theoretical thought could only be produced in the struggle against the landlord class and the big bourgeoisie; this historical task fell upon the Bolsheviks led by Lenin.

在议会竞选中，如恩格斯所言“现在社会民主党是靠遵守法律来从事”工人运动，即各政党遵守资产阶级国家的宪法和法律，一视同仁，视农民为选民。在工农联盟中，无产阶级政党团结、依靠和领导农民，视农民为共同反对地主阶级和大资产阶级的亲密战友，因而是无产阶级革命的同盟军。作为资产阶级国家议会选民的农民与在资产阶级革命中产生的工农联盟成员的农民不是一回事，二者关于农民问题的行动策略及其理论思想可谓云泥之别。这是两种完全不同的、敌我阵线分明的对待农民的立场和态度，分属两种完全不同的斗争方式和革命道路。反对地主阶级的民主主义历史任务，是无产阶级领导农民而形成工农联盟的首要的和基本的任务。工农联盟及其理论思想只有在与地主阶级和大资产阶级的斗争中才能产生，这一历史的任务落在了列宁领导的布尔什维克身上。

Lenin’s book *What Is to Be Done?* put forward the basic idea of proletarian party building guided by Marxism, thereby putting the party building of the proletariat, i.e., Party building, on the right track from then on. This is the prerequisite and element for the emergence and formation of the worker-peasant alliance. The Marxism referred to here was extracted, summarized, and synthesized by Lenin leading the Bolsheviks in the practice of the Russian revolution, in the struggle against the opportunism and revisionism of the Second International, from the publicly published works and articles of Marx and Engels, and from the complex European socialist currents of thought. From this, the term “Marxism” came to be used positively and took root; Marxism became a banner rallying the proletarian revolutionary faction and truly became the theoretical basis for guiding the proletarian revolutionary movement. Before this, Marxism was still in formation, had not yet gained widespread recognition and application, and had not yet been clearly established as the guiding ideology of the proletarian revolutionary movement—the First International and the Second International. Undoubtedly, neither the working class nor the peasantry can spontaneously produce the socialist consciousness of a worker-peasant alliance; only a proletarian revolutionary party that consciously takes Marxism as its theoretical basis for thinking and guidance can propose a worker-peasant alliance in the struggle against the landlords and the bourgeoisie.

列宁《怎么办?》一书提出以马克思主义为指导的关于无产阶级政党建设的基本思想，使无产阶级的政党建设，即党的建设，从此走上正轨，是工农联盟产生和形成的前提和要素。这里所说的马克思主义，是由列宁领导布尔什维克在俄国革命的实践中，在与第二国际机会主义和修正主义的斗争中，从马克思恩格斯公开发表的著作和文章中，从欧洲繁杂的社会主义思潮中提炼、总结和归纳出来的。由此，“马克思主义”这一词语才被正面使用并落地生根，马克思主义才成为聚集无产阶级革命派的一面旗帜，真正成为了无产阶级革命运动指导思想的理论基础。在此之前，马克思主义还在形成中，还没有得到广泛的认可和应用，马克思主义还没有被明确为无产阶级革命运动——第一国际、第二国际的指导思想。无疑，无论工人阶级或农民都不能自发产生工农联盟的社会主义意识，只有自觉地以马克思主义为理论基础来思考和指导的无产阶级革命政党，才能在反对地主资产阶级的斗争中提出工农联盟。

The defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871 foreshadowed the basic completion of the bourgeois democratic revolution in Western Europe. In contrast, the bourgeois democratic revolution against tsarist autocracy and for the resolution of the peasant land question was the primary task of the Russian revolution, leading to contradictions and disputes between Russian Marxists and European socialists on the question of the Russian revolution. Since Marxism was still in the process of formation in the 19th century, the Second International was long mired in the theoretical thought and methods of struggle of social democracy, and never produced or possessed the clear and profound understanding that Lenin later developed, namely that “the era of Russian social development when democracy and socialism merged into an indivisible whole (as in the era of Chernyshevsky, for example) had gone forever”; “a chasm lay between these two ideas, and the Russian socialists should long ago have understood this, should long ago have understood the necessity and absolute necessity of a complete and final break with the ideas of the democrats.” [10]10 Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1828–1889) was a Russian revolutionary democrat, philosopher, and writer whose ideas influenced the Russian revolutionary movement in the mid-19th century. The methods of struggle and theoretical thought of Second International social democracy could not answer or resolve the question of the Russian revolution; on the contrary, they blocked Russian Marxists from deeply considering the path of the Russian revolution.

1871年巴黎公社革命失败，预示了西欧资产阶级民主革命基本完成。与此不同，反对沙皇专制并解决农民土地问题的资产阶级民主革命却是俄国革命的首要任务，由此导致俄国马克思主义者在俄国革命问题上与欧洲社会主义者产生了矛盾和争论。由于19世纪马克思主义尚在形成之中，第二国际长期深陷于社会民主主义的理论思想和斗争方式，一直没有产生和具备后来列宁这样一种清晰而深邃的思想认识，即“民主主义和社会主义融合为一个不可分割的整体的俄国社会发展时代(例如车尔尼雪夫斯基时代就是如此)已一去不复返了”;“这两种思想之间横着一条鸿沟，俄国社会主义者早就应该懂得这点了，早就应该懂得同民主主义者的思想完全和彻底决裂的必然性和绝对的必要性了”。第二国际社会民主主义的斗争方式和理论思想，不但不能回答解决俄国革命问题，反而阻塞俄国马克思主义者深入思考俄国革命道路。

An unavoidable historical fact is that, faced with revolutionary defeat, European socialists and workers’ parties, after the defeat of the Paris Commune uprising in 1871, abandoned armed struggle and fully embarked on the path of actively participating in bourgeois national parliamentary elections. In contrast, in 1905, Lenin led the Bolsheviks deep into the front lines of the Moscow struggle of the Russian revolution. Although they experienced defeat in the uprising, they were not in the least discouraged. They profoundly summed up the lessons of revolutionary defeat and wrote theoretical works of great practical significance, such as “Lessons of the Moscow Uprising” and “On Guerrilla Warfare,” which discussed concrete experiences and lessons of struggle. Lenin, citing Karl Kautsky, a theorist influential in the German Social Democratic Party and the Second International, specifically pointed out: “Kautsky is right when he says that after the Moscow uprising it is necessary to re-examine Engels’s conclusions, because the Moscow uprising introduced a ‘new barricade tactic.’ This tactic is the tactic of guerrilla warfare.” [11]11 Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) was a leading Marxist theorist in the Second International and the German Social Democratic Party; Friedrich Engels’s 1895 “Introduction” to Marx’s *The Class Struggles in France* argued that urban insurrection had become obsolete due to changes in military technology and urban planning. Not only did they not abandon “building a revolutionary army,” but they also rehabilitated the failed urban street fighting, elevating it to the strategic status of comprehensive guerrilla warfare. In doing and saying this, Lenin in effect separated himself from Engels’s 1895 “Introduction,” which considered urban street fighting obsolete, thereby liberating thought. He led the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to actively cooperate with the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which already had broad influence among the Russian peasantry, and resolutely implemented the previously proposed strategic slogan of the “revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.” — Stalin believed that this slogan and strategy proposed by Lenin were “Lenin’s great service to the Russian revolution.”

一个不容回避的历史事实是，同样是面对革命失败，欧洲社会主义者和工人政党自1871年巴黎公社起义失败后，脱离了武装斗争，全面走上了积极参与资产阶级国民议会竞选的道路。与此相反，1905年，列宁领导布尔什维克深入俄国革命莫斯科斗争的第一线，虽经历起义失败，却毫不气馁，深刻总结革命失败的教训，写下了《莫斯科起义的教训》《论游击战争》等论述具体斗争经验教训而具有重大实践意义的理论著作。列宁借在德国社会民主党和第二国际有影响的理论家考茨基之口特别指出：“考茨基说得对，他说，在莫斯科起义以后，应该重新审查一下恩格斯的结论了，因为莫斯科起义推出了‘新的街垒战术’。这个战术就是游击战争的战术。”不但不放弃“建立革命的军队”，还为失败的城市街巷战正名，将其提升到全面游击战的战略地位。列宁这样说这样做，实际上是与恩格斯1895年《导言》认为城市街巷战已经过时的思想作了隔离，从而解放了思想，率领俄国社会民主工党主动与已在俄国农民中有广泛影响的俄国社会革命党合作，坚决落实此前提出的“无产阶级和农民的革命民主专政”的战略口号。——斯大林认为，列宁提出的这一口号和策略是“列宁对俄国革命的莫大功绩”。

Lenin led the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to propose, support, and successively organize the establishment of peasant soviets, worker-peasant soviets, and worker-peasant-soldier soviets, abandoning parliamentary struggle and instead organizing the October Revolution to seize power by armed force. The worker-peasant alliance thus emerged and developed as an entity of revolutionary struggle, becoming the most fundamental, solid, and powerful class foundation and revolutionary force for the victory of the October Revolution in Russia. Undoubtedly, Lenin found the “correct method of approaching the peasantry” suited to Russia. Stalin pointed out: “The October Revolution was the first among all revolutions in the world to place the question of the intermediate strata, first and foremost the peasant question, in the primary position”; “The October Revolution was the perfect combination of the ‘peasant war’ and the ‘proletarian revolution’!” Clearly, the proposal and creation of the worker-peasant alliance depended on how the proletarian party viewed the peasantry, on what position the proletarian party placed the peasant question, and thus on what kind of worker-peasant relationship was established.

列宁领导俄国社会民主工党提出、支持并陆续组织成立了农民苏维埃、工农苏维埃、工农兵苏维埃，抛弃议会斗争，转而组织了武装夺取政权的十月革命。工农联盟由此作为革命斗争的实体产生并发展起来，成为俄国十月革命胜利的最基本、最坚实、最强大的阶级基础和革命力量。无疑，列宁找到了适合俄国的“接近农民的正确方法”。斯大林指出，“十月革命是世界上一切革命中第一次把中间阶层问题首先是农民问题提到首要地位的革命”，“十月革命是‘农民战争’和‘无产阶级革命’的完满结合”!显然，工农联盟的提出和创建取决于无产阶级政党怎么看待农民，取决于无产阶级政党把农民问题提到什么位置，从而建立什么样的工农关系。

Subsequently, Lenin also proposed the great revolutionary slogan “Workers of the world and oppressed peoples, unite!” This great slogan demonstrated Lenin’s major theoretical development of the practice of the proletarian revolution and its peasant question, promoting the surging world national liberation movement. Lenin clearly saw that “the main mass of the population in backward countries consists of peasants,” and that the subject and essence of the national liberation movement was the peasant movement. He highly valued the exploited and oppressed side of the laboring peasantry, excavating and elevating their long-neglected and suppressed revolutionary potential and immense power. It can be said that Lenin transcended Marx and Engels’s mere critique and exposure of the peasant as small landowner and small producer, and for the first time regarded the laboring peasantry as a great revolutionary force capable of standing alongside the working class, thereby solving the problem of the proletariat being able to lead a bourgeois national democratic revolutionary movement with the peasantry as its main body. This showed that the scope and force of the revolution had expanded, and the content and theme of the revolution had deepened. From then on, the bourgeois national democratic revolutionary movement entering the 20th century “no longer belonged to the category of the old world bourgeois-democratic revolution… but was a part of the new world revolution, a part of the proletarian socialist world revolution.” [12]12 This is a paraphrase of Mao Zedong’s formulation in “On New Democracy” (1940), which defined the Chinese revolution as part of the world proletarian socialist revolution. This clarification in practice and theory of the distinction and connection between bourgeois democracy and proletarian socialism was one of the elements that gave birth to the worker-peasant alliance.

其后，列宁又提出“全世界无产者和被压迫民族联合起来”的伟大革命口号。这个伟大口号彰显了列宁对无产阶级革命实践及其农民问题的重大理论发展，推动了波澜壮阔的世界民族解放运动。列宁清楚地看到，“落后国家的主要居民群众是农民”，民族解放运动的主体和实质就是农民运动，高度重视劳动农民被剥削被压迫的一面，挖掘和提升了劳动农民长期被忽视、被压抑的革命潜能和无穷力量。可以说，列宁超越了马克思恩格斯对农民小土地所有者和小生产者的单纯揭示与批判，第一次把劳动农民看作可以和工人阶级为伍的伟大革命力量，从而解决了无产阶级可以领导以农民为主体的资产阶级民族民主革命运动的问题，显示出革命的范围和革命的力量扩大了，革命的内容和革命的主题深化了。从此，进入20世纪的资产阶级民族民主革命运动“就不再是属于旧的世界资产阶级民主主义革命的范畴……而是新的世界革命的一部分，即无产阶级社会主义世界革命的一部分了”。这一在实践和理论上明确资产阶级民主主义与无产阶级社会主义的区别和联系，是催生工农联盟的要素之一。

The European socialists and workers’ parties of the Second International in the 19th century never escaped the ideological fetters of social democracy, the idea that “political power comes from the ballot box.” The worker-peasant alliance led by Lenin, which carried out armed struggle, moved from the bourgeois democratic revolution to the proletarian socialist revolution, forming a divergence between the two and different historical trajectories. The proposal and creation of the worker-peasant alliance has epoch-making significance in the history of the international communist movement, profoundly indicating that the development of Marxism had entered a brand-new historical stage — the era of Leninism.

19世纪的欧洲社会主义者和第二国际工人政党一直没有摆脱“选票里面出政权”的社会民主主义的思想羁绊，列宁领导的实行武装斗争的工农联盟从资产阶级民主革命走向无产阶级社会主义革命，形成了二者的分野与不同的历史走向。提出并创建工农联盟在国际共产主义运动史上具有划时代的意义，深刻地表明马克思主义的发展进入了一个崭新的历史阶段——列宁主义时代。

The great synthesizer of solving the worker-peasant alliance problem from practice to theory was the Chinese Communists, represented by Mao Zedong, standing on the shoulders of Marxism-Leninism! The Chinese Communists, who firmly believed in Leninism and adhered to the path of the October Revolution, directly studied and applied the policies, strategies, and theoretical thought of the Leninist worker-peasant alliance from the very beginning of the Chinese revolution. They moved from the cities deep into the countryside, lived day and night with the peasants, shared hardships and destinies, and found the “correct method of approaching the peasantry” suited to China — establishing rural Party branches, running peasant movement training institutes, forming peasant associations, overthrowing local tyrants and distributing land, building the Worker-Peasant Red Army, establishing rural base areas, reducing rent and interest, implementing land reform and the socialist transformation of agriculture, integrating workers and peasants into one family. New China, that is, the People’s Republic of China, is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the worker-peasant alliance. In the contemporary era, Xi Jinping’s thought on the worker-peasant alliance is the guiding ideology for consolidating and developing the worker-peasant alliance in our country, leading Chinese Communists deep into the countryside, leading all peasants to shake off poverty and build a new countryside with lucid waters and lush mountains. From Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, several generations of Chinese Communists, as the political representatives of the Chinese working class, have harbored deep feelings for the peasantry. This is the spiritual source of the Chinese Communist Party’s long-term and unremitting adherence to the worker-peasant alliance. The Chinese Communist Party persists in uniting with, relying on, and educating the Chinese peasantry. The Chinese peasantry has become the fresh blood and main force for the growth and development of the Chinese Communist Party, and the great main force of China’s revolution, construction, and reform. The path of the Chinese worker-peasant alliance is precisely the path of China’s revolution, construction, and reform, writing a vivid and glorious chapter in the history of the international communist movement. The successful path of the Chinese worker-peasant alliance is one of the greatest achievements and one of the most valuable experiences in the century-long history of the Chinese Communist Party.

从实践到理论解决工农联盟问题之集大成者，是站在马克思列宁主义肩上以毛泽东为代表的中国共产党人!坚信列宁主义并坚持十月革命道路的中国共产党人，从中国革命的开局就直接学习和运用列宁主义工农联盟的政策策略和理论思想，从城市深入农村，与农民朝夕相处，长期生活在一起，同甘苦，共命运，找到了适合中国的“接近农民的正确方法”——建立农村党支部、开办农民运动讲习所、成立农民协会、打土豪分田地、建立工农红军、建立农村根据地、减租减息、实行土地改革和农业社会主义改造，工农融合为一家人。新中国，即中华人民共和国，就是以工人阶级为领导、以工农联盟为基础的人民民主专政的社会主义国家。在当代，习近平工农联盟的思想是我国巩固和发展工农联盟的指导思想，带领中国共产党人深入农村，率领全体农民脱贫并建设绿水青山的新农村。从毛泽东到习近平，作为中国工人阶级政治代表的几代中国共产党人对农民怀有深厚的感情，这是中国共产党长期不懈地坚持工农联盟的精神源泉。中国共产党坚持团结、依靠和教育中国农民。中国农民成为了中国共产党发展壮大的新鲜血液和主要力量，成为中国革命、建设和改革的伟大主力军。中国工农联盟的道路就是中国革命、建设和改革的道路，书写了国际共产主义运动史上生动而辉煌的篇章。中国工农联盟的成功之路，是中国共产党百年成长史中最伟大的成就之一和最宝贵的经验之一。

In the latter half of the 19th century, the European proletarian revolutionary movement emerged alongside the European bourgeois revolutionary movement. The Marxism that arose during this period was in its formative stage. The revolutionary experiences and lessons of the young European proletariat and workers' parties, which were engaged in struggle against the bourgeoisie, were insufficient to discover, answer, and resolve a series of practical and theoretical issues within the proletarian revolutionary movement. Because they had not experienced peasant movements, they did not form the idea of a worker-peasant alliance. This fact and historical phenomenon leave nothing to regret in the history of the international communist movement and the development of Marxism, nor does it diminish the series of great historical contributions made by European socialists represented by Marx and Engels to the world proletarian revolutionary movement. Every era has its own historical tasks that it can propose and resolve. As Mao Zedong wittily said to the Romanian ambassador to China, Nicolae Cioroiu, in 1956: "We will not do everything perfectly; otherwise, our descendants would have no work to do." [13]13 Mao Zedong's remark to Romanian Ambassador Nicolae Cioroiu in 1956 reflects a characteristically self-deprecating and dialectical view of historical progress, suggesting that each generation has its own tasks and that no generation can exhaust all historical work. In the history of the international communist movement and the development of Marxism, the proposal and creation of the worker-peasant alliance underwent a long and tortuous history. It was a product of the proletarian revolutionary movement reaching a higher stage, from which one can discern the different historical stages of the growth of the international communist movement and Marxism.

19世纪下半叶，欧洲无产阶级革命运动伴随着欧洲资产阶级革命运动而发生，随之产生的马克思主义处于创建时期，与资产阶级斗争的欧洲年轻的无产阶级和工人政党的革命经历和经验不足以发现、回答和解决无产阶级革命运动中一系列实践及其理论的问题。由于没有经历农民运动，他们没有形成工农联盟的思想。这一事实和历史现象，在国际共产主义运动史和马克思主义发展史上没有什么可遗憾的，也无损于以马克思恩格斯为代表的欧洲社会主义者为世界无产阶级革命运动做出的一系列伟大历史贡献。每个时代都有其自身能够提出和解决的历史任务。正如1956年毛泽东风趣地对罗马尼亚驻中国大使尼古拉·乔洛尤说的：“我们不会把一切都做好，否则我们的后代就没有工作可做了。”在国际共产主义运动史和马克思主义发展史上，工农联盟的提出并创立经历了漫长而曲折的历史，是无产阶级革命运动发展到较高阶段的产物，从中透视出国际共产主义运动和马克思主义成长的不同历史阶段。

(Author's bio: Li Wei, Research Fellow at the Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

（作者简介：李伟，中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院研究员）