The second way of development of capitalism in agriculture is slower and harder for the peasants . In this case the landowners remain the dominant force in the countryside and , as a rule , in the whole of the country . The greater part of the land is owned by landowners , while the peasants are transformed from serfs into farm hands or tenants . Only a negligible number of rich peasants embark on the path of capitalist exploitation and use hired labour . This way of capitalist development in agriculture is connected with the existence of reactionary political systems , domination of the landowners ‘ class . The most typical of this way of capitalist development in agriculture were Germany , especially Prussia , and tsarist Russia . Neither in Germany nor in Russia ( until 1917 ) was the agrarian problem solved in a revolutionary way . That is why the development of bourgeois relations in the agriculture of these countries was the result not of a revolutionary over throw of feudalism , but of a slow and tormenting for the peasantry development of serf forms of exploitation into capitalist forms . In Prussia serfdom was abolished in 1806 , but the feudal obligations actually existed until the middle of the 19th century . A law on redeeming the feudal obligations was passed only in 1850 , and the peasants paid the land owners 1,000 million marks . These enormous sums received by the landowners from the peasants accelerated the trans formation of the landowners ‘ estates into capitalist farms and at the same time ruined many peasants . A similar picture was observed in Russia after the ” emancipation ” of the peasants in 1861 . The landowners ‘ way of development of capitalism in agriculture means persistence of the survivals of feudalism in the economy and the political system of the state . Elimina tion of these survivals becomes one of the objectives of the revolutionary movement .
Capitalism Society 