Glossary of Marxist Philosophy
Antithesis of Town and Country,
the
historically formed relations expressing the extreme backwardness of the
country in relation to the town in economy and culture, the antithetical
contradiction between the basic interests of the working people of the
countryside and those of the ruling exploiting classes. The antithesis between
town and country is the upshot of the social division of labour (q.v.). The
economic basis of this opposition is the exploitation of the peasantry, leading
to its ruin. In socialist society, as a result of the liquidation of all kinds
of exploitation and the transformation of agriculture on socialist lines, the
antithesis between town and country disappears. The town with its working class
acts as the friend and ally of the labouring peasantry, as its leader, helping
to overcome its former backwardness. The character of
agricultural labour changes, coming closer and closer to industrial labour.
The culture of the countryside grows on an unprecedented scale. At the same
time the presence of two forms of socialist ownership (public and
collective-farm and cooperative) leads to the preservation of a substantial
difference between town and country. The elimination of this difference and the
consequent removal of the distinctions between the working class and the collective-farm
peasantry, is part and parcel of the building of
communism. The concrete way of eliminating these distinctions is outlined in
the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The main task is the
creation of the material and technical basis of communism (see Material, etc.)
which promotes the raising of collective-farm and co-operative property to the
level of public property, the conversion of agricultural labour to a variety of
industrial labour, the raising of the social and economic conditions and the
standard of life of the countryside to the level of the town. However, even
under communism some non-essential distinctions between industrial and
agricultural labour will remain owing to their specific peculiarities.
Source:
M. Rosenthal and P. Yudin, Editors
A Dictionary or Philosophy
Progress Publishers
Moscow 1967