經典馬克思主義者對農政問題尤其是農業發展、農民分化、土地權屬與城鄉關系做了重要論述。他們主張發展資本主義農業生產方式,大生產排擠小生產,小農必然消亡;他們認為農民的分化與無產階級化既是資本主義發展的驅動力,也是必然結果;他們聲明農業資本主義必然要求土地集中,無產階級掌握政權后,土地私有制將被公有制取代;他們相信資本主義發展必然要經過城市盤剝鄉村的過程,但一定階段后應實現城鄉協調發展。當代馬克思主義者將視域從民族國家擴展到國際關系、由生產領域延展到市場領域。他們指出,雇傭勞動并非農政轉型的必然要求,市場關系成為重要指標,農民分化具有多元復雜性。在鄉村振興的背景下,中國的農政研究亟需創新和發展中國化的馬克思主義理論和方法。

Classical Marxists have made important contributions to the agrarian question with a specific focus on agricultural development,peasant differentiation,land tenure and the rural-urban relation. Classical Marxism argues that capitalist agriculture would lead to an inevitable suppression on small-scale producers by large-scale agriculture so that peasantry would eventually disappear. It believes that the proletarianization of peasantry are both the driving force and the inevitable result of capitalist development.The development of capitalist agriculture requires the centralization of land. And the success of the proletarian revolution would replace private ownership of land with public ownership. It believes that the development of capitalism at its early stage has to be achieved by suppressing and exploiting the rural society. However,at a later stage,an integrated development of rural and urban societies would be realized. Contemporary Marxists extend their focus from the sphere of the nation state to the global context,from production to the market,and argue that wage labor is not a requirement of agricultural transformation. Instead, market relation becomes an important index. They also highlight the multiple complexities of peasants’ differentiation. Against the background of rural vitalization strategy, agrarian studies in China require theoretical and methodological innovation in order to adapt Marxism to the Chinese context.