Full Text can be accessed at the following link http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056247508703253?journalCode=crea20The conditions under which capitalism has penetrated African countries have not produced the kind of capitalist development that occurred in Europe. It is out of this recognition that an analysis must be undertaken of the process of differentiation of the peasantry. While some ranks of the peasantry protect their interests by fraternising with the bureaucracy, the poor peasantry is exploited by both internal and external dominating classes. The concept of the worker‐peasant alliance thus grows from an analysis of both the working class and poor peasantry in relation to other classes, from their role in social production, and their objective interests in conflict with imperialism and its local class allies. At the same time class struggle and class alliance require indispensably a political ideology and political organisation based on proletarian class consciousness.