Primitive Accumulation of Capital, a historical process of the forcible conversion of immediate producers (principally peasants) into wage labourers, and the means of production and money into capital. Historically, it preceded the capitalist mode of production, and its groundwork was laid by the development of the productive forces and the 285 growth of commodity-money relations. The development of manufactory required free work-hands. This demand was met through the expropriation of the peasants and small craftsmen and the emancipation of peasants from serf bondage. The process began and assumed its classical form in Britain from the last third of the 15th century to the end of the 18th. The development of wool-processing manufactories in Britain stimulated sheep farming. Feudal lords enlarged pastures by seizing communal land and driving peasants from their plots. The state adopted laws enclosing communal land. In the course of the Reformation, peasants working on monastery lands were turned into proletarians. Following this, state land was plundered. It was presented as a gift, sold for a song, and joined to private estates. The forcible proletarianisation of the rural population was consummated in the "clearing of estates”, when peasants were driven out of the “cleared” land. The mass of ruined peasants became paupers and vagabonds. The destitute small producers were turned into the wage labourers of capitalist enterprises in a coercive way that was sanctioned by legislation. Concurrently with the formation of the class of proletarians, riches were concentrated in the hands of a few owners, who had become capitalists. Although the methods by which the bourgeoisie began to enrich itself were varied, all of them were based on flagrant coercion, deceit, plunder and fraud, such as the seizures of colonies, the system of state loans and taxes and the policy of protectionism. State power appeared as concentrated and organised social coercion helping to turn the feudal system into the capitalist system. Marx wrote: "Capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt" (Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 712). In Russia, the primitive accumulation of capital was largely encouraged by the abolition of serfdom and the expropriation of peasants during the implementation of the 1861 peasant reform which Lenin called the " ’clearing of estates’ for capitalism by the landlords" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 277).