Agrarian Reforms
Autor: Sebastião Matias de Carvalho Neto | Publicado: 2012-10-12T12:53:00-03:00

     Agrarian Reforms, =

measures introduced
by the state to change agrarian relations
and forms of landownership. The class
content of agrarian reforms is totally
determined by the country's social system
and its form of government. In capitalist
countries, reforms are turned against
remnants of feudalism, which obstruct the
advance of capitalism in agriculture. The
agrarian reforms introduced in the
socialist countries were part of the revolutionary
transformation of society. The Great
October Socialist Revolution in Russia offered
the most complete and consistent solution
of the agrarian question. The Decree on
Land passed by the Second All-Russia
Congress of Soviets on October 26, 1917,
abolished, without any redemption, private
ownership of the land and proclaimed it
the property of the whole people. The rules
for land use were set down by the decree
On Socialisation of the Land passed by the
All-Russia Executive Committee on
February 9, 1918. In the East European
countries which embarked on the road of
socialist development after World War II,
agrarian reforms were carried out from 1945 to
1948 through confiscation and partition of
the land and other means of agricultural
production by the peasants, led by the
working class: some of the cultivated land was
nationalised, but the bulk turned over to
needy farmers and agricultural workers as
their private property to establish new or
expand existing farms. The bulk of the
forests, and all the mineral wealth and water
resources became the property of the state.
One of the first decrees passed in Cuba
after the revolution was the Agrarian
Reform Law of May 17, 1959, which abolished
large landed estates and the latifundia of
North American companies. The National
Institute of Agrarian Reform (Institute
nacional de la reforma agraria) was set
up especially for the purpose. In the
socialist countries, agrarian reforms put an end
to the landowner class, undermined the
economic position of the kulaks (rich peasants
who employed hired labour), and provided
favourable conditions for a socialist
transformation of agriculture. The land the
peasants received from the agrarian reform
cannot be sold, mortgaged, given away as
a gift or leased. When building a new
society, the socialist countries adapted to
national conditions the experience of the
Soviet Union, turning small peasant
holdings into large socialist agricultural
enterprises. The developing countries that have
chosen the socialist way introduce agrarian
reforms for the purpose of socialising
production on a nation-wide scale, uniting
peasants in cooperatives and setting up an
extensive network of state agricultural
enterprises. In this way, they hope to provide
the necessary conditions for raising the
standard of living. The agrarian reforms
carried out in the developing countries by
the national bourgeoisie have not put an
end to unequal distribution of land and the
semi-feudal exploitation of peasants. After
World War II, agrarian reforms turned
against the remnants of feudalism in
agriculture and the pre-capitalist forms of
organising the economy were introduced in
a number of developed capitalist countries.
But they have not given land to the peasants.
The communist and workers' parties in the
developed capitalist countries advance
radical agrarian programmes envisaging
expropriation of big landed estates
and the land being turned over to those
who cultivate it, i. e., the toiling
peasants.