Agricultural Reform

The rural structure became diversified—Spain’s backward economy functioned alongside Germany’s relatively technologized agriculture.² The differences within individual countries were also striking—the farming of the former Prussian partition zone was entirely different from that in Polesie, though both regions were part of interwar Poland.³ On the Iberian Peninsula, the contrast was between the society of the northern provinces, with a relatively large number of medium-sized farmsteads, and the south, dominated by latifundia.

In the shadow of those great economies, as it were, lived the peasants, with minimal possessions, or nothing at all. Keeping within Spain, in 1933 the Duke of Medinaceli held properties spanning 79,000 hectares, the Duke of Alba 34,000, and the Count of Romanones, one of the most important liberal politicians of the monarchy of Alfonso XIII, 15,000.⁴ In Poland, the Zamoyskis held 200,000 hectares, and the Radziwiłłs 175,000.⁵

Of course, not all landowners were so wealthy, yet the inequalities remained painfully severe: in Andalusia and Extremadura 2.3 per cent of the wealthiest taxpayers held half the available wealth.⁶

Peasants movements in less developed countries called for agricultural reforms, leading to a more equal division of land. Yet this remained complicated for several reasons. First, the wealthy landowners had substantial political influence, which hampered far-reaching changes in property relations. But despite those in favor of a “people’s history,” happy to lay all social problems at the feet of the landowning class, we should note that certain details of a technical nature would have impeded the whole undertaking, even had there been no resistance from the upper spheres.

Even changing the structure of economies was a complex issue. Properly executed, agricultural reform would theoretically have been a driving force for the whole country’s economy, creating a large group of potential consumers of industrial goods. Yet, as the landed gentry of the day pointed out, not without some accuracy, giving land to the peasants did not mean they would begin yielding a quantity of farm produce as would come from the scale and mechanization of a great economy.⁷ Reform would therefore have meant at least a temporary drop in food production, and in the interwar period, with the supply-chain interruptions of 1914–19 fresh in people’s minds, this had a ring of horror to it. To create prosperous small farms, active state support was necessary, and here, to some extent, the Baltic countries succeeded,⁸ though certain social and economic factors in that region did not allow the model to be transferred to other parts of Europe.

Creating relatively wealthy small economies producing for the needs of the market (the model here was Denmark)⁹ did not solve the problem. Farmers lived in constant terror of food prices falling and consequent bankruptcy, and of their land being parceled off through inheritance. This concerned the relatively developed Germany as well, where the Nationalist Socialists attached great importance to preventing the proletarianization of the peasantry, regarded as a source of racial values.¹⁰

The fate of the countryside was only decided after World War II, when the developing industry absorbed “expendable people,” reducing demographic pressure. At the same time, the peasants who remained in farming found a great demand for their products in the cities, and they could invest the capital they gained in technologically developing their economic base.¹¹