A: iṣlāḥ zirāʿī. – F: réforme agraire. – G: Bodenreform. – R: zemel’naja reforma. – S: reforma agraria. – C: tǔdì gǎigé 土地改革
LR aims at fundamentally new relations in the ownership and use of land in cities and rural areas. In all historical epochs, the social treatment of land has been a major political, social, and technical-production challenge and line of conflict. This is a function of the significance of land and soil (as a regulator in the natural, in particular material balance, and as a means of production, raw material, and building ground) and of the persistent threats they face from pollution, overexploitation, and speculation. Historical epochs can be characterised in terms of the specifics of their land ownership and use regulations, or the disputes over them.
Marx and Engels developed their understanding of the land question primarily from the critique of physiocratic (e.g., Turgot and Quesnay; see MECW 30/352–76; 34/288–314 [MEW 26.1/12–39, 354–62]) and bourgeois positions (e.g., Petty, Smith, Ricardo, or Rodbertus; cf. MECW 34/170–77 [MEW 26.1/330–40]; 31/250–386, 521–78 [26.2/7–160, 304–74]); in the historical analysis of landed property within the development of capital relations (MECW 35/704–61 [MEW 23/741–803]); in the elaboration of the theory of ground rent as part of the theory of surplus value (MECW 37/608–800 [MEW 25/627–821]); and in concrete political studies (such as Engels’s Condition). Marx summarised this understanding as follows: ‘The property in the soil is the original source of all wealth, and has become the great problem upon the solution of which depends the future of the working class’ (MECW 23/131 [MEW 18/59]). And yet the term LR is found neither in the classical texts nor in the subject and title index of any text edition published to date. In terms of content, however, Marx and Engels always considered the radical upheaval of the private rights of land use and disposal to be a necessary part of fundamental socialist changes within society. Thus, they essentially followed in the tradition of radical land reformers such as Thomas More or Gracchus Babeuf. ‘From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like boni patres familias, they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition’ (C III, MECW 37/763 [MEW 25/784]).
As early as 1847, Engels developed concrete ideas on land reform in The Principles of Communism, where he calls for ‘[g]radual expropriation of landed proprietors […], partly through competition […] and partly […] through expropriation’, ‘cultivation of all uncultivated land and improvement of land already cultivated’, ‘erection of large palaces on national estates as common dwellings for communities of citizens engaged in industry as well as agriculture, and combining the advantages of both urban and rural life’, and ‘demolition of all badly built and unsanitary buildings’ (MECW 6/350 et sq. [MEW 4/373 et sq.]). These positions are reiterated in the Manifesto (505 et sq. [481 et sq.]) and reaffirmed – albeit in a modified form – in Demands of the Communist Party in Germany. According to this last statement, it was above all important to abolish the burdens of feudal levies and to nationalise feudal estates. Moreover, mortgages and rents were to be paid directly to the state and no longer to landowners (MECW 7/3 [MEW 5/3 et sq.]).
At first, Marx and Engels did not view a general nationalisation of land as absolutely necessary. It was not until two decades later that Marx took up this question again and presented LR as a socially and historically justified necessity and a precondition for a social and democratic future: ‘[T]he social movement will lead to this decision that the land can but be owned by the nation itself […] The nationalisation of land will work a complete change in the relations between labour and capital, and finally, do away with the capitalist form of production […] [There will emerge] a society composed of associations of free and equal producers’ (MECW 23/135 et sq. [MEW 18/62]).
In this context, Marx explicitly opposed any nationalisation of land not accompanied by nationalisation of the other means of production. He also opposed merely transferring land to a special social class such as peasants or agricultural workers. Engels took a new stand as well in the debate on LR, which became more heated at the close of the 19th cent. For rural areas, he proposed the expropriation of large landholdings and the transfer of small farms and property to cooperatives, ‘not forcibly but by dint of example’ (MECW 27/496 [MEW 22/499]). He viewed his proposals as a contribution to the elimination of disparities between town and country. In the cities, the main task was to nationalise the land, expropriate the owners of rented apartments, and use the state to fairly allocate those apartments that were available in sufficient numbers. However, the housing question could not be solved successfully without social upheaval (MECW 23/330 [MEW 18/226 et sq.]).
By way of contrast, land reformers in the narrower sense, such as Damaschke circa 1900, mostly emphasised the stand-alone character of their primarily fiscal and legal demands, which, they held, could be achieved independently of a fundamental social transformation. In the political struggle for LR, the dominant views in Germany have thus focused on a redistribution of land ownership in favour of small property holders, or on the elimination of special profits from land or residential property by means of tax and income reform. A high point in these efforts was represented by the passages on LR in the Weimar Constitution and later in the constitutions of the federal states after the Second World War, as well as by the efforts undertaken by the West German FRG during the 1970s to establish a social land law. But success remained elusive. In the GDR, on the other hand, following radical redistribution via LR and the formation of state enterprises on about 8 % of the land, both urban and rural land continued to be largely owned privately, although it was subject to strict use regulations or cooperative management. In the 1990 Treaty on German Unification, the expropriations that had taken place up to 1949 as part of LR were codified, although they were increasingly called into question following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
From the beginning, the international discussion on LR has shifted between socialist and system-immanent reform positions (Diehl 1911). The decision taken at the Brussels Congress of the First International in 1868 to transform land into common social property (cf. Liebknecht 1870) was already being hotly disputed at the Basel Congress in 1870, especially within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In 1917, the Bolsheviks declared all land in the Soviet Union to be common property. The LR efforts in the rest of Europe achieved no significant successes, mostly due to the defeat of the November Revolution in Germany.
The expansion of the socialist state system through the Chinese Revolution and the victory of the Soviet Union in the Second World War had drastic, albeit varied, consequences for property relations and forms of land use. In China, for example, urban land became public property, whereas rural land became collective property. In Yugoslavia, populated areas were socialised, while private land ownership of up to ten hectares remained possible. In Poland, estates of up to 100 hectares, i.e., most of the estate land, could be used privately. The restructuring of land ownership and land use relations also plays a central role in the political reform efforts associated with the anti-colonial struggles of the less industrialised countries. Such revision is always an essential part of efforts to achieve agrarian reform. In Cuba, for example, estates and settlement areas larger than 67 hectares were gradually nationalised. In Nicaragua, comprehensive LR in favour of cooperative farms was attempted. The systemic reform attempts undertaken by the socialist states during the 1980s aimed at partial re-privatisation of land ownership. After these attempts failed, the various results of the LR were cancelled in favour of private property, a development that is widely seen as a central element in the collapse of state-monopolistic socialism.
At the same time, conflicts over land are coming to a head once again, given the classic problems of land and housing speculation and the asocial distribution of property, as well as the growing issue of environmental pollution.
Helmut Arnold
Translated by Max Henninger
Bibliography
D. Schneider, Selbsthilfe, Staatshilfe, Selbstverwaltung, Frankfurt/M 1973.