Land reform is the moment tenure becomes a weapon: a state can re-title a hacienda to those who worked it, and in the same stroke remake who owes it loyalty. The episode walks the twentieth century's experiments, from Mexico's ejido and Bolivia's revolution to East Asian owner-cultivator reforms and the collectivization famines.
Who's who
- Víctor Paz Estenssoro+2 more episodesLed Bolivia's MNR in the 1952 revolution
- Lázaro Cárdenas+2 more episodesMexican president under whom ejido distribution peaked in the 1930s
Where it happens
- Bolivia+2 more episodesEnacted its 1953 agrarian reform after the MNR revolution
- Mexico+10 more episodesCreated the ejido under Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution
- Ucureña, Cochabamba Valley, Bolivia+1 more episodeTown associated with the 1953 Agrarian Reform Decree
- ZimbabweFast-track land reform of the 2000s, a cautionary tale
Timeline
- 1917Mexico's Article 27 vests land in the nation and creates the legal basis for the ejido
- 1929-1933Forced Soviet collectivization; the 1932-33 famine kills millions
- August 2, 1953Bolivia's Agrarian Reform Decree promulgated, expropriating large estates
- Late 1940s-1950sOwner-cultivator reforms in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea
- c. 1959-1961Great Chinese Famine follows forced communization
- 1992Mexico reforms Article 27, allowing ejido land to be rented, sold or mortgaged
Still debated
Scholars debate how much growth in East Asia owed to land reform versus aid, industrial policy and geopolitics, and whether the Holodomor was deliberate genocide or a byproduct of collectivization. Zimbabwe's balance sheet and the 1992 ejido reform, liberation or dispossession, are also contested.
