Agrarian Reform in Eastern Europe after World War II

Abstract

After the liberalization of the eastern European countries from the Nazi hegemony by the Soviet Army in 1941, communist governments were soon established. These governments strictly pursued the strategy and objectives of the USSR, at least in the early 1950s. Stalin's strategy of transforming Soviet agriculture and the rural areas was also pursued almost imperceptibly in Eastern Europe, at least until Stalin's death in 1953. That strategy started with the expropriation of larger farms and land owners considered hostile to the new political order and with redistributing the land to peasants or farm workers. Land reforms already executed after World War I were continued and