Land reform and the land market in Russia: Operation, constraints and prospects

Abstract

RUSSIA IS UNDERGOING ITS THIRD GREAT LAND REFORM in the 20th century. Previous land reforms were associated with significant political, social and economic transformation. The first Russian land reforms of the century, the Stolypin reforms, were designed to facilitate the movement of peasants out of the communal mir. The Stolypin reforms were also linked to Russia's attempt to industrialise and to introduce limited democracy in the early 20th century.' The second great land reform was Stalin's collectivisation. Collectivisation was central to the imposition of Stalinism in the countryside and to rapid industrialisation that helped prepare the nation for war. Beginning in 1927, voluntary communes were supplanted by gradual collectivisation. In mid-1929 gradual collectivisation was replaced with rapid collectivisation which, by the mid-1930s, wiped out all individual independent peasant farms and increased the level of state control over state and collective farms. Stalinist rural institutions