A stolen revolution. The political economy of the land reform in interwar Czechoslovakia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study revises the picture of the interwar Czechoslovak land reform as an example of a successful non-violent land reform. The study reveals that the land reform in Czechoslovakia, which passed as a revolutionary change, did not reach its announced targets: the redistribution of the land to landless and land-poor people and the reduction of inequality of land distribution in society. Based on the hypothesis that even when there is a strong ruling agrarian political party, and no opponents to a land reform in the country, there is no guarantee of its successful realisation, the study follows two aims: (1) a revision of the real outcomes of the land reform in interwar Czechoslovakia; (2) an analysis of why the land reform failed in expropriating and redistributing the land. In doing so, the study discusses how the land reform was stolen from the peasants and to what measure the theft was calculated.