Land reform in the Second Polish Republic

Abstract When Poland was re-established as an independent state one hundred years ago, one of its political priorities was to implement a land reform, as the ‘agrarian question’ was an extremely sensitive socio-economic problem. In Poland at that time, two thirds of its inhabitants made their living by working in the agricultural sector. A ‘land craving’ phenomenon was notorious, as was rural poverty, especially among smallholders. On the other hand, almost half of the total area of farmland in the Second Polish Republic was held by huge landowners. The situation led to ever louder political calls for land redistribution to peasant smallholders. The Land Reform Implementation Act of 1920, and its amendment of 1925, laid legal foundations for land redistribution. By the Second World War, 2,654,800 hectares of land had undergone redistribution, as a result of which 734,100 new farms were established. However, this land reform did not achieve its goal, namely the empowering of efficient smaller farms, as quantitative analysis showed a continuing process of agricultural land fragmentation.