Land reform during the period of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939)

Land reform, along with the religious, military and territorial organization restructuring, was one of the major structural reforms that the Republican leaders were forced to undertake in the spring of 1931. This article briefly describes some of the views that have questioned - and/or continue to question - the usefulness or necessity of the reform approved in September 1932. Two different moments in the implementation of the reform are identified. The first is known as the enlightened reform, and it was characterized by the expropriation of lands to the Grandeza de Espana, thus allowing the settlement of a few thousands of peasants. The second is the reform from below initiated in February 1936, when the Popular Front reached power. The amount of redistributed land over this period was five times greater than it had been over the previous three years. Finally, we describe the speeding up of the reform over the Civil War, now comparable to other European reforms of that time, and the problems related to the confrontation with the communists who were in charge of the policies for the small peasants and to the hostility of anarchists and other political forces.