Agrarian socialism

Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes social ownership of agrarian and agricultural production as opposed to private ownership.^[1] Agrarian socialism involves equally distributing agricultural land among collectivized peasant villages.^[2] Many agrarian socialist movements have tended to be rural (with an emphasis on decentralization and non-state forms of collective ownership), locally focused, and traditional.^[2] Governments and political parties seeking agrarian socialist policies have existed throughout the world, in regions including Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, Africa and Australia.

Examples of agrarian socialist parties in Europe include the Socialist Revolutionary Party (the SRs). The SRs were a prominent agrarian socialist political party in early 20th-century Russia during the Russian Revolution.^[3] The SRs garnered much support among Russia's rural peasantry, who in particular supported their program of land socialization as opposed to the Bolshevik program of land nationalization—division of land among peasant tenants rather than collectivization in authoritarian state management.^[3]

Examples in Asia include the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 1940s to the 1970s, and the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) in the 1970s. Throughout the mid-20th century, the CCP pursued an agrarian socialist policy agenda in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Inspired by the CCP’s Great Leap Forward, from 1975 to 1979, the CPK and the Khmer Rouge implemented an extreme policy of moving the entire urban population to the countryside to become farmers, which contributed to a famine.

Examples of agrarian socialist parties in North America include the Socialist Party of Oklahoma and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Canada. In the United States, the Socialist Party of Oklahoma enjoyed local political significance in the first 20 years of the twentieth century as an agrarian socialist party. In 1944, the CCF formed North America’s first democratic socialist government, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

Examples in Latin America include agrarian socialist movements and sentiments that were developed in 19th-century Mexico by the indigenous Huastecan culture as part of its clash with Spanish imperialism. In the 20th century, examples include the Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil and the Communist Party of Cuba. Founded in 1984, the Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil was a socialist movement pursuing land reform in Brazil. Following the Cuban Revolution, the new Communist Party of Cuba pursued agrarian socialist policies, including the Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 and the Agrarian Reform Law of 1963.

^ Lofchie, Michael F. "Review: Agrarian Socialism in the Third World: The Tanzanian Case ." Comparative Politics 8.3 (1976): 479-99. Web. JSTOR 421410
^ ^a ^b Saka, Mark Saad (2013). For God and revolution : priest, peasant, and agrarian socialism in the Mexican Huasteca. Albuquerque. ISBN 978-0-8263-5339-9 OCLC 854583739.
^ ^a ^b Macfarlane, Leslie J. (1998), "From Russian Socialism to Soviet Communism", Socialism, Social Ownership and Social Justice, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 142–174, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-26987-7_9, ISBN 978-1-349-26989-1

[1] Lofchie, Michael F. "Review: Agrarian Socialism in the Third World: The Tanzanian Case ." Comparative Politics 8.3 (1976): 479-99. Web. JSTOR 421410

[:2-2] Saka, Mark Saad (2013). For God and revolution : priest, peasant, and agrarian socialism in the Mexican Huasteca. Albuquerque. ISBN 978-0-8263-5339-9 OCLC 854583739.

[:3-3] Macfarlane, Leslie J. (1998), "From Russian Socialism to Soviet Communism", Socialism, Social Ownership and Social Justice, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 142–174, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-26987-7_9, ISBN 978-1-349-26989-1

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