Agrarian socialism or agricultural socialism is a political ideology that promotes

social ownership Social ownership is a type of property where an asset is recognized to be in the possession of society as a whole rather than individual members or groups within it. Social ownership of the means of production is the defining characteristic of ...

of agrarian and

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

production as opposed to

private ownership Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Capacity (law), legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from Collective ownership ...

. Agrarian socialism involves equally distributing agricultural land among collectivized peasant villages. Many agrarian socialist movements have tended to be

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...

(with an emphasis on decentralization and non-state forms of collective ownership), locally focused, and traditional. 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 Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

include the

Socialist Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR; ,, ) was a major socialist political party in the late Russian Empire, during both phases of the Russian Revolution, and in early Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia. The party memb ...

(the SRs). The SRs were a prominent agrarian socialist political party in early 20th-century

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

during the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

. The SRs garnered much support among Russia's rural peasantry, who in particular supported their program of land

socialization In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the process of Internalisation (sociology), internalizing the Norm (social), norm ...

as opposed to the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

program of land

nationalization Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...

—division of land among peasant tenants rather than collectivization in

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...

state management. Examples in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

include the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

(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 China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(PRC). Inspired by the CCP's

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an indu ...

, from 1975 to 1979, the CPK and the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...

implemented an extreme policy of moving the entire urban population to the countryside to become farmers, which contributed to a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

. Examples of agrarian socialist parties in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

include the Socialist Party of Oklahoma and the

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF; , FCC) was a federal democratic socialism, democratic socialistThe following sources describe the CCF as a democratic socialist political party: * * * * * * and social democracy, social-democ ...

(CCF) in Canada. In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, 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 Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

. Examples in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

include agrarian socialist movements and sentiments that were developed in 19th-century

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

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 The Communist Party of Cuba (, PCC) is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26th of July Movement and Popu ...

. Founded in 1984, the Landless Workers' Movement of Brazil was a socialist movement pursuing land reform in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. 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.

Theory and praxis

Agrarian socialism is a political ideology combining principles from

agrarianism Agrarianism is a social philosophy, social and political philosophy that advocates for rural development, a Rural area, rural agricultural lifestyle, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Those who adhere ...

and

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

. Agrarian socialism pursues the collectivization of rural populations as opposed to agricultural policies that promote capitalistic farming. Agricultural collectivization seeks to contribute to the efficiency and productivity of large-scale farming while mitigating related issues of landlessness or overmigration to urban districts. Agrarian socialism emphasizes the social control, ownership, and utilization of the

means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...

(such as farms) in a rural society. Additionally, principles like community, sharing, and local ownership are emphasized under agrarian socialism. For instance, in rural communities in post-Soviet Russia, "social organization of labor in the peasant household is based upon highly dense networks of mutual trust and interdependences" that diminished the need for manager-employee styles of labor. Nationalist ideology can also be seen coupled with agrarian socialist ideology, sometimes serving as the foundation for peasant-led revolutions. For instance, nationalist propaganda from the fledging Chinese communist party during the Sino-Japanese War era "furthered the mobilization of the masses and helped determine the form this mobilization took."

Europe

Diggers

The

Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with a political ideology and programme resembling what would later be called agrarian socialism.; ; ; Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard (Digger), Will ...

, a 17th-century group of religious and political dissidents in England, are associated with agrarian socialism.

Agrarian socialism in rural Hungary

The rise of Agrarian Socialism in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

began in the late 19th century in Viharsarok, Hungary. The socialist movement sparked as a response to the exploitation of rural laborers and landless peasants who worked as farmers under feudalism in southeastern Hungary during the

Habsburg Monarchy The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...

. In 1890, the Magyarországi Szociáldemokrata Párt ( MSZDP) started to mobilize and organize agricultural workers, which resulted in rural laborers and poor peasant farmers protesting feudal landlords and local magistrates. The MSZDP advocated for an increase in the wages of farmers and the elimination of

corvée Corvée () is a form of unpaid forced labour that is intermittent in nature, lasting for limited periods of time, typically only a certain number of days' work each year. Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state (polity), state for the ...

. The first uprising among the agrarian socialists began on May 1, 1891, in

Orosháza Orosháza is a city situated in the westernmost part of Békés (county), Békés county, Hungary, on the Békés ridge bordered by the rivers River Maros, Maros and River Körös, Körös. Orosháza is an important culture, cultural, educational ...

and

Békéscsaba Békéscsaba (; ; see also #Name, other alternative names) is a city with county rights in southeast Hungary, the capital of Békés County. Geography Békéscsaba is located in the Great Hungarian Plain, southeast from Budapest. Highway 44, 47 ...

. The uprising occurred after local authorities and the gendarmerie tried to prevent May Day celebrations among peasants and refused to recognize worker associations among peasants legally. The uprisings led to hundreds of rural workers and

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

s being arrested. A key figure in the MSZDP was János Szántó Kovács, who advocated for land distribution among peasant farmers. On April 22, 1894, after Hungarian authorities confiscated socialist materials among workers' associations and arrested János Szántó Kovács, protesters stormed the town hall of

Hódmezővásárhely Hódmezővásárhely (; also known by other alternative names) is a city with county rights in southeast Hungary, on the Great Hungarian Plain, at the meeting point of the Békés-Csanádi Ridge and the clay grassland surrounding the river Tisz ...

which resulted in the military firing shots into a crowd of several thousand protesters. The violent reaction to the uprising garnered the attention of socialist philosopher

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Austria-Hungarian government declaring a state of siege, which resulted in mass arrests of socialist activists and brutal treatment of peasants in rural Hungary. The government continued its effort to quelch the agrarian socialist movement, and in 1898, authorities imprisoned István Várkonyi, who edited an agrarian socialist journal called Földmivelő. The jailing of Várkonyi came after a group of socialist women from Orosháza published an article detailing the demands for livable wages for agrarian women workers. As a result of the crackdown, the MSZDP distanced themselves from socialist activists, and the movement went underground, which gave birth to woman-led movements and groups that advocated for agrarian socialism, such as the Feminist Association. On April 6, 1908, a second wave of agrarian socialism was birthed in Balmazújváros when a group of 400 peasants led by agrarian socialist leaders met to create the National Agricultural Party(Országos Földmívelő Párt). The party called for "equal suffrage and full freedom of the press, and the unrestricted right of assembly and association." The National Agricultural Party, in contrast to the MSZDP, openly advocated for women's suffrage and encouraged women to organize under the party's banner. In 1918, the Communist Party of Hungary was founded, and shortly after, the Hungarian Soviet Republic was established, but it was short-lived. The National Peasant Party was formed in 1939 and advocated for land distribution among peasant agrarian workers. Communist rule was revived in June 1948, and the Hungarian Working People's Party came into power which resulted in the Hungarian People's Republic being formed. From the late 1940s, Hungary adopted the Soviet

Kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to eme ...

model, which was an agricultural collectivization system that origininated in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

where peasants fully merged their agricultural resources in an effort to increase agricultural production. The result of forced collectivization and the subsequent poor operation of these cooperatives resulted in food shortages in the 1950s. Following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Hungary abandoned the rigid Kolkhoz model opting for a more flexible form of cooperatives where modestly sized individual holdings were allowed but the bulk of the land was jointly cultivated.

Russian populist tradition and Socialist Revolutionary Party

The

was a major political party in early-20th-century Russia and a key player in the

. After the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

of 1917 it shared power with liberal, social democratic, and other socialist parties within the

Russian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II on 2 March, O.S. New_Style.html" ;"title="5 ...

. In November 1917, it won a plurality of the national vote in Russia's first-ever democratic elections (to the

Russian Constituent Assembly The All Russian Constituent Assembly () was a constituent assembly convened in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m., , whereupon it was dissolved by the Bolshevik-led All-Russian Central Ex ...

), but the soviets had gained control of the country, and the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

maneuvered and eliminated the other parties within the soviets, including the Socialist Revolutionaries, and seized power. That sparked the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

and the subsequent persecution. The Socialist Revolutionaries' ideology was built upon the philosophical foundation of Russia's narodnik, a movement of the 1860s and the 1870s and its worldview developed primarily by Alexander Herzen and Pyotr Lavrov. After a period of decline and marginalization in the 1880s, the narodnik school of thought about social change in Russia was revived and substantially modified by a group of writers and activists known as "neonarodniki" (neo-populists), particularly Viktor Chernov. Their main innovation was a renewed dialogue with

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

and the integration of some of the key Marxist concepts into their thinking and practice. In that way, with the economic spurt and the industrialization in Russia in the 1890s, they attempted to broaden their appeal to attract the rapidly growing urban workforce to their traditionally peasant-oriented program. The intention was to widen the concept of the "people" so that it encompassed all elements in the society that were opposed to the Tsarist regime. The party's program was both

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and democratic in nature and garnered much support among Russia's rural

peasantry A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

, which particularly supported the program of ''land-socialization'', as opposed to the

' program of nationalization of the land. The Socialist Revolutionaries wanted the division of land for the peasant tenants, rather than the Bolsheviks' desire of

collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

in authoritarian state management. The SR policy platform differed from that of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Parties, both Bolshevik and Menshevik, in that it was not officially Marxist though some of its ideologues considered themselves to be Marxists. The SRs believed that the "laboring peasantry" and the industrial proletariat were revolutionary classes in Russia, but the Bolsheviks considered the industrial proletariat to be exclusively revolutionary. The Socialist Revolutionaries defined class membership in terms of ownership of the means of production, but Chernov and other theorists defined class membership in terms of extraction of surplus value from labor. Under the first definition, smallholding subsistence farmers who do not employ wage labor are, as owners of their land, would be members of the petty bourgeoisie. Under the second definition, they can be grouped with all who provide, rather than purchase, labor power and hence with the proletariat as part of the "laboring class". Chernov, nevertheless, considered the proletariat the "vanguard", with the peasantry forming the "main body" of the revolutionary army.

Asia

Chinese Communist Party

In 1950, the

(CCP) enacted the Agrarian Reform Law, which confiscated the property of feudal landlords and redistributed it to the peasants. The CCP began implementing agricultural collectivization in 1952. From 1952 to 1958, agricultural production grew steadily. Economists then considered Chinese agricultural policy implementation to be a success relative to the Soviet Union's collectivization in 1929. However, China's agricultural output started to decrease significantly for three years in a row in 1959. The agricultural crisis led to 9 million deaths by the famine. The specific cause of the agricultural crisis and resultant famine is debated, yet many sources attribute it to the Great Leap Forward. From 1958 to 1962, the Chinese Communist Party orchestrated a socioeconomic campaign, referred to as the Great Leap Forward, to rapidly develop the nation's agricultural and industrial economies.

Communist Party of Kampuchea

Once the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) came to power in

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

in 1975, the government commenced the implementation of agrarian socialist policies in the nation's agricultural sector. The leadership outlined a policy agenda that included the establishment of agricultural cooperatives and collectivization. It referred to these policy priorities as the plan to realize a "Super Great Leap Forward" to an agrarian-socialist polity that was linguistically and ideologically inspired by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

's Great Leap Forward in China. An emphasis on autarkic independence and self-reliance characterized the plan.Defalco, Randle C. (2014). "Justice and Starvation in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge Famine" ''The Cambodia Law and Policy Journal. 3''. Web
https://cambodialpj.org/article/justice-and-starvation-in-cambodia-the-khmer-rouge-famine/#:~:text=The%20Khmer%20Rouge%20began%20implementing,Rouge%20military%20with%20precious%20rice.
/ref> To achieve complete autarky, CPK leadership asserted that the revolution would be sustained by agriculture, rice production in particular. The leadership sought to triple Cambodian rice production within a year. It evacuated urban residents en masse to rural agriculture-zones, which led to a large supply of agricultural labor. The agricultural reform policies coincided with a period of mass starvation and famine from 1975 to 1979. The Cambodian Super Great Leap Forward differed from the Chinese Great Leap Forward in several key ways. The Chinese communes were intended to decentralize state power, but in Cambodia, all facets of labor and production on the communes were controlled by the state. Additionally, Cambodian policy held an underlying sentiment of anti-industrial and anti-urban ideology. Furthermore, urban centers managed to mitigate the total collapse of China's rural economy, but rural Cambodia did not have any urban centers from which to receive aid. Dr. Kate Frieson, a researcher and policy analyst at Royal Roads University, considers those conditions to have led to the collapse of Cambodia's agricultural economy and to the resultant famine.

North America

Socialist Party of Oklahoma

Relative to socialist parties elsewhere in the

, the Socialist Party of Oklahoma enjoyed political significance in the first 20 years of the twentieth century. The party's electoral prominence peaked in the elections of 1914, when over 175 socialist candidates were elected to local and county positions, and six were elected to the Oklahoma state legislature. In the gubernatorial elections, socialist candidate Fred W. Holt received over 20 percent of the statewide vote. Virtually all of the Socialist Party's support derived from wheat-growing regions, and significant support came from farmers. As a semi-autonomous affiliate of the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America ...

(SPA), the Socialist Party of

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

possessed a uniquely agrarian socialist agenda in contrast to other branches of the SPA.Bissett, Jim. ''Agrarian Socialism in America : Marx, Jefferson, and Jesus in the Oklahoma Countryside, 1904–1920''. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Many party leaders originated from prior agrarian movements, including the Farmers' Alliance and the Farmers' Union. The Socialist Party of Oklahoma advocated for agricultural collectivization and worker-owned farms and against the crop lien system,

usury Usury () is the practice of making loans that are seen as unfairly enriching the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is charged in e ...

, and tenancy.

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

The

(CCF) was a

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-mana ...

political party founded in 1932 in

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, by a merger of socialist, agrarian, and labor organizations. The CCF held the realization of socialism as an explicit political goal.Lipset, S. M. ''Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1950. Print.

was primarily a rural and agricultural province throughout much of the twentieth century, with 58 percent of the labor force employed in agriculture in 1941. In 1944, the CCF formed North America's first democratic socialist government in an unprecedented electoral victory. CCF leadership soon implemented universal Medicare in Saskatchewan. Following this victory, the CCF government remained in power for twenty years.

Latin America

Landless Rural Workers' Movement of Brazil

Founded in January 1984, the Landless Rural Workers' Movement of Brazil, was a socialist movement looking to challenge the status quo and promote the rights of labor over capital. Getting their start from the land gifted to them by the Catholic and Lutheran churches, members of this movement's first priority was to attain permanence on their settled land. Once settled, various MST branches were legitimized under the "social function" component of the Republic of Brazil's constitution, meaning that their contributions to society were recognized by the government. Next, the MST looked for a way to promote their socialist values. The answer came in the form of collectivization, taking inspiration from cooperatives found in Cuba. One MST leader stated "Only agricultural cooperation would allow settlements to best develop their production, introduce the division of labor, allow access to credit and new technologies...". However, they did not find immediate success as the rationalization of labor in these settlements sparked a great deal of tension between members. Factors such as the inability to become profitable and the paralleled behaviors between landlords and administrators of the cooperatives stagnated the progress of the MST. However, a reevaluation of the MST's ideals helped them refocus their struggle. First was the reintroduction of Campones tradition which placed the good of the family or community at center of decisions made on the farms. They also substituted large-scale production and rationalization of labor for subsistence farming which allowed for a less rigid organization of labor. The MST also partook in communal living, another significant element of Campones culture that encouraged families on the same cooperatives to live closely with one another. Finally, money earned by the cooperative was reinvested into the settlement to help sustain their farming technology, healthcare, and educational facilities amongst other things. The success of this rebrand created a number of opportunities for the MST. For example, in 1992 the Confederation of Agrarian Reform Cooperatives of Brazil provided the organization with support on a national level for things like education, technical training, and organizational support. The following year the MST established its first cooperative training course which became a part of the Technical Institute of Training and Research on Agrarian Reform. Furthermore, by 2008 "the MST had helped establish 161 cooperatives of various kinds, including 140 agro-industries". Additionally, the MST collaborated with the Brazilian government to create economic stability in their settlements through the Food Acquisition Program, which requires 30% of milk served to Brazilian public Schools to be bought from agrarian reform settlements.

Cuba

Leading up to the July 26 Revolution, both the Cuban government and Cuban citizens, especially those involved with agriculture, were heavily discontent with the sugar trade. Under this capitalist system, American enterprises claimed land previously belonging to small farmers for their own agricultural monopolies. Poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy grew tenfold, but Cubans did not have the means to stop it without causing severe harm to their economy. However, the success of the revolution resulted in a resurgence of peasant-favoring and socialist ideals in Cuba. That was part of the anti-imperial and anti-colonial campaign promoted by the newly established Republic of Cuba. Under this new government, both the Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 and the Agrarian Reform Law of 1963 were enacted. These laws acted as a catalyst for social and economic reform as they allowed for land to be redistributed amongst thousands of peasants and abolished foreign ownership of rural lands. Previously corporate-owned farms were soon turned over to small family farmers or obtained by the state for their own mass food production purposes. Cooperative farms were another product from that period of reform, which allowed small farms to group together. That strengthened the voice and power of the agricultural population in Cuba when it came to the political sphere. The cooperatives were also highly effective, with over 75% becoming profitable in 1990, compared to 27% of state-owned farms claiming the same profitability. As time progressed, more land was given to small farmers with state-sponsored farms in Cuba occupying 82% of cultivated land in 1988, but only 20% of cultivated land 2018.

Huasteco agrarian socialism

Indigenous Huastecan culture positioned community and local ownership above all else. Sharing resources and farming for the entire village was a normal occurrence in daily life. Spanish colonization and continued imperialization from other countries made that way of life fall under great duress. Huastecos lost the rights to their land and faced a caste system in which they were placed at the bottom. In the 19th century, creole and mestizo Mexican elites oppressed Huastecans by expropriating their land and privatizing it for their own political goals, which included building railroads and other capital-accumulating developments. The process of socialist radicalization for Huastecan peasants largely came from nationalist sentiments that arose after armed conflicts. After fighting in the Mexican War of Independence and against the U.S. and the French during their respective invasions, the Huastecans developed a sense of identity as Mexican citizens. They further developed another facet of their identity from the oppression they faced from other Mexicans. A combination of radicalization efforts by anarchists from Mexico City and Socialist priests, for instance, Padre Mauricio Zavala, and oppression from the creole and mestizo elite helped Huasteacans develop their peasant class consciousness. Their national and class identities fused together creating the spirit of rebellion based on the principles of abolishing private property, reclaiming land rights, obtaining access to government representation, and other civil liberties. The Huasteco people spread their ideology using pamphlets, books, and flags. The final root of the peasant revolution of 1879 occurred in 1876, when General Porfirio Díaz enlisted the help of peasants to overthrow the current president Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada in exchange for the return of peasant land rights. However, he betrayed them by choosing to implement liberal reforms, which strengthened private property laws and further persecuted Huastecans instead. Other peasant groups, for instance, the Morelo people of Mexico experienced the same fate as the Huastecans under the dictatorship rule of Diaz. The peasant groups combined their strengths and began a new socialist revolution that would abolish "any new revolutionary government that failed to address the needs of Mexico's impoverished and politically excluded rural population...".

References

Footnote

Bibliography

* * * * Hart, Paul. ''Bitter Harvest'': ''The Social Transformation of Morelos, Mexico, and the Origins, of the Zapatista Revolution 1840–1910.'' Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. * Johnson, Chalmers A. ''Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolution China 1937–1945.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962. * *