Iran's land reforms, carried out by Shah's government between 1962 and 1971, were one of the most ambitious measures in the modern history of the Middle East. However, less than its apparent statistical success, the actual achievements of the program ...
Iran's land reforms, carried out by Shah's government between 1962 and 1971, were one of the most ambitious measures in the modern history of the Middle East. However, less than its apparent statistical success, the actual achievements of the program in terms of positive benefits for the peasants were negligible. Later, the widespread discontent of thousands of Iranian villages led to the downfall of the Shah. Eric Hogeland's analysis in the first major study on the effects of this highly publicized program shows that the main motivations behind the land reforms were political. In an effort to replace the almost absolute authority of the owner class over the villages, the central government hoped to expand its powers throughout the villages of Iran. While the Pahlavi government achieved this goal, its failure to implement effective structural reforms was a long-term liability. Hoagland, who conducted field research in rural Iran throughout the 1970s and witnessed the revolution from a small village, provides a detailed account of the development of land reform and its effects on the main groups involved: landowners, peasants, local officials, and merchants. , and brokers. He shows how continued rural poverty caused thousands of peasants to migrate to cities, resulting in a severe shortage of agricultural workers and an oversupply of unskilled urban labor. When Shah's rule faced mass opposition in the cities in 1978, not only did the disillusioned rural population not support the regime, thousands of villagers participated in demonstrations that hastened the collapse of the monarchy.
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