ABSTRACT
The demand for land redistribution to improve the situation of the peasants became so strong that land reform was inevitable to keep the support of the peasants. Land reforms were implemented in all Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), initiated by Communists who had been inspired by the Soviet example of the 1920s, and supported by the smallholders. The land reform legislation was settled in three acts: the Confiscation Act of April 1919, the Distribution Act of January 1920, and the Compensation Act of April 1920. Landowning nobles managed to exercise far-reaching authority over the local peasantry as they maintained their position under the loose and remote Turkish Empire. Under the land reform decree of August 1945, 1.6 million hectares, or 6 percent, of the national territory were expropriated, mainly from Germans or collaborators. CEEC land reforms are a good example of institutional change following a major crisis. War is the extreme case of a crisis leading to institutional change.
