ABSTRACT
When, some eight years ago, the Soviet Union ceased to exercise a single and central control over its own economy as well as over those of its satellite states in the Comecon area, western observers assumed that amongst the earliest reforms would be those affecting the ownership and control of land. Such assumptions were themselves based on other assumptions, namely; that Чһе people' in countries which had been annexed by the Soviet Union after the 1939-45 War would demand restitution of land confiscated from them by the State, and private ownership of land was the single and essential key to the formation of the private enterprises which would be needed to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of centralised production and distribution.
