ABSTRACT
Within living memory, markets were a relatively independent engine of the Soviet economy only in the 1920s. These years therefore became one point of departure for arguments about the reforms of the 1990s. There was, however, another “measure of all things”—the West, or the more daring of the former Soviet colonies in East and Central Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. If property is a relation between persons in terms of things, then land has always occupied a special place among those things. This is true of institutions, theories, and projects alike. Given the country’s history, the first task of the land law was to redefine the relation between the people and the land. The rights provided for were of several kinds and in multiple layers. The resulting network of actual property relations would be extremely complex. Especially in the transition period, the linkages and overlaps were bound to give rise to conflicts.
