Conclusions and Outlook

Abstract

(281) The land systems of western and southern Europe appeared nearly static over most of the early twentieth century. The land was fully occupied since long and agricultural populations varied only in a moderate degree. Spontaneous change brought only minor modifications of structure before mid-century, deliberate policy even less. Such changes as occurred are difficult to detect and to characterize. Eastern Europe, before the Communist revolutions, was going through relatively more rapid changes similar to some of those which western and southern Europe had experienced at much earlier dates and at a slower tempo. All of this suggested that the legacy of the outgoing nineteenth century had about it something final. Expectations and policy, other than those of the Communist régimes, were therefore mostly geared towards making the best possible out of this general type of structure. The Communist policies, with their attempts at a drastic remodelling of the land systems, were based on theory never tested under competitive practical conditions and predicated on premises which in part ante-dated the classical European legacy of peasant-proprietor, family-scale operating rural society.