Tierra, trabajo y reforma agraria en la Segunda República española (1931-1936): algunas consideraciones críticas

The brief existence of the Second Republic and its violent end tend to favor the usual negative view of land reform. This article analyzes the perceptions of inefficiency and contradictory effects of the twentieth-century agr icultural reform, in contrast with the thesis of an active and extremely efficient market following the liberal refor ms of the nineteenth century. The second part of the paper focuses on recent historiographical research that considers the main cause of pre-Civil War social unrest to have been the labor polic y launched by the Socialists in 1931, which was also seen as a decisive factor in the swing towards the right of mid- and small-scale farmers. This article defends the viability of an agricultural reform that proved beneficial for the average farm worker. The initial costs of adaptation to the reform are explained, along with the hostility of Spain’s large-scale farmers to collective bargaining, an approach which had been institutionalized elsewhere through social policies.