Soraya Ghebleh

The Social, Political, and Economic Effects of Iranian Land Reform and its

Contribution to the 1979 Revolution

Introduction

Iran experienced tremendous change in the post-war era that stemmed from both

domestic and international catalysts. The Shah of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, meant to

ensure the modernization of Iran by instituting a wide range of reforms, backed by the

United States and other international institutions. The largely rural-based economy was

ingrained in a system that closely resembled feudalism, which was not conducive to

modern agrarian reform. Examination of Iran’s political economy recommended land

reform as a vital centerpiece and starting point to affect change. Land reform was

implemented by the Shah’s government in order to consolidate the power of the

government and modernize the economy but instead resulted in irreversible changes in

the social, political, and economic structure of the villages and urban centers with adverse

consequences that greatly contributed and set the stage for the 1979 Revolution.

The Iranian Village Before 1962

Iranian land was divided up into four different kinds of land that included the

crown lands, state lands (khalesejat), endowment lands (ouaf), and private lands that were

owned by large landowners. The vast lands that were owned by these landlords were

farmed by peasants on the basis of the traditional ‘five-element formula,’ according to

which labor, land, water, seed, and animals were taken as the basis of the division of the

produce with the peasant retaining 1/3rd of the crop.1

In 1956, when the first national census was done, there were approximately

51,300 villages. Approximately 95% of total holdings were less than 20 hectares with

decreasing number of holdings as the size of the holding increased.2 Over 62% of all

agricultural land was under some system of sharecropping, where peasants tilled land that

was not theirs.3

The relationship between the landlord and peasant was complex, serving to the

benefit of the landlord and the detriment of the peasant. Lambton describes that the

“landowner regards peasants as a drudge whose sole function is to provide him with his

profits; education, better hygiene, and improved housing are considered unnecessary.”4

This attitude was prevalent among landlords throughout the country and the relationship

between landlord and peasant was often one of tension and mistrust on both sides.

Although the landlord was wealthy and powerful, he was constantly fearful of being

“despoiled or cheated by a discontented peasantry.”5

There were two types of peasants in the villages, nasaqdars and khoshneshins,

both having different roles and creating different classes within the peasants. Nasaqdars

were essentially peasants with land-use rights and khoshneshins were peasants without

them.6 Production organized through work units, or cooperative societies that were

1 Bashiriyeh, 172 Distribution of Landholdings, by Size, 1960, Source: OAS 1960: vol. 15, table 1013 Distribution of Type of Tenure in Different Categories of Landholding Size, 1960, OAS 1960: vol 15, table 101 4 Lambton, 205 Lambton, 246 Najmabadi, 49

composed of several peasant households were extremely common because cultivation

was difficult alone unless one had the means to support cultivation individually. These

societies, however, were able to be function primarily with support from the landlord.

The landlords enforced land rotation among the nasaqdars in order to avoid peasant

attachment to a specific plot of land. Landlords often had villages that were spread out

with fragmented land to cultivate due to the difficult geography that existed in certain

areas of Iran and the traditional split of land. Peasants often had many scattered pieces of

land for their use, which later had negative implications during the first phase of land

redistribution.7

Iran-US Relations and Origins of Modern Land Reform

In the post war era, the United States, the United Nations, and other international

organizations began to push for the development of the Third World. For the United

States, Iran was a strategic country of interest because of its vast resources, geopolitical

location, and proximity to the Soviet Union. A UN Resolution recognized that

“Unsatisfactory forms of agrarian structure, and in particular systems of land tenure, tend

in a variety of ways to impede economic development in underdeveloped countries,”

which was the case of Iran in the 1940s and 1950s.”8

Political debates in Iran regarding how to meet the political and economic

challenges that the West posed were most commonly seen in two ways. The more

conservative view maintained that Iran was in no way inferior to the West, no

fundamental changes were required in domestic or foreign policy, and that Iran should

7 Danesh, Urban Anthropology & Studies of Cultural Systems & World Economic Development, 19928 UN 1951b: 15

exploit the bipolar political rivalry that existed between the United States and the Soviet

Union for Iran’s benefit or merely disengage and keep the relationship at a minimum.

The alternative view to this was that Iran needed to implement domestic economic,

political, and social reforms to essentially modernize the country in order to be globally

competitive in the Western world.9

The Shah and his government wanted to maintain close ties with Western nations

and achieve the same economic and political success so the orientation was directed

towards implementing reform. Iran wanted to industrialize and forming a strategic

alliance with the United States could give Iran the means to do so. The Shah developed

close ties with the United States as a result of US involvement in the expulsion of

Mossadegh and US interest in containment of communism and became one of the

greatest recipients of economic and military aid.10 The Point Four Program of aid

announced by President Truman that offered “technical, scientific, and managerial

knowledge necessary to economic development” marked the beginning of a cooperative

program where American experts would consult with the Iranian government in areas of

agriculture, health, and education and would work to train the peasants and villagers of

Iran.11 This concept of “give aid and demand reform” was continued through the

Kennedy administration and characterized the relationship between the US and Iran at

this time.12

9 Hooglund, 3310 Ricks, Land Reform and Social Change in Iran, 199111 Truman, Four Points Program, 194912 Najmabadi, 18

A recurring theme in the reports of the experts sent by the United States as well as

within models of development occurring around the Third World was the application of

agrarian development and land reform as a precursor to industrialization. It was

suggested, initially, that Iran focus on “mechanization of agriculture to increase work

output of each peasant family and productivity of lands” rather than changing the land

tenure in Iran. The recognition of the archaic nature and the deep-rooted nature of the

tenure system indicated that it could not be changed overnight and “to attempt this could

result in famine, chaos in agricultural relationship, and in the long run would not benefit

the peasant.13 This mentality changed however, and as discussions in the 1950s

progressed the change of the system of land tenure became essential to land reform

policies for various motivations.14

The Shah’s Vision

Reza Shah began his reign as an extremely young and ineffectual ruler who had

limited authority over his country and transformed himself politically into an

authoritarian figure integral and inseparable from the state.15 Land reform had been a

topic of discussion in the 1940s and 1950s but the Shah was reluctant to confront the

landed class until he was assured that land reform would be successful.16 He wanted to

consolidate his power but was not yet ready or in a position to upset the landlords.17 As

his confidence grew in the 1950s and economic crisis shook Iran in the beginning of the

13 Overseas Consultants, 1949: vol. 5, p. 239, the Report on the Seven Year Economic Development Plan14 Najmabadi, 6115 Kamrava, 1516 Araghi and Majd, Land Reform Policies in Iran: Comment and Reply, 198917 Najmabadi, 32

1960s, the Shah along with his newly appointed Prime Minister Ali Amini, and Minister

of Agriculture Hassan Arsanjani became confident that it was time to institute land

reform.18

Arsanjani believed that land reform was the absolute key to political and

economic reform in Iran. He was convinced that the peasant had great potential to be an

independent proprietor of land and was completely capable of running his own affairs.

Arsanjani recognized that “although the peasant is uneducated, he still has a long

tradition of civilization behind him.”19 Arsanjani believed in profit-oriented farming. He

wanted to release the agriculture that was locked up in villages, mechanize farming, and

have farmers own the product of his work in order that the agricultural economy would

find a more solid basis. The presumed effects of this would be an increase in national

income and production, creation of political and social stability, and a rise in economic

prosperity from agriculture.20 His convictions along with the information collected in the

1950s convinced the Shah that changes of land tenure must occur in order for the country

to move forward and industrialize.

Land reform became the centerpiece for his modernization campaign more for

political reasons than for the development of the agrarian sector and of the peasantry.

This is not to say that the Shah did not care about the actual reform because that would

discredit his well-known interest for modernization for which agrarian development was

essential. His political gains, however, would be substantial if his programs achieved his

18 Lambton, 6419 Lambton, 6320 Najmabadi, 93

desired goals. The two main political objectives would be to break up the traditional

dominance of landlords over rural areas and at the same time create a solid support

system of the large rural peasantry for the monarchy and the Shah’s government.21 By

means of land redistribution, the overwhelming power of the landlords would cease and

the government would be in a position to present itself as a “progressive advocate of the

peasant’s reform ideas” and win over their support.22

Implementation of Land Reform Laws

The first stage of land reform’s main provision was to limit the amount of land by one

individual to one village, irrespective of size. Any land in excess of this should then be

transferred to those nasaqdars who were cultivating that land, recognizing that

khoshneshin who worked the land would not benefit from land reform directly. The

excess land of the landowners was to be sold to the government who then sold it back to

the nasaqdars at low-interest rates to be paid back over a long periods of time. Qanats, the

archaic but widely ingenious irrigation system prevalent in Iran at the time, were also to

be transferred to the peasants along with water rights.23 The responsibility of the upkeep

and maintenance of these qanats that were usually built and maintained by the

landowners was transferred to the peasants who were to form a cooperative society in

charge of the upkeep.24

By the time the rapid redistribution of land had occurred, there was a shift in the

attitude of Shah towards the peasantry and how he felt the rest of land and agrarian

21 Kazemi, 28022 Hooglund, 4223 Najmabadi, 9324 Lambton, 66

reform should develop. He feared rural political instability and wanted to regulate

relations between the landowners and peasants in a more moderate manner. This was a

huge change from the first phase of land reform where the government had embarked on

a propaganda campaign against the landowners, viciously attempting to undermine their

authority.25

The second stage of land reform in 1963 was intended to improve the situation of

peasants who cultivated land in villages not subject to purchase by the government as

well as to regulate relations between peasants and landowners. These reforms no longer

required landlords to sell their excess land to the government but gave them regulations

with how to distribute their land in direct action with peasants. Landlords could rent the

land to the peasants working on it, sell the land to the peasants, divide the land between

himself and the peasants working on it in proportion to traditional sharecropping

divisions, or form a joint stockholding unit in which each would share proportionate to

their traditional share of crops.26

The third stage of land reform in 1969 was an extension of the joint agricultural

units. This law required landlords who had chosen to rent their lands to set up joint units

or divide land according to sharecropping ratios. Membership in cooperatives by the

peasants, however, was a precondition to receiving any land. These cooperatives were

meant to take over the responsibilities the landowners held that included repair of qanats

and irrigation canals, use of common farm machinery, pesticide operations, and vet

services.27

25 Lambton, 7626 Najmabadi, 9427 Najmabadi, 98

Results of Land Reform

The official end of land reform was declared successful and complete in

1971. Only 3,967 whole villages and 10,995 parts of villages out of an estimated total of

60,000 villages had been divided under the first stage of land reform.28 With each

progressive stage of land reform there was diminishing success and contentment. The

first stage of land reform excluded a very large amount of the rural population to the

point where these khoshneshin had extreme difficulty even finding agricultural work in

rural areas. There were difficulties of setting up and running cooperative societies due to

lack of experience in organization and low rates of literacy so in many places, qanats and

other modes of production and upkeep fell into disrepair.29 The disrepair of qanats was

also affected by the tense relationships that existed between the landowners and the

peasants. The landowners no longer felt obligated to maintain the upkeep of every qanat

that had once been in their range of land. Many peasants did not have the means to take

this responsibility. The difficulties cooperatives societies faced, inadequate means and

lack of real government support and provision of infrastructure exacerbated these

problems.30

There was great opposition by small landowners and middle peasants to land

reform because they lacked the ability to acquire crops from the peasants working their

lands because they did not have the same power and wealth larger landowners did.31

These small landowners and middle peasants felt that the land reform policies

28 Statistical Yearbook of Iran(Plan Organization, Statistical Center 1973: chapter 12, table 63)29 Najmabadi, 10430 Lambton, 9831 Lambton, 101

discriminated against them unfairly and they were to become the among the greatest

peasant supporters of the Revolution in the following decade.32

Iranian agriculture still had very low degrees of productivity by the end of land

reform and had not been integrated into the world market. The orientation remained

towards internal consumption but with the growing population and deteriorating

conditions of the countryside, Iran could not even support the internal market.33

Land fragmentation was a serious problem for peasants who were trying to

become self-sufficient and establish agricultural units that could be commercially viable

and profitable.34 When the government redistributed land, they gave it according to what

the peasant was already working on which often times were difficult pieces of land that

were very far apart. Difficulties arose when peasants tried to cultivate these lands with

little to no help from anyone based on the geographical distribution. The government had

viewed this as pragmatic because division in such a way would not disrupt the usual

activity of the village and would encourage small-scale farming, which was initially the

promoted mechanism of improving agriculture.35

Consequences of Land Reform Policies

When land reform was first implemented, there was meant to be a “push to

employ mechanized means and modern farming, become a progressive society,

strengthen and develop agriculture along with agriculturally related industries first then

move to heavy industries who will need experienced workers that can be provided by the

32 Hooglund, 11533 Najmabadi, 18734 Najmabadi, 9735 Hooglund, 91

growing population in the villages.”36 This was the image of the realization of what

successful land reform was to look like but the reality was far removed from this image

because in many cases the villagers and villages were not better off in any way and in

many cases were worse off.37

The Shah was successful in realizing his political goal of removal of the landed

class. After land reform was complete the political and economic power of the landed

class was essentially destroyed.38 He also greatly increased the amount of actual

landowners but the unfortunate reality was many of these plots of land were completely

insufficient to provide any kind of standard of living and landed peasants were often left

even more destitute than they had been before. The amount of rural families who owned

land increased but the amount of landless migrants to urban sectors may have also

accounted for what seemed like a huge percentage increase of the rural population.39

These adverse consequences affected those nasaqdars who were eligible to

receive land but the khoshneshins were left out of land reform completely and rendered

ineligible to ever become a landowner. Once this exclusion occurred, the hope and

possibility of access to land diminished forever and in the time period of 1961 to 1980 the

amount of khoshneshin who remained in the countryside deteriorated sharply.40 This

migration, however, was not seen in a negative light by the government.

Consultants in the 1950s calculated that approximately 50% of the workers could

be “removed from the land without adverse effect on the level of agricultural production

36 Ministry of Agriculture 1962: 9837 Najmabadi, 11238 Majd, Land reform policies in Iran, 198739 Najmabadi, 12440 Najmabadi, 135

and productivity” but there was no way to remove this “surplus population.”41 By

excluding the khoshneshin, an urban labor force ready to engage in the processes of

industrialization would easily come to place. The problem, however, lied within the fact

that the agricultural sector of Iran never completed its transition. The government focused

on land reform for its political motivations and assumed that agriculture would fall into

place as a result of a stronger peasant class but without providing strong agrarian reforms,

education, and maintenance of infrastructure the shift would be next to impossible. To a

certain degree, the urban sector was able to provide industrial and manufacturing jobs but

because the level of income among the rural population was still low, they did not have

the purchasing power to maintain domestic industrial markets.42

The foundation was laid for the emergence of a “self-reliant and independent

peasantry” but this could not occur without increases and investments in the standard of

living of peasants and implementation of a national solution to the problem of low

productivity.43 This lack of follow through on the promises of reform, despite minor

successes it may have had in improving the lot of those peasants who did in fact enhance

their situations, led to disappointment and disillusionment among the peasantry.

Iranian Agriculture, Imports, and Oil Rent

In the years before land reform, total agricultural production grew very slowly

and agricultural production per capita declined with the average yields of all major crops

remaining rather low.44 The Shah’s land reform had succeeded at weakening the

41 Najmabadi, 3342 Farazmand, 9443 Lambton, 6944 Table 11, Source F. Khamsi, 1969

landlords’ political and economic goal in favor of a capitalist system; the land reform also

caused “lasting stagnation in the agricultural sector.”45 Obstacles that were in the way of

Iranian agriculture included lack of strong water and irrigation systems, lack of seeds and

fertilizers, increasing rural-urban migration that caused a decline in the amount of rural

cultivators, improper allocation of investments and loans, and depletion of expertise and

managerial resources.46

Iran was unique in the early 1970s, however, in its position as a developing nation

of the third world due to its ability to obtain income from oil rents. Most developing

nations could not ignore their agricultural development because if their economy was

undergoing a demographic transition from rural to industrialized they most likely had no

other source of income. Iran, however, was receiving exorbitant amounts of income due

to its geopolitical position, allowing Iran to spend on importing food rather than

developing agriculture.47 Iran’s oil revenues increased from 5 billion to 20 million in the

time period of 1972 – 1973.48 This quickly led to a huge budget deficit by 1975, which

affected the Iranian economy and those at the bottom of it greatly.

The share of agriculture’s contribution to the GDP declined drastically dropping from

35% in 1955 to 24% in 1967 all the way down to an extreme low of 9% in 1976.49 This

great decrease in agriculture’s contribution was not a direct result of land redistribution

but a result of many of the consequences of land redistribution. Migration of agricultural

45 Parvin, 17046 Parvin, 17647 Parvin, 17348 Bashiriyeh, 6749 Central Bank of Iran, Annual Reports for 1968-1976 (Teheran); Plan Organization of Iran, Statistical Center, Statistical Yearbook of Iran 1968-1976

workers to urban centers, higher wage earnings in urban vs. rural areas, difficulties in

maintenance of small land holdings and in the upkeep of technology needed to support

farming, disillusionment of the peasantry, combined with all of the unsuccessful aspects

of the land reform in the 1960s were factors in agricultural stagnation.50

Rural-Urban Migration

Land reform did not benefit all peasants equally and the khoshneshin along with

peasants who received insufficient land holdings were in more poverty than before,

becoming a “push” factor towards urban migration. Rural-urban migration accelerated

rapidly from the onset of land reform with over 2 million people migrating from the

countryside to the cities from 1962 to 1971.51 The failure of land reform and the

deterioration of agriculture were push actors that were prevalent throughout the entire

country.52 Landlessness among the khoshneshin with the removal of the hope to ever

improve their situation caused a drastic migration from rural areas.

The standard of living and the amount of wages earned in the 1970s far exceeded

those of rural Iran, which served as one of the “pull” factors of rural-urban migration.

Whereas rural “push factors” were predominant in the 1960s when land reform was

50 Hooglund, 10851 Bashiriyeh, 5852 Aghajanian, 154

taking place, the economic boom coupled with dramatic increases in industrialization and

manufacturing became the major “pull factors” that took precedent in the 1970s.53

Industrial expansion that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s involved

labor-intensive projects like construction as well as manufacturing jobs. The difficulty

rural migrant workers had with much of the labor needed was its inconsistency. They

were often hired on a daily wage basis with termination upon completion of the project.54

An increasing majority of these migrant workers or commuters were young males

between the ages of 15 to 29. This particular population of migrants posed a problem

when extensive out-migration occurred causing many villages to be devoid of young

men. It is also important to note that unlike most situations of migration, villagers who

had family members working in the cities did not benefit from “remittances.” Because so

many of the migrant workers were young men, whatever surplus income they had needed

to be saved for marriage.55

Social Unrest, Mobilization and Revolution

Social consequences of land reform were reflected in the mass of urban dwellers of

rural origin and commuting youth of villages involved in demonstration as well as

peasants bursting out onto the political scene. Iranian peasants had long been known for

their tranquility but after the land reforms gave peasants their own land and they had a

taste of what ownership and relative social freedom felt like, it was very difficult for them

to turn back and sit voiceless.56

53 Araghi and Majd, Land Reform Policies in Iran: Comment and Reply, 198954 Hooglund, 11355 Hooglund, 11656 Araghi and Majd, Land Reform Policies in Iran: Comment and Reply, 1989

By the middle of the 1970s, the economic boom gained from oil was no longer able to

provide for the great amount of imports being brought into the country. Price increases

surpassed wage increases, which led to labor unrest, unemployment, and further

disillusionment and disappointment among both peasants who remained in the villages

but especially those who commuted or migrated to urban centers.57

Rural-urban migration played a huge role in mobilizing the peasant population

towards revolution. The young men who worked in urban centers either as commuters or

migrant workers were imbued with new political ideas and for the first time were

becoming involved in politics. The rural economy of the 1970s in Iran was not isolated as

a result, with land reform linking the Iranian village more closely than ever to urban

centers.“58 Migration” did not mean an “uprooting,” with migrants most often continuing

regular contact with relatives and friends in their native villages.59 The movements

against the Shah occurred nationally in virtually all major cities and towns and much of

these movements began with information and ideas disseminated by the young migrant

population.60

From the beginning of land reform, there was great opposition towards the Shah’s

shift in policies by the ulama, or clergy. The generalization can be made that the ulama

did not want their endowed lands, or oufs, redistributed by the Shah but this is an

oversimplification. The ulama greatly disagreed with the Shah’s reforms, particularly

those of his “White Revolution,” that included universal suffrage and local elections.

57 Bashiriyeh, 11258 Najmabadi, 15459 Hooglund, 14760 Najmabadi, 205

They viewed these reforms as an “assault on Islam.”61 The ulama were of the mindset that

the government should have consulted the ulama before instituting such reforms. It is also

historically known that the ulama were often closely tied to the landowning class with

many landowners having relatives in the ulama. The landowning class also held great

respect for the ulama and allowed their involvement among the peasants that worked on

their villages and with secular government interference this sphere of influence could

potentially be interrupted.

The peasants became great allies for the opposition to the Shah because their lives

and situations had been so greatly affected by the policies he implemented. Land reform

completely shifted their way of life and while the ideas of the Shah were initially very

attractive to those peasants who could benefit, the implementation fell short and caused

great disappointment. Those peasants who felt they had suffered as a result of the Shah’s

reforms and had fallen into destitution or despair empathized with the plight of the exiled

leader of the opposition, Ayatollah Khomeini and felt shared commonalities. While the

clergy opposed land reform at a time when peasants were still hopeful for benefit, the

ulama made sure to underline that it was the “application and implementation of reform

law” they were protesting, not the idea of beneficial reform itself.62 Many peasants felt as

though the government had claimed to be progressive but recognized the thinly veiled

political goal of asserting government power and had experienced merely a replacement

of the landlords with the government.63

Conclusions

61 Najmabadi, 20662 Najmabadi, 20763 Hooglund, 148

The effects of land reform were far reaching within the political, social, and economic

context of pre-Revolutionary Iran. Reforms intended to bring out modernization,

productivity, and a new social class that was a solid base of support for the monarchy did

not achieve any of these things. The reforms overall did not benefit the peasant

economically but in a certain light they marked the awakening of the social and political

consciousness of the peasant population. The land reform laws stimulated a response in

this class of people that had never been seen before in centuries. Political involvement

became for the first time a part of the life of the peasant who felt they could now make

demands for social reform and improvements in their lives. Although the peasant class

was disillusioned, poverty-stricken, and overlooked, they were able to mobilize

politically to make social demands.

Lambton predicted that “Disillusion may well lead to disaster, economically,

politically and socially,” and that the “government should give practical reaffirmation to

the aims of the first stage of land reform and regain the full confidence of the peasants…

without this there will be no rise in production over the country as a whole.”64 These

words written by Lambton well before the major crisis of agricultural stagnation, extreme

political unrest, and revolution, recognized how important the role of the peasant was in

the Shah’s aims of transforming Iran. Unfortunately, the Shah did not share this same

recognition and haphazardly focused on the peasantry without really implementing

institutions that would have carried the peasantry as well as the overall economy of Iran

very far. More than half the population of Iran fell into the category of rural peasantry

and without developing their potential, great losses ensued in human capital.

64 Lambton, 356

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