Abstract
The article examines the social, legal, and economic consequences of land distribution in Finland after World War II.
After the war, Finland gave land to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who had lost their homes when the border between Finland and the Soviet Union changed, and to war veterans who had been promised land in exchange for their sacrifices for the Fatherland. This project was called “land reform,” although it involved the confiscation of land from individuals, companies, and municipalities, which was then distributed to those who had none.
The article begins by analyzing how the post-World War II land distribution followed the pattern of earlier land reforms, and how the majority of the population viewed smallholding as a traditional way of life and in a positive light. However, this way of life was no longer viable in a rapidly modernizing economy.
Second, the article focuses on the changing social role of the rural lower courts in the rapidly modernizing countryside inhabited by hundreds of thousands of newly settled farmers. In legal matters concerning the smallholders and their livelihoods, the courts often ruled against the state and in favor of the smallholders when the state’s modernization campaign conflicted with the subsistence of the rural population.
The article shows how policy projects to transform the rural economy must adapt to the complex web of rural identity, legal tradition, environmental resilience, and global economic development. Although the post-World War II land reform changed the size and position of Finland’s rural population and affected agrarian identity in important ways, the changes were almost the opposite of what the reform was originally intended to achieve.
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