The color in the "Year" column is darker for earlier periods and brighter for later periods.
| Place | Reformer | Year | Ideology / motivations | Actions | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiddleEast: Egypt | Joseph | −1500 | Monarchism / strengthen the Pharaoh | Nationalization / Joseph bought all lands for Pharaoh | Success: Egyptian peasants became serfs of Pharaoh |
| MiddleEast: Egypt | Bakenranef | −720 | Help the peasants | Freedom to peasants / land alienability / debt anullment | Failure: Bakenranef murdered, reforms undone |
| Europe: Greece / Athens | Solon | −575 | Help the poor and prevent an uprising | Freedom to peasants / debt anullment / forbid slavery of Athenians | Mixed: poverty somewhat alleviated |
| Europe: Greece / Athens | Peisistratos | −560 | Help the poor while strengthening the tyrant | Land redistribution from rich to poor | Success: Athenian aristocracy weakened, poverty somewhat reduced |
| Europe: Greece / Sparta | Agis IV and Cleomenes III | −244– −227 | Help the poor while strengthening the army | Land redistribution / debt anullment | Failure: Reformer kings murdered by opponents, reforms undone |
| Europe: Italy / Rome | Gracchi brothers | −133– −121 | Help the landless soldiers | Land redistribution / enforcement of land ceiling law | Failure: Reformer tribunes murdered by Senate, reforms undone |
| Europe: France / Savoy | Victor Amadeus II | 1720–1793 | Economics / Increase royal income and weaken the nobility | Freedom to peasants / abolish serfdom duties / confiscate lands from lords | Success: all estates were at least partially emancipated |
| Europe: Prussia | various | 1763–1850 | Economics / Modernize the state by improving the peasants' conditions | Freedom to peasants from serfdom duties / enable serfs to become free landlords | Mixed: nobles bought much more land than peasants |
| Europe: Italy / Sicily | various | 1773–1865 | Enlightment / Liberate the peasants and strengthen the king | Nationalize noble lands; Reduce duties of peasants to landlords; Abolish private landlord armies; Distribute common lands to poor peasants. | Failure: The rich bought most lands and became richer; the Sicilian Mafia was born. |
| Europe: Austria / Habsburg monarchy | Maria Theresa and Joseph II | 1680–1790 | Enlightment / Liberate peasants, increase tax revenues | Freedom to peasants from serfdom duties | Failure: nobles did not cooperate and laws were not enforced |
| Europe: Austria / Austrian empire | Constitutent Assembly | 1849 | Enlightment / Liberate peasants | Freedom to peasants; subsidized purchase of their lands | Mixed: feudal law abolished, but most land remained concentrated with the nobles |
| Europe: Russia / Russian empire | Alexander II | 1861 | Enlightment / Liberate peasants | Freedom to peasants; subsidized purchase of their lands | Mixed: More than 23 million people received their liberty, but many of them received land insufficient for survival and became proletariat |
| Europe: Russia / Russian empire | Stolypin | 1906–1916 | Economics / Encourage private property and capitalism | Liquidize communal villages and divide lands to individual peasants. | Mixed: Private land holdings increased, but reforms were reversed after Soviet revolution |
| Europe: Russia / Soviet union | Lenin | 1917 | Communism / Abolish private property | Private ownership of land was prohibited | Mixed: Private land holdings increased, but reforms were reversed after Soviet revolution |
| Europe: Russia / Russian Federation | Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin | 1989–2001 | Privatization / Allow private property | Private ownership of land was re-allowed in several stages | Success: Private ownership is gradually increasing |
| Europe: Albania / Albania | Post-WW2 government | 1946 | Social justice | Constitution declared that land belonged to the tiller and disallowed large estates | Success: By 1954, more than 90% of land was held in small and mid-sized farms. |
| Europe: Albania / Albania | Communist government | 1958–1962 | Communism / Collectivization drive | Most agricultural lands were shifted to Soviet-style collective and state farms. | Success: By 1971, independent family farms had virtually disappeared |
| Europe: Albania / Albania | Post-communist government | 1991 | Privatization / re-allow private property | Arable land held in cooperatives and state farms was equally distributed among all rural households. | Success: Land was privatized. |
| SouthAmerica: Mexico | Miguel Lerdo, Porfirio Díaz | 1856–1910 | Liberalism and economics | Forced sale of corporately held property, specifically lands held by the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico and indigenous communities. | Mixed: Changed the nature of land tenure in Mexico. But, Most Indian land was acquired by large estates. 95% of villages lost their lands. |
| SouthAmerica: Mexico (after revolution) | Álvaro Obregón, Lázaro Cárdenas | 1910–1940 | Social justice | Allocate land to peasants in need of it | Success: Reversed the process of land concentration, reduced the power and legitimacy of the landlord class. Much land was allocated to peasants, agricultural production increased. |
| Asia: Philippines | various | 1946–2014 | Social justice | Land redistribution laws | Mixed: Some lands were distributed to landless peasants, but agricultural production suffered. |
| Asia: Taiwan | various | 1950s | Modernization / community development | Success: The JCRR is credited with laying the agricultural basis for Taiwan's outstanding economic growth in the following decades | |
| MiddleEast: Egypt | Nasser | 1952–1961 | Social justice | Land redistribution | Mixed: 15% of arable land redistributed; reforms undone after change of government |
| Asia: Vietnam / North | Hồ Chí Minh | 1953–1956 | Communism / break the power of the traditional village elite and redistribute the wealth to create a new class that has no ownership | Landlords were murdered by government and their land redistributed to peasants | Failure: Hunderds of thousands were killed, and 1 million people fled to the South |
| Asia: Vietnam / South | Nguyen Van Thieu | 1970 | Social welfare / gain support from rural population during the Vietnam war. | Land ceiling, land redistribution with compensation to previous landlords | Mixed: Land was redistributed, but law became meaningless 5 years later at the fall of Saigon. |
| SouthAmerica: Guatemala | Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz | 1953–1954 | Social justice | Expropriation of land and redistribution to peasants | Mixed: The reform itself was successful, but a later US-backed coup reversed it entirely. |
| SouthAmerica: Cuba | Che Guevara | 1959–1963 | Communism | Nationalization of large estates and redistribution to peasants / land ceiling | Mixed: peasants were given land rights, but these rights are constrained by government production quotas and a prohibition of real estate transactions |
| Asia: India | various | 1961– | Economics / modernize the agriculture and end the exploitation of the poor | Abolition of rent-collectors; Secure land-tenure; Land ceiling; Consolidate disparate holdings. | Mixed: In parts of India redistribution of land became more equitable; in other parts, people found loopholes in ceiling laws. |
| SouthAmerica: Bolivia | Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Evo Morales | 1953–2006 | Social justice | abolish forced peasantry labor, distribute rural property of traditional landlords to Indian peasants, organize peasants into armed militias. | Success: By 1970, 45% of peasant families had received title to land. The reform goes on. |
| SouthAmerica: Chile | Jorge Alessandri | 1962–1973 | Communism | Nationalization of large estates and redistribution to peasants | Mixed: After the 1973 coup the process was halted and somewhat reversed by market forces |
| Africa: Ethiopia | various | 1975 | Social justice | Nationalization of large estates and redistribution to peasants / abolish tenancy | Success: end of feudal law, strengthening of peasants |
| Oceania: Australia | various | 1976–2004 | Historic justice to Indigenous Australians | Several laws giving land rights to Aboriginals | Success: Large lands have been returned to Aboriginals |
| SouthAmerica: Venezuela | Hugo Chávez | 2001–2003 | Communism | Redistribute government and unused private land to campesinos in need | Success: 60K families received land title |
| Europe: Scotland | Scottish Parliament | 2003 | Social justice / Freedom to farmer communities | Farmer communities can buy their lands without landlord consent | Success: end of feudal law |