Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, East Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI

890.00TA/9–2550

The Director of the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, Department of Agriculture (Andrews), to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)

confidential

Washington, September 25, 1950.

Dear Mr. Secretary: The staff of this Office, as well as the other interested Bureaus of the Department of Agriculture, has been giving study to some of the fundamental problems which underlie a great deal of the discontent and disturbance in some so-called undeveloped areas of the world.

Inclosed is a memorandum which sets forth certain facts on this subject. In bringing this to you, we are not advocating that our Point IV Program be based upon any assumption or guarantee that worldwide land reform will have to be undertaken. As a matter of fact it is merely one phase of many difficult problems. In the implementation of Point IV, we must somehow, some way get over to the little fellow in these areas the idea that this program is directed to his welfare rather than—as sometimes turns out—we touch only a few of the more important people at the top economic levels of the country.

I am passing 5 copies to you for your perusal or any distribution you may desire among the staff members dealing with this particular problem.

Sincerely yours,

Stanley Andrews

[Enclosure]

Memorandum Prepared by the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, Department of Agriculture

confidential

[Washington,] April 17, 1950.

Statement of the Proposed United States Policy With Respect to Land Reform in Asia

I. The approaching implementation of the Point Four program, in the formulation of which the Department of Agriculture has been actively cooperating, makes it appropriate to focus attention on the question of land tenure and the peasant welfare in general in southeast Asia and the Middle East. These are crucial questions on the solution of which victory in the struggle against communism in Asia largely depends.

II. Four-fifths of Asia’s vast population consists of peasants, and agriculture is the pivot of its economic and social life. Consequently, measures of assistance to be taken under the Point Four and related programs towards the improvement of the lot of the common man will necessarily have to be oriented in these regions towards agricultural problems. The central agricultural and, indeed, economic and social problem throughout Asia is the abject poverty of the large masses of the peasants, which the communist propaganda has been adroitly exploiting. One of the basic reasons for this widespread poverty and rural distress, apart from the pressure of population on the land, has been the landlord-tenant system in many parts of Asia, under which large groups of peasants are cultivating somebody else’s land and paying exorbitant rents for it. These rents, which often take the major share of the crop, coupled with other abuses, make it impossible for the tenants to introduce any improvements. This is bound to constitute a serious drawback to the Point Four program. Such a system has been a fertile source of unrest and has provided the communists with an especially convenient target for attack, which they have not been slow to utilize in their propaganda.

III. The fact that the communist ideology is hostile to small peasant farming and land ownership and would do away with them at the first opportunity, as happened in Russia, does not hurt communists in the eyes of the peasant of Asia. They can hardly be expected to be familiar with the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, or with Bolshevism in action in Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe under the Soviet sway. The communist propaganda, which harps day in and day out on the necessity of abolition of the “feudal” landlord system and transfer of the land to the tillers of the soil, naturally has a tremendous appeal to the poverty-stricken tenant peasantry of Asia.

IV. The success of communists in China, where they largely won the support of the peasants by promising land to the landless in drastic revision of landlord-tenant relationships, may be repeated in other parts of Asia if the field of agrarian reform is left by default to the communist propaganda. The haste with which the Communists of North Korea are attempting to carry out a land reform program in the captured portions of South Korea, and the recent decision of the Communist Party of India to center all its attention on the agrarian problems of the country with the objective of winning recruits for “national liberation”, are just two more illustrations of the manner in which the Communists attempt to gain the support of the peasantry. It should be fairly clear by now that the communist threat in Asia can be best met through an agricultural policy that emphasizes widespread land ownership among the peasants, provides reasonable terms of tenure for those who cultivate land as tenants, and other relevant actions that show in practical ways the concern of the respective governments with the improvement of status of the peasantry. Such measures would not only remove the principal peasant grievance which is at the bottom of the political unrest in Asia, would not only take the wind out of the sails of communist propaganda, but the prospects of expanding agricultural production would also be materially enhanced. Ownership of the land or reasonable tenure conditions would provide the peasant with the incentive to increase the productive power of the land.

V. Orderly agrarian reforms, with fair compensation of the landlord, are not socialist measures, but actually are probably the best contribution that could be made towards strengthening the system of free enterprise by diffusion of private property and re-inforcing the economic foundation of the State. It imparts greater stability to the whole social order. Ideologically, democratic agrarian reform stems from Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, from John Stuart Mill and William Gladstone, and not from Marx, Lenin and Stalin. It has been carried out in the 19th Century in many countries of Europe, notably Ireland, and has also been successfully executed by United States occupation authorities in Japan since the war. Progressive rural legislation in Asia is the road to freedom and genuine democracy, and a formidable bulwark against communism.

VI. In southeast Asia and in the Middle East it is not necessary to split up into small and possibly uneconomic units large and efficiently operated farms, as was the case in parts of Eastern Europe. It is simply a matter of change in legal status, which entitle the small farmer, who already cultivates the land as a tenant or a sharecropper, to a larger share of the product of his labor, and in the end would make it possible for him to become the owner of the land. This is especially significant with respect to large areas of potential crop land. The fear, therefore, that is sometimes expressed that land re-distribution would spell disaster is groundless. On the contrary, it would not only be of the greatest significance politically, but in time would also have favorable economic effects, because they would stimulate the personal interest of the tillers of the soil.

VII. Measures benefiting the peasants are powerful political weapons. Native governments would be likely to win what so many of them lack—popular support—and popular support in Asia is peasant support or nothing. A native government, therefore, which deals boldly with these questions would be greatly buttressed against the attacks from Communists within or outside its borders. In short, the fate of non-communist Asia is bound up with the success or failure of its handling of the peasant problem.

VIII. The urgency of embarking upon a progressive agrarian policy as a challenge to communism in Asia is obvious, and in some countries the sands are running low. Myopic selfishness of some powerful interests tends to block the necessary reform, but there are important elements favoring land reform and they need and would greatly profit from our encouragement. It is, of course, for the native governments to initiate and carry out progressive farm legislation. However, since the vital interests and the national security of the United States are deeply affected by the threat of Communism in Asia, it seems proper that we should utilize all our diplomatic skill and resources to encourage the development of land policies which would lay the foundation for an economically and politically stable rural life. Thus we would help to ward off the Communist danger without infringing upon any other country’s sovereignty.

IX. With the above end in view, the following steps are recommended:

1) All United States embassies, legations and consular representatives in the Middle East and southeast Asia should be informed that the United States Government is deeply concerned about the peasant problem in these countries, and that it is considering this problem as a major factor in the formulation of its Asiatic policy, since it is convinced that land reform and practical concern with the well-being of the farmer in general provide the most important alternatives to Communism in many of these countries, and is a necessary foundation for Point Four and related programs.

2) All the embassies and legations concerned should be directed to make use of every opportunity to inform the governments and private organizations in the countries concerned of the United States Government’s deep interest and policy with respect to land reform and peasant welfare.

3) State clearly and directly the concern of the United States Government with respect to widespread land ownership in Asia and its stand in harmony with the democratic aspirations of the people of those countries. It is desirable that such statements should be included in major foreign policy pronouncements by top level officials of the United States Government.

4) In the formulation and implementation of the Point Four program it should be made clear that those projects will be given priority which are aimed at the democratic solution of the land tenure problem and other causes of rural distress.