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IN EARLY 1956 SYRIA JOINED EGYPT IN FORMING THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC. ONE OF THE MAJOR CONSEQUENCES WAS THE INTRODUCTION OF A LAND REFORM PROGRAM IN 1958. IN 1970 SYRIA ANNOUNCED THE PROGRAM WAS COMPLETED. THIS PAPER EXAMINES THE HISTORY OF THE LAND REFORM AND ASSESSES ITS CONSEQUENCES AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MODERNIZATION IN SYRIA: EQUITY, PRODUCTION, AND NATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INTEGRATION.

Land reform as a subject of investigation in latin america post-dates its appearance as a political measure, and although its appearance as a plank in programs of liberal and leftist parties and movements has been in vogue since the Twenties, few serious studies that can be properly referred to as land reform investigation took place until the Thirties. Many of the early studies that may be cited as pioneer works in this field are fact-finding land use studies by the geographers (e.g., McBride in Bolivia and Chile), and some early rural sociological studies in the same vein (e.g., Carl Taylor in Argentina and the Consejo de Bienestar Rural study on the Venezuelan Andes). In many cases these types of studies have continued into the past decade (DeYoung in Haiti, Ford in Peru, and Fals Borda in Colombia). The wave of anthropological community studies (mostly rural) were microcosmic, pioneer type research on land tenure. There were few agricultural censuses upon which any sort of nationwide study would need to have been based and in general the basic reference material for land reform until 1950 was most spotty and conjectural.