Lietuvos istorijos metraštis

Based on Russian archival materials and other sources, the article reveals and analyses the political and social-economic aspects of the Soviet land reform of 1944–1948, examines statistical quantitative indicators. It seeks to reinterpret and reassess the objectives, the course, and the consequences of the land reform and to show how the socio-economic structure of the rural society was being changed and what it became. The results of the study suggest that it is reasonable to conclude that after the reform, Lithuania was dominated by small rather than medium-sized farms as claimed by Soviet historiography and the Soviet authorities. This was the result of a targeted and ollectivisation-oriented policy of the leadership of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and not the result of land shortage. The land reform can be seen as a social revolution, which led to radical qualitative socio-economic changes in the countryside, but the political goal of winning over a larger part of the peasantry to their side was not achieved.