The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

The decree authorized the re-expropriation of the land if the peasant had not begunto work on it within three months after having received it. According to the decree, the landcould not be further divided into segments less than five djeribs, and it was impermissibleto loan, rent, or sell it to others. One exception to the rule was for women and smallchildren, if they were the only members of the family and were unable to work on theirland. In that case, they were allowed to rent it. In addition to women and children whowere unable to work on the land, state bureaucrats and craftsmen also were given the rightto rent land.Land to be redistributed was expropriated from people who possessed plots largerthan thirty djeribs, as well as state land, land of the royal family, and land that was theproduct of irrigation projects but was deemed unfit for state farms. A special exemptionwas given to land belonging to mosques. The decree also established an order for thedistribution of expropriated land with priority given to landless peasants who had workedon land that belonged to others. The last to benefit from the decree were landless peasantsand nomads from other provinces in those cases in which no land was available in theirown provinces.During the course of land reform, it was planned to unite peasants into cooperativesas soon as possible, and to provide cooperatives with low-interest bank loans for acquiringagricultural tools, pesticides, and seeds. It also was proposed to establish repair shops foragricultural tools, cooperatives to sell meat and milk produced by nomads, and programsfor village banking.Dvoryankov finished reading the document. “It’s not bad. It’s not without itsdrawbacks, but the goals are good, in my opinion. The decree should regulate land284