It is a characteristic feature of the discussions now in progress on the direction to be taken by Mexican agriculture, which have again flared up sharply in that country, that they constantly return to the problem of the ejido, (1) its place and role in the socio-economic development of the country, and to the presidency of Cardenas (1934-1940) — i.e., the period when agrarian reforms progressed most intensively. One group of Mexican economists, sociologists, and historians demands that the principles of the reform of the 1930's be reexamined, and that agriculture be brought into "correspondence" with the development of the country. While objectively reflecting the interests of the agricultural and industrial capitalists, who are growing stronger, these proponents of "agrarian revisionism" insist that the structure of the ejido sector should be "liberalized," and free capitalist competition permitted. (2) This, they assert, would enable the peasants' initiative to flourish, and would lead to enlarging the group of "modern" (i.e., large) landowners. The "incapable" elements would thus be squeezed out of the ejidos, and would be added to the growing army of agricultural and industrial workers. They term proponents of agrarian reform on the basis of reinforcement of the ejido and enlargement of the cooperative sector in agriculture "dogmatists" and "agrarian romantics," and they explain what they regard as the "failure" of the Cardenas government's agrarian reform on the grounds that it was allegedly based on "archaic" principles and that its purpose was to reinstitute communal forms of land tenure that had exhausted their potentialities. Some of these economists and sociologists hold that the agrarian reforms of the 1930's failed because of the export of Marxist ideas. A single conclusion (which naturally finds broad support among capitalist-oriented scholars in the United States) follows from all this criticism: in its agrarian development, Mexico should follow the ideas of "Western civilization," stimulate farmer-type operations, (a) and refrain from implanting "foreign" "collective forms" of agriculture. (3) A number of books have recently appeared whose authors, taking progressive positions, engage in polemic with the proponents of this viewpoint. They find it necessary to carry further an agrarian reform capable of abolishing large-scale private landholdings and of strengthening cooperative principles in the ejidos. (4)