52 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Less well known, perhaps, is a case that helped bring an end to the Red Scare and McCarthyism—the case of Wolf Ladejinsky. Ladejinsky was a Soviet émigré who worked as an economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and, after World War II, became the chief architect of Japan’s land reform, one of the most successful land reform programs in history, which provided poor farmers with land titles and stopped the spread of communism. In 1954, USDA fired Ladejinsky as a security risk because of his Soviet origins. This is his story and the lessons it offers today for fighting democratic backsliding. Early Life and Career Born in Dnipro in 1899, the son of a prosperous Jewish miller and grain merchant, Wolf Ladejinsky was forced to flee after the 1917 Russian Revolution unleashed pogroms throughout Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His elder brother was killed in the pogroms, and the family decided that he should flee; his sisters would stay back to care for their elderly parents. Making his way to the United States, Ladejinsky worked odd jobs to learn English and then pay his way through school, graduating with a degree in economics from Columbia University in 1928 and becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen the same year. In 1935 he began working for the USDA and became an expert on Japanese agriculture, especially land tenure issues. Small in stature with graying black hair, Ladejinsky was “softspoken, charming, with a continental manner and an intriguing Russian accent,” and often smoked a pipe. One acquaintance noted that he had a “penchant for pessimism.” Before being assigned to Japan, he had reportedly told a friend that he would never be an American official abroad with his Russian accent and birth: “They just wouldn’t listen to me there.” Lucky for America and Japan, Ladejinsky was wrong about that. He was assigned to Japan and played a crucial role in the U.S. occupation. Serving His Adopted Country in Japan Because of Ladejinsky’s expertise, in 1944 the U.S. military asked him to write the agricultural section of the Civil Affairs Handbook: Japan, which had been created to educate occupation forces on planning for postwar Japan. Early in the Allied occupation, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Occupation Forces, decided to move forward with radical land reform based on Ladejinsky’s ideas. In December 1945, USDA sent Ladejinsky to Tokyo to assist in implementing the land reform. He became the main architect of the program, which gave 3 million farmers ownership of the land they tilled and dismantled the power of landlords who had long controlled Japanese agriculture, thus preventing the spread of communism in the country. According to Gen. MacArthur, “The land reform program did more to cut the ground from under the Japanese communists than any other measure taken during the occupation.” Novelist James Michener called Ladejinsky “communism’s greatest enemy in Asia.” With his achievements in Japan and Japanese farmers worked by hand, with the help of oxen, at the time of the postwar land reform. INTERNET ARCHIVE BOOK IMAGES/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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