Agrarian conditions would change after the First World War when in many regions the rural market systems were disturbed from outside by sharp shifts in supply and demand. In heavily populated areas these changes in supply or demand required reallocation of resources in order to avoid large-scale unemployment and a fall in rural income. Due to the failure of state and local administration to maintain law and order or provide economic assistance, such market readjustments had very high social costs. Before describing these conditions of agrarian crisis it is necessary to outline and clarify the agrarian system of this period. The rapid commercialization of agriculture that occurred from the 1870s to the First World War enabled most villagers to feed more people and support the gradual expansion of a small urban sector. This agrarian system made many adjustments to new market forces without rural unemployment becoming serious, without importing large quantities of food from abroad, and without creating serious inflation.