The fall of fascism and disruption of World War II made rapid change to the mezzadria (sharecropping) system of central Italy seem possible and timely. Similar efforts to improve the sharecroppers' position in the years immediately after World War I were terminated by the rise of fascism and fascist agricultural policies. More politically astute attempts failed after World War II as well, frustrated by landowner refusal to allow interference with private property and related traditions, and by De Gasperi's 'Judgment' that barely modified the system. Rather than fundamental change to make a 'fairer', more beneficial system for the sharecropper in the postwar years, the mezzadria system died out slowly during the subsequent decades as sharecropper youth chose to leave the land. (Author abstract)