On certain projected and far-reaching social reforms the F.L.N. had remained steadfastly consistent from the Soummam Declaration onwards; one of these was agrarian reform and land redistribution, which — combined with the high promises and sadly inadequate achievements of successive French programmes — made a progressively powerful impact on rural Algeria. With the revolt beginning in the country rather than in the cities, with educated urban rebels flowing to the bled in refuge from Algiers, a profound revolution had taken place in the traditionally conservative consciousness of agrarian Algeria, lying deeper than the devoted French S.A.S. administrators could gauge, let alone reverse.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1249