Collectivization in Romania
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The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. Following the Stalinist model applied in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture. The programme was launched at the plenary of the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers' Party of 3-5 March 1949, where a resolution regarding socialist transformation of agriculture was adopted along the lines of the Soviet kolkhoz. The collectivization strategy covered two directions: model collective structures were set up, such as Gospodării Agricole Colective (GAC; Collective Agricultural Institutions) and Gospodării Agricole de Stat (GAS; State Agricultural Institutions), aimed at attracting peasants; and the full propaganda system (newspapers, radio, mobile caravans, brochures, direct action by agitators) was put in motion in order to convince peasants to form collective farming units.
The entire process was accompanied by an intensification of the class struggle in the villages, indeed through the elimination of wealthy peasants (chiaburi, also referred to by the Russian term kulaks); members of this class were intimidated, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, on the grounds that they had employed the labour of poor peasants to work their land (in Communist terminology, they "exploited" and "sucked the blood of the people").
Violent means were also used against poor or "mid-level" peasants and in general against all those who refused to sign up willingly for tillage associations (întovărăşiri) or join the collective. Much attention was devoted to involving members of the rural elite (teachers, priests, well-off peasants), who often had to choose between GAC and prison under an accusation of sabotage. Peasants entered a GAC not only with their land, but also their buildings (barns, villas, warehouses), farm vehicles and tools, carts and working animals. Collectivization was accompanied by peasant revolts that broke out when brutal "arguments" were employed as a means of persuasion by the party, and also due to abusive measures such as obligatory quotas taking away part of the production of individual plots (while GAC that had already been set up were excused from such requirements).
Militia and Securitate troops quelled the revolts, the leaders of which were arrested and harshly punished. According to data supplied by the Communist authorities, 50,000 peasants were arrested and imprisoned, many of them being tried publicly and sentenced to long prison terms. The process was temporarily abandoned in 1952 before being restarted in 1958. At an extraordinary session of the Great National Assembly held between 27 and 30 April 1962, General Secretary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej announced the end of the collectivization programme; 96% of the country's arable surface and 93.4% of its agricultural land had been included in collective structures. Collectivization seriously harmed the Romanian village: peasants lost their independence, dignity and identity; the rural population decline accelerated when young people migrated to the cities (forced industrialization was going on at the same time); families were wrecked by poverty, while interest in work fell.
[edit] References
- Stoica, Stan (coordinator). Dicţionar de Istorie a României, p. 77-8. Bucharest: Editura Merona, 2007.
