Transforming Peasants, Property and Power: The Collectivization of Agriculture in Romania, 1949–1962

“Constanţa, The First Collectivized Region”: Soviet Geo-Political Interests and National and Regional Factors in the Collectivization of Dobrogea (1949–1962)

“Constanţa, The First Collectivized Region”: Soviet Geo-Political Interests and National and Regional Factors in the Collectivization of Dobrogea (1949–1962) CONSTANTIN IORDACHI “We must show a special commitment to Constanţa, just to learn from our own experience. That’s what the Soviet advisers told us to do.” Minutes of the April 5, 1952 meeting of the RWP Organizational Bureau, filed as Liuba Chişinevschi, “Stenograma şedinţei Biroului Organizatoric al CC al PMR, 5 aprilie 1952,” in Dan Cătănuş and Octavian Roske, eds. Colectivizarea agriculturii în România. Dimeniunea politică, vol. 1: 1949–1953 (Bucharest: Institutul Naţional pentru Studiul Totalitarismului, 2000), 299. “By completing collectivization, Dobrogean Party and State bodies, agricultural technicians and engineers, as well as Dobrogean peasants made their region rank highest in the nation. Already, Party activists from other regions of Romania acknowledge that the pace of collectivization in Dobrogea was an example and a stimulus for their own efforts.This acknowledgment is certainly a reward to those who contributed to Constanţa’s collectivization, encouraging them to work further to turn their collective farms into thriving enterprises able to provide the resources of a good life to their members. Only hard work can make Dobrogea’s agriculture an example and a stimulus for the agriculture of the entire country [author’s emphasis].” Article in newspaper Agricultura nouă, October 25, 1957, 299. On October 18, 1957, the Agerpress news wire agency and national newspapers such as Scînteia (The Spark), Scînteia Tineretului (The Young People’s Spark), Dobrogea Nouă (New Dobrogea) and Drumul Socialismului (The Socialist Path) announced the successful completion of collectivization in the Constanţa region, presenting it as one of the greatest victories that had been won so far in “the socialist transformation of agriculture.” This happened at a time when collectivized land represented barely 51 percent of the country’s total land surface, and 52 percent of the total number of households in rural areas. Only nine years after the beginning of the collectivization campaign at the national level (1949), the Center and Periphery in the Collectivization Campaign 104 historical province of Dobrogea became the first fully collectivized region in Romania, preceding the end of collectivization in the whole country (1957–1962) by five years. The Party’s propaganda bureau had thoroughly prepared this surprise announcement for the press in order to release it simultaneously with, and thus dedicate it to, the 40th anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution of October 1917.According to the 1956 census, Dobrogea had 635,956 inhabitants and 824,700 hectares of arable land. On May 23, 1957, Scînteia announced that 90 percent of the region had been collectivized and that the completion of this process was imminent: “every day, the end of the collectivization process comes closer into view.”1 On June 28, Scînteia announced the almost complete collectivization of the region, with 97.7 percent of peasant households and 87.9 percent of the eligible land.2 In this total, the official propaganda skillfully conflated two forms of peasant associations: collective farms (called Gospodării Agricole Colective, or GAC, see Glossary of Terms), regarded as the standard form of socialist organization of agriculture, as well as loose agricultural associations (called TOZs, see glossary), which were seen by peasants as an alternative to full collectivization, but by the regime as a temporary stage toward establishing collective farms. The newspaper maintained that there were “328 GAC farms enrolling 51,281 households and 346,087 ha of land, as well as 337 TOZ agricultural associations, representing 42,671 households and 175,531 ha of land” in the Constanţa region. Overall, as the newspaper pointed out, standard collective farms (GAC) encompassed 53.3 percent of “peasant-worker” households and 58.3 percent of arable land. Finally, on July 5, 1957, Scînteia triumphantly wrote that “Constanţa, the first fully collectivized region” prided itself on having established 328 GAC farms representing 54 percent of the peasant households, while 339 TOZ associations enrolled the remaining 45 percent of households. The total amount of land collectivized was “over 556,000 ha.”3 The following three months witnessed spectacular progress toward the full collectivization of Dobrogea: over 48,617 households with more than 226,000 ha of land switched from associations to GAC farms. Collectivization ended in October of the same year, when the last fishermen closed the fishing season in the Tulcea district4 and came home only to (be forced to) join...