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Revolution in Bits and Pieces: Collectivization in Southern Romania (Craiova Region) DANIEL LĂŢEA They used to show movies about Russian collectives, they showed them on the back of a house. We would lie on the grass, where the hora dancing had been held before. We were thinking “My Goodness, they must have made these up!” We didn’t think that… Cow herds taken by people to pasture… Like Paradise! That’s how it was in that movie they used to show here… “Where did all these cows come from? Look, what a big crowd of people! What a big ruckus!” The people with hoes were shouting: “Hurrah! Hurray !” The fiddlers were playing… We were supposed to see the good life awaiting us! But we didn’t believe a thing! “What’s wrong with these people , where did they come from?” We didn’t believe life could be like this in that country. We wondered: “How did they gather all these people who filled the cars? How did they bring so many cows, these whole herds?” It was just like it happened later with us, when Ceauşescu visited and they’d bring all the cows for him to see… Maria T., 76 years old, female, agricultural worker. Early morning: exuberant villagers go out from their courtyards, happy to begin a new workday. The weather is good and the fiddlers play briskly. In a swift display of organization, cows are gathered into herds and headed towards pasture. Upon seeing the cars transporting villagers to the fields, the most impatient of them start to wave with their hoes in the air: “Hurrah! Hurray!” For the villagers of Dobrosloveni (Oltenia, southern Romania) and, most probably, for all those who entertain a realist notion of work, such actions from the propaganda movies on collectivization could only be fables, fairy tales; in short, improvisations. How is it possible to work as if you were celebrating (and the reverse)? How can someone not see the difference between Wednesdays and Sundays? How can you wave a hoe as if it was a trophy? As for the cows… well, is it possible that there are villages with so many cows, all of them fat and beautiful? Such things would be possible only beyond the worldly distinctions between the human and nonhuman , joys and troubles, work and celebration, beautiful cows and wretched cows; that is, in Paradise. Collectivization and the Transformation of Social Relations 330 This paper analyzes some worldly categories and distinctions that are used by people from Dobrosloveni in relation to “collectivization.” From the point of view of most of my interlocutors, the “real collectivization” began at the end of 1958, reached its apogee in December 1960, when “more than half” of the villagers signed petitions to join the collective, and was finished in March 1961, when the GAC “Viaţa Nouă” (New Life) was established. Before the “real collectivization,” they talk of the “times of boyars,”* the “time of war,” the “time of famine,” the “time of întovărăşiri” (associations), the “time of quotas” and, finally, a more ambiguous period, “time that crawls” (timpul se tîrăşte). This was when teams of activists carried out “persuasion work,” which made the villagers hide, avoid meetings , “mind their own business,” “try to buy some time,” “make up excuses,” and attempt to bargain, negotiate or otherwise try to reach some understanding with the authorities.1 Such a periodization has several implications, one of them being that the process of collectivization, as we conceive of it in this volume (1949– 1962), is summarized in Dobrosloveni in the form of sequences—time intervals that are relatively autonomous, especially when they need to be morally evaluated . These are recombined according to a local philosophy of history that is significantly different from both the academic and official versions. I would describe this local perspective on history as a practical one, characterized by healthy skepticism (“people know only hardships!,” “either way, life is hard,” “we’ll live and see…”), a careful tuning of the balance between opportunities and chances (“God gives the milk, but not the pail!,” “when you jump over many pails, one will surely stick into your ass!,” “stretch your arm no farther than your sleeve will reach”) and a perpetual nostalgia for the past (“it was better before…”). Finally, one can add to the above list a type of structural mistrust, if not actual horror, of the diverse forms of proselytism, be they initiated by large entities (the...

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