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Collectivization in Yugoslavia: Rethinking Regional and National Interests
- Central European University Press
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Collectivization in Yugoslavia: rethinking regional and national interests melissa K. Bokovoy With the acceptance of individual peasant production and land ownership in 1953, the Yugoslav Communists (Communist party of Yugoslavia , CpY) ended the long struggle for control of the countryside and the hearts and minds of the Yugoslav peasants. The CpY’s Commission for the village admitted the party’s collectivization program had failed, and wrote to the Central Committee, “we have lost the peasantry, now they will never trust us again.” vladimir Dedijer, Tito’s official biographer , acknowledged defeat, but argued it was a defeat of stalinist ideology rather than a failure of the CpY’s policies. That ideology had dictated that the socialization of countryside could only be achieved through mandatory agricultural quotas (otkup), large-scale agricultural enterprises, collectivization , and class struggle, i.e. the liquidation of rich peasants (kulaks). in Dedijer’s opinion, which was the party’s official position, the major sin of the CpY was its acceptance of stalin’s ideology, the main tenants of which the party had followed blindly until 1953. in Dedijer’s drama, there were villains and victims: the villain was stalin and his ideology; the victims were the Yugoslav communists who had been duped into believing that collectivization and the liquidation of the kulak were the only methods of bringing socialism to the countryside. his assessment gave the CpY a justification for its failed agricultural policies , and obscured from view the party’s own miscalculations. six years later, in may 1959, edvard Kardelj, communist Yugoslavia ’s leading theorist and Josip Broz Tito’s longtime deputy, delivered a speech to delegates at the ninth plenary session of the socialist alliance 294 Melissa K. BoKovoy of the Working people of Yugoslavia (ssrnJ) on the situation of Yugoslav agriculture, in which he attempted to redeem Yugoslav leaders by arguing they had “refused to accept the stalinist type of collectivization” because it had caused “serious economic and political disturbances.”1 he assured the peasant deputies in the audience2 that they need not fear any “stalintype ” collectivization, and promised that the party and the state would help peasant agriculture become more productive and labor efficient.3 he declared that Yugoslav leaders would follow “painless measures” to achieve “socialist relationships in the countryside” by helping peasants without exerting “bureaucratic pressures,” to bring about changes in their beliefs.4 Kardelj would later acknowledge the more complicated history and experience of the CpY’s attempt to socialize the countryside.5 from 1941 to 1953, party leaders had fought amongst themselves, with agricultural experts, with peasants, and with the soviets and their satellites, over how to convert the countryside to socialism. Those battles took place on every front—ideological, political, economic, and social—and each front involved a different configuration of actors. Dedijer’s assertion that the party had blindly followed stalinist ideology did not account for the immense complexity of the collectivization effort, or the roles individuals played in its implementation. according to party documents and Yugoslav historians, CpY leaders played pivotal roles in formulating and implementing plans to socialize the countryside. federal and republican ministers, their assistants, state and local party bureaucrats, and the peas1 Kardelj, Problemi socijalisticke. 2 at the end of World War ii, peasants made up close to 50% of party membership ; by the late 1950s this number had dwindled to less than 15%. 3 Kardelj, Problemi socijalisticke, 7. 4 Kardelj intended his remarks to be an evaluation of the state’s socialist agriculture policies against the backdrop of a broader debate on agrarian reform among socialist states after the Kremlin in late 1957 signaled to its satellites it was time to start collectivizing again. Kardelj noted that throughout the early months of this new campaign, which now included campaigns in the people’s republic of China and the Democratic republic of vietnam as well as its european satellites, Khrushchev made a series of statements that indirectly justified the decisions and experiences of Yugoslavia during its ill-fated collectivization campaign of 1949. Kardelj interpreted Khrushchev’s statements about the necessity of providing material incentives and significant means for the democratization of collective farm management to mean that the soviets had acknowledged that socialization of the village dealt with “living people” rather than “dead mechanisms” or “dogmatic marxism.” Kardelj, Problemi socijalisticke, 27. 5 Kardelj, Problemi socijalisticke. [44.222.104.49] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:10 GMT) 295 Collectivization in Yugoslavia ants—whose property, production autonomy, and lifestyle were at stake— all had a...