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Persuasion, Delay and Coercion. Late Collectivization in Northern Moldova: The Case of Darabani (Suceava Region) DORIN DOBRINCU “You cannot escape death or the kolhoz.” Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s speech to a group of Moldavian peasants at the end of collectivization, cited in Gheorghe Gaston Marin, În serviciul României lui Gheorghiu-Dej. Însemnări din viaţă (Bucharest: Evenimentul Românesc, 2000), 109. As Romania was the last country in the Soviet bloc to complete collectivization, so the region of Suceava (which included Bukovina and the extreme northern part of Moldavia) was the last Romanian region to officially mark completion, in March of 1962.Why was Suceava so delayed? There are three hypotheses: (1) hoping that the communist regime would not last, local peasants fiercely resisted collectivization (the most tempting);1 (2) the limited interaction between the peasants and authorities, and the relatively weak nature of the communist state during the 1950s (in other words, the communist regime’s inability to force peasants into collective farms); and (3) the geography of Suceava, with its mountainous districts that were ill suited for large-scale collectivization. Evidence partially substantiates all three positions, but the most probable are the last two. This chapter explores collectivization in Darabani, Northern Moldavia. Darabani is particularly interesting because a possible timeframe for the collectivization process here shows 11 years of “benevolent” collectivization (1950–1961), followed by 12 days of “general” collectivization by force (March 4–March 16, 1962). To present a picture of all the factors that contributed to years of successful resistance , followed by the rapid final capitulation, I have focused especially on the social structure of the village from the 1940s to the 1960s; the relationship between the peasants and the state; the role of a myth of salvation, “The Americans are coming!”; the establishment of an “experimental” or first GAC in 1950; and finally, the extent and nature of collectivization efforts, and the means by which the last push in March 1962 finally succeeded. My sources consist of documents and manuscripts in the Botoşani County Division of the National Archives ,2 the archives of the Darabani City Hall, and data compiled by local history adepts, who carried out 33 interviews (both structured and unstructured) in July 1997, and December 2000 to March 2001. Center and Periphery in the Collectivization Campaign 276 1. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF DARABANI BETWEEN THE 1940S AND 1960s Darabani is situated in a hilly and relatively fertile area on the Prut River, in the current county of Botoşani.3 Administratively speaking, in the pre-communist period Darabani was a town belonging to Dorohoi county. Under the 1950 administrative reform, in order to conform to a Soviet model, the old administrative units (counties and districts) were replaced by new regions and districts with new borders. Darabani was relegated to the administrative status of a commune, and served as the administrative center of a district with the same name included in the Botoşani region between 1950 and 1952, and in the Suceava region between 1952 and 1960. A further administrative change implemented in 1960 dismantled the Darabani district, incorporating it into the Dorohoi district. In yet another new administrative reform in 1968, Darabani regained the status of “town.” It was subdivided into the neighborhoods of Suseni, Bombeni, Mărgineni and Corneşti, as well as the villages of Bajura, Teioasa, and the smaller Eşanca, Lişmăniţa and Locoviţa. The people of Darabani had planted deep roots in the area by the time the communist authorities began to transform state and society. (The first confirmed documents of Darabani’s existence date back to the middle of the sixteenth century .) The 1930 census noted that Darabani had 10,748 inhabitants: 8,834 Romanians , 1,884 Jews (concentrated near the market where they were merchants and craftspeople), and 30 inhabitants of other ethnic origins.4 The 1956 census noted a slight population decrease to 10,557 inhabitants5 (the village of Conce şti—which was integrated in Darabani in 1926—became a commune in that year). Without a doubt, there would have been a natural population increase between 1930 and 1956. But there were large losses from the extermination of the Jewish population, deaths on the battlefields of World War II, typhoid fever and postwar famine, especially from 1941 to 1947. From a religious viewpoint, most Romanians in the village were Orthodox Christians during this period, although a relatively important and growing number were neo-Protestant Christians (Adventists, Evangelicals and...

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