In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Final Offensive: “The Socialist Transformation of Agriculture” from Slogans to Reality (1953–1962) MARIUS OPREA This chapter addresses the ways in which the higher echelons of the Romanian communist leadership planned and carried out collectivization between 1953, the year of Stalin’s death, and 1962, the year that marked the end of collectivization. My research relies largely on archival data from the Central Historical National Archives in Bucharest, much of which is completely new. In this paper I seek to uncover how the upper levels of the Party leadership addressed the “sensitive” issue of collectivization and promoted collective forms of ownership. I argue that the focus of policymaking was not the welfare of the peasantry, but the forced enlistment of this class into the Party’s radical ideological project. To this day, the economic and human costs of collectivization are hard to assess. Still, on the basis of archival material, this paper attempts to reveal the hidden side of the collectivization process. First, I show that collectivization had political rather than economic motivations, and second, that collectivization is an example of the Romanian communist regime’s continuing dependency on, and obsequiousness toward, the USSR and its system of satellite countries. 1. THE PERIOD OF STAGNATION IN COLLECTIVIZATION: 1953–1955 The collectivization of agriculture in Romania, with its accompanying string of abuses stretching from March 1949 to March 1953, stagnated after Stalin’s death. This was particularly the case from the summer of 1953 to December 1955, when, at its Second Congress, the RWP decided to resume the “socialist transformation of agriculture.” Although one can talk about years of stagnation during this period , the idea of collectivizing did not disappear from the authorities’ agenda. Most of the Politburo and Secretariat meetings on collectivization held during these years emphasized administrative issues, such as the situation of sowing and of harvesting , the mechanization of agriculture, requisitions, and the consolidation of existing collective farms. In discussions about collectivization, the top party leaders emphasized the need to avoid abuses while new collective farms were being set up; references to the “Leninist principle” of “free consent” were a staple of The Collectivization of Agriculture: General Aspects 50 these meetings. At no point did the Party consider abandoning collectivization as such. On the contrary, the leadership emphasized the need to carry out this project fully, albeit with some formal revisions. 1.1. Under the shock of Stalin’s death: 1953 On May 23, 1953, RWP General Secretary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej gave a speech at the Congress of Collective Farm Leaders (May 21–23, 1953), organized for the fourth anniversary of the launch of collectivization. In the speech, Gheorghiu-Dej claimed that “thousands of peasants” had demanded to join collective farms (GACs) while the Congress was in session. He also suggested that since the March 3–5, 1953, Central Committee plenary, “over 280,000 working peasants joined 1,966 GACs and almost 2,000 of them joined TOZs.” His speech made references to past “insufficiencies” attributable to “the counter-revolutionary actions of right-wing deviationists,” who had allegedly “pushed for infringements of free consent,” showed bias in favor of chiabur interests, and “infiltrated” the GACs in order to undermine them from within. Gheorghiu-Dej emphasized that, despite all these problems, collectivization itself must not be brought to an end, but should rather be pursued through persuasion and the abandonment of the “brutal methods” that, admittedly, were preferred by party activists: “What kind of collective farming can there be where people who were not convinced of the advantages of collectives were herded together and now long all the time for the return of their small strips of land?”1 The tone of his speech seemed hardly affected by Stalin’s death, which had delayed the Congress by two and a half months.Also unaltered was the typical Stalinist rhetoric of the “Model Charter of the GAC” adopted by the Congress to define the scope and duties of the members : “Let us ensure a complete victory over the chiaburi, all exploiters, and the enemies of workers! Let us prevail over the darkness and backwardness of the privately-owned farms.”2 Romanian communist leaders began viewing the past with a critical eye only in August 1953, when the Soviet Union itself signaled a policy of self-criticism and concessions vis-à-vis its relationship with its satellites. In Bucharest, however, selfcriticism was toned down. Reluctant to begin de-Stalinization, Gheorghiu-Dej and the collective leadership were eager to blame bad policies...

Share