Countryside and Communism
in Eastern Europe
Perceptions, Attitudes, Propaganda
edited by
Sorin Radu, Cosmin Budeancă
LIT
Cover image: The peasant workers from Zăbrani-Arad commune signing the act of constitution of the agricultural cooperative of production. The summer of 1949. (Fototeca online a comunismului românesc,
http://fototeca.iiccr.ro/fototeca/, cota: 4/1949)
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ISBN 978-3-643-90715-8
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Contents
Acknowledgements ................................................................................. 13 Sorin RADU Countryside and Communism in Eastern Europe: Perceptions,
Attitudes, Propaganda – Problems, Interpretations and Perspectives ..... 15 1. The Peasant, the Countryside and the Communist Ideology....................... 15 2. Main Research Directions on the Countryside
in the Years of Communism ........................................................................... 22 3. Prospects for Research on the Countryside Under Communism ................ 40 Cosmin BUDEANCĂ The Concept of the Volume .................................................................... 44 The Structure of the Volume........................................................................... 45 Organization and political practices within
the countryside of the “Eastern Bloc” Olev LIIVIK Lords of the Countryside: Personal Characteristics of the First
Secretaries of the County Committees of the Estonian Communist
Party in the Second Half of the 1940s ..................................................... 59 County administration and Party Secretaries .................................................. 60 Nationality, origin and language skills ........................................................... 62 Length of party membership and age.............................................................. 67 Education ........................................................................................................ 71 Conclusions..................................................................................................... 77 Marius TĂRÎŢĂ The Policy of the Party’s Organization in the Lipcani District
of the Moldavian SSR in 1944-1945 ....................................................... 78 Introduction..................................................................................................... 78 The first steps of the Lipcani Party’s Committee in spring 1944 .................... 79 Education in the Lipcani district in 1944 ........................................................ 81 The priorities of the Party’s committee in district affairs ............................... 83 Lipcani’s district reunion from the 9th of June 1945 ...................................... 86 Conclusions..................................................................................................... 90 6 ________________________________________________________ Contents
Bogdan IVAȘCU The Achilles’ Heel: Difficulties in Establishing a Functional Party
Network in the Transylvanian Countryside (1945-1947)........................ 93 Transylvania’s ethnical particularities and organizational build ..................... 94 Difficulties at the Beginning: the Party between 1945-1947 and its
Organizational Problems................................................................................. 96 Conclusions................................................................................................... 113 Stanisław STĘPKA Peasants in the Face of Activities of the Polish United
Workers' Party in Rural Areas (1948-1989) .......................................... 114 Introduction................................................................................................... 114 Factors determining the position of party organizations ............................... 115 PUWP as the executive body implementing agricultural
policy of the state .......................................................................................... 122 Between opposition and fitting in ................................................................. 129 Conclusions................................................................................................... 133 Piotr SWACHA United People`s Party Activists in the Central Power Elite in Poland
(1949-1989) ........................................................................................... 135 Introduction................................................................................................... 135 Article purpose.............................................................................................. 137 ZSL members in authorities of parliament,
government and State Council ...................................................................... 138 Basic socio-demographic data (gender, age, place of birth,
social origin, education) ................................................................................ 142 Political experience ....................................................................................... 145 Connections between the elite`s members – a social network perspective ... 149 Conclusions................................................................................................... 154 Marcin KRUSZYŃSKI “Art for art’s sake” – how the Unnatural Attempts
of Transforming Peasants into Intelligentsia
were Implemented in Poland (1944-1956) ............................................ 156 a. Introduction ............................................................................................... 156 b. The “embryo” phase (1944/1945 – the turn of the 1950s) ........................ 159 c. The “foetal phase” (1950-1956) ................................................................ 166 Conclusions................................................................................................... 172 Contents ________________________________________________________ 7
Agrarian reforms and collectivization
of agriculture in “Eastern Bloc” Miroslaw KŁUSEK, Robert ANDRZEJCZYK Attitudes of the Landowners in Poland towards the Communist
Decree of 6 September 1944 on the Execution of Land Reform .......... 177 Introduction................................................................................................... 177 Problems with executing the land reform decree in connection
with livestock and deadstock of land properties' owners and lessees ........... 177 The issues of properties excluded from the decree
on the execution of land reform .................................................................... 182 Appeals due to unlawful plotting and the issue
of equivalent on this account ........................................................................ 185 Conclusions................................................................................................... 189 Sorin RADU The Ploughmen’s Front and the Land Reform from 1945 in Romania . 191 Background of the Political Situation in Romania after WW II ................... 192 The “Tradition” of the Agrarian Reform in Romania ................................... 194 The Land Reform in March 1945 ................................................................. 196 The German Minority in Romania and the Agrarian Reform ....................... 199 The Land Reform and the “Comrades” – The Case
of the Ploughmen's Front .............................................................................. 200 Conclusions................................................................................................... 205 Małgorzata MACHAŁEK, Stanisław JANKOWIAK State Agricultural Farms in Polish Agriculture – the Origin
and Social-Economic Consequences ..................................................... 206 The Origin of State Agricultural Farms ........................................................ 206 Establishing of State-Owned Collective Land Property ............................... 210 State Agricultural Farms ............................................................................... 216 Social aftermaths of SAFs liquidation .......................................................... 225 Žarko LAZAREVIĆ Communist Agriculture between Ideological Rigidity and Economic
Rationality – the Case of Private Agricultural Sector in
Slovenia/Yugoslavia.............................................................................. 228 Introduction................................................................................................... 228 1. Slovenian Agricultural Heritage ............................................................... 229 2. A Time of Ideological Rigidity ................................................................. 232 3. Facing Reality and Liberalization ............................................................. 248 8 ________________________________________________________ Contents
Zsuzsanna VARGA Three Waves of Collectivization in one Country (Interactions
of Political Practices and Peasants’ Resistance Strategies
in Hungary in the “long 1950s”) ........................................................... 258 Collectivization – Decollectivization I ......................................................... 262 Collectivization – Decollectivization II ........................................................ 273 Collectivization III ........................................................................................ 283 Concluding remarks ...................................................................................... 293 Csaba KOVÁCS Complaints from the Final Period of Hungarian Collectivisation ......... 296 The features of agricultural policy after 1945 ............................................... 297 The third wave of co-op organisation and its consequences ......................... 298 Private complaints caused by collectivisation............................................... 305 Conclusions................................................................................................... 334 Róbert BALOGH A Program for Afforestation: Sovietisation, Knowledge
and Work in Hungary, 1949-1959......................................................... 335 Towards research questions: the meaning of forest in popular
literature of the 1950s ................................................................................... 335 Knowledge and locality in (semi)peripher .................................................... 338 Anarchy of planning and governance: dimensions
of afforestation in the 1950s ......................................................................... 342 Propaganda about desirable goals and contest for political
mobilization in the 1950s: the ‘Week of Trees’ ............................................ 345 Linkages and entanglements in the Cold War: forest research
and afforestation ........................................................................................... 352 Gendered geography: women in the landscape of afforestation ................... 359 Locality, boundaries and work: forestry and afforestation
in the vicinity of Parád .................................................................................. 362 Conclusions................................................................................................... 366 Political instruments of the communist regimes
for transforming the village: between coercion
and resistance Marína ZAVACKÁ “How could we?” Explaining Faulty Steps, Mishits
and other “Regrettable Deeds” in the Slovak Countryside ................... 369 Local conditions............................................................................................ 371
Contents ________________________________________________________ 9
Party decisions .............................................................................................. 375 How to explain a failure................................................................................ 382 Jiří URBAN Distrust as a Perception, Resistance as a Response: the Introduction
of Communist Politics in the East Bohemian Rural Area ..................... 395 Actors............................................................................................................ 400 Installation of the gallows ............................................................................. 402 Perception of the region ................................................................................ 406 Other actions ................................................................................................. 408 Futile investigation ....................................................................................... 410 Provocations staged by the State Security (StB) ........................................... 413 Further plans interrupted by arrests .............................................................. 419 Circumstances of the lawsuit ........................................................................ 423 Conclusions................................................................................................... 427 Dariusz JAROSZ Questioning the Persecutor-Victim Paradigm: Polish Peasants
versus the Authorities, 1945-1989......................................................... 428 Period I: Communism on the Offensive ....................................................... 429 1956-1989: Communism in Decomposition ................................................. 433 Cosmin BUDEANCĂ The Last Stage of Collectivization of Agriculture in Romania.
Repressive and Restrictive Methods against the Rural Population ....... 440 The Collectivization of Agriculture in Romania. General Considerations ... 440 The Soviet Model of Transformation of Agriculture .................................... 443 The first two Stages of the Process of Collectivization of Agriculture ......... 444 Methods of Repression and Restriction of the Population ............................ 448 The Final Stage of the Process of Collectivization of Agriculture................ 450 The End of Collectivization .......................................................................... 454 The Repression in the Last Phase of Collectivization. Micro Case Study.......... 456 Conclusions................................................................................................... 458 Valentin VASILE The Rural Population under the Surveillance of Securitate
during the Totalitarian Regime in Romania (1948-1989) ..................... 460 1948-1967 ..................................................................................................... 461 The informative network in rural areas (1948-1967) .................................... 467 Protests (1948-1967) ..................................................................................... 474 1968-1980 ..................................................................................................... 476 The work with informative network ............................................................. 481 1981-1989 ..................................................................................................... 486 10 _______________________________________________________ Contents
The informative-operative work during the last years
of the socialist regime ................................................................................... 491 Conclusions................................................................................................... 494 Dragoș PETRESCU Commuting Villagers and Social Protest: Peasant-Workers
and Working-Class Unrest in Romania, 1965-1989 ............................. 497 Industry vs. Agriculture: Heavy Industry at All Costs .................................. 498 Unrest in Working-Class Milieus:
Peasant-Workers vs. “Genuine” Workers ..................................................... 502 Commuting to Work: Within or Beyond a Commuting Distance ................. 508 Concluding Remarks..................................................................................... 512 Social change and rural mentality Natalia JARSKA Between the Rural Household and Political Mobilization – The Circles
of Rural Housewives in Poland 1946-1989 ........................................... 527 Women in the Polish countryside ................................................................. 528 The Circles: organization and numbers ........................................................ 530 Continuity and change .................................................................................. 533 Communism – gender – countryside: interpretations ................................... 543 Éva CSESZKA, András SCHLETT Tradition – Interest – Labour Organisation: Transformation of Rural
Mentality during the Period of Communism in Hungary...................... 547 Introduction: the two traditions ..................................................................... 547 Peasant labour organization, work culture .................................................... 548 Changes ........................................................................................................ 548 The labour organization of socialist agriculture............................................ 551 Work culture ................................................................................................. 556 Conclusions................................................................................................... 561 Ágota Lídia ISPÁN “It’s hard to do your duty here.” Cultured Retail Trade in Hungary ..... 562 The shop assistants of socialist trade ............................................................ 563 The transformation of the retail network ...................................................... 577 The decline of the old methods and places of selling ................................... 585 Conclusions................................................................................................... 592 Contents _______________________________________________________ 11
Cristina PETRESCU Peasants into Agro-Industrial Workers The Communist
Modernization of Romanian Villages, 1974-1989 ................................ 594 Old Ideas in a New Context .......................................................................... 595 Multilaterally Developed Socialist Society in the Countryside .................... 602 A Symbol of Irrational Thinking and Unrestricted Power ............................ 609 Concluding Remarks..................................................................................... 617 Communist propaganda and representations
of the countryside in the official discourse
in “Eastern Bloc” Tomasz OSIŃSKI Communist Propaganda and Landowners during
the Agricultural Reform in Poland (1944-1945) ................................... 621 Judit TÓTH Kulaks in Political Cartoons of the Rákosi-Era..................................... 637 The Persecution of Kulaks in Hungary ......................................................... 637 Anti-Kulak Propaganda and its Forms .......................................................... 642 The Portrayal of Kulaks in the Caricatures of the Newspaper Ludas Matyi . 648 Manuela MARIN Refashioning People in Collectivized Countryside:
Turks and Tatars in Dobruja during the 1950s ...................................... 656 Introduction................................................................................................... 656 “Abduraman Abdurain understood...” .......................................................... 659 “These wonderful people (…) are also different” ......................................... 664 Conclusions................................................................................................... 674 Klára LÁZOK Community Homes and “Cultural” Education in the Rural World:
Communist Propaganda Clichés as Reflected in the “Kulturális
Útmutató” (“Îndrumătorul Cultural”) in the Years 1948-1949 ............. 676 1. Establishing the chain of cultural centers: the level of action ................... 677 2. The cultural campaign’s ideological basis: the level of the issued texts ......... 680 3. Tentative interpretations ........................................................................... 688 Eli PILVE Ideological Upbringing in Estonian SSR School Lessons
Based on the Example of Extolling Soviet Agriculture ........................ 690 Introduction................................................................................................... 690 Ideological Upbringing ................................................................................. 693 12 _______________________________________________________ Contents
General Ideological Principles of the Soviet Educational System ................ 696 The Realignment of Teaching in Schools in the Estonian SSR:
New Curricula and Textbooks ...................................................................... 699 Ideological Upbringing in Reports of School Inspectors
and in Recollections of Contemporaries ....................................................... 704 Conclusions................................................................................................... 706 Mihaela GRANCEA, Olga GRĂDINARU The Collectivization Process in the Soviet and Romanian Films.
A Comparative Perspective ................................................................... 708 1. The Collectivization Process in the Soviet Films ..................................... 708 2. The Collectivization Process in the Romanian Films ............................... 724 Conclusions................................................................................................... 737 Zsuzsanna BORVENDÉG, Mária PALASIK Hungary and Stalin’s Plan for the Transformation
of Nature through Propaganda .............................................................. 740 New Research Methodologies ...................................................................... 740 The Political Decision ................................................................................... 744 Crazy about Cotton ....................................................................................... 747 Rice Production in the 1950s ........................................................................ 756 Construction of the Tiszalök dam and Irrigation System.............................. 760 The Transformation of Thinking .................................................................. 769 Life after the Plan ......................................................................................... 776 About contributors................................................................................. 781