The Village Community and the Politics of Collectivization, 1945–62
The Village Community and the Politics of Collectivization, 1945–62
This chapter describes the village social organization that collectives were to displace and the process of Romania's collectivization, from the 1945 land reform through the final celebrations in April 1962. At the beginning of the process, some peasants had no land at all, but most had at least a hectare, most worked it with family labor, and most did so largely for subsistence, with some marketing on the side. Both they and their fellow villagers considered them good and worthy people if they worked very hard and controlled their own labor process, not having to work for others. By the end, nearly all Romanian villagers owned no land at all; the small piece they worked for themselves was accorded to them only conditionally, not in permanent ownership; they were able to market very little if anything; and hard work in the collective gained them less admiration than did slacking off and stealing from the collective for their families.
Keywords: social organization, Romania, collectivization, collectives, land reform, Romanian villagers, land ownership
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