Collectivisation in Hungary
Encyclopedia
In the Hungarian People's Republic
, agricultural collectivization was attempted a number of times in the late 1940s, until it was finally successful in the early 1960s. By consolidating individual landowning farmers into agricultural co-operatives, the Communist government hoped to increase production and efficiency, and put agriculture under the control of the state.
. When the proposed legislation was passed in March, it merely acknowledged the seizures the peasants had already undertaken. Prior to the reforms, half of agricultural
land had controlled by large, privately owned “hacienda
-type” estates. The provisional government legislation redistributed 35% of Hungary
's territory, some 93,000 square kilometers of land. While the wealthy who lost their land in the deal had obviously lost out, the problems of smaller peasant landholders were by no means solved. Many of them saw only slight increases in their property size to 11,000 square meters, “too small to provide a livelihood, let alone the basis for efficient agricultural production.” These smallholders formed a political party
which won a significant majority in the November election, but political maneuvering and election fraud by the Communist
s led to its failure in the following election.
would have solved the problems resulting from their dwarf properties, the plans of the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) soon became clear. The model of Stalinist collectivization would be adopted and applied with physical force if necessary. In July 1948, government regulations allowed the seizure of larger landholdings from nagygazdák (Hungarian [kulak]s). These regulations enabled over 800 square kilometers of land to be confiscated, 60% of which went to recently formed farming co-operatives, the rest going to private peasants. This first serious attempt at collectivization corresponded with the first Five Year Plan
, and both bore the marks of Stalinist agricultural policy. Both economic and direct police pressure were used to coerce peasants to join co-operatives, but large numbers opted instead to leave their villages. In the early 1950s, only one quarter of peasants agreed to join co-operatives. Even once collectivized, farms were subject to harsh compulsory deliveries (production quota
s in physical units passed down from central planning) and incredibly low agricultural producer prices. Although individual families were allowed a small private household plot intended to serve their own personal needs, decrees passed in 1949 and 1950 limited these plots with an absolute limit of 4,300 square meters, and its output was also subject to compulsory deliveries. The Five Year Plan
initially promised 11 billion forints of credit for co-operatives (later downscaled to 8 million) but by 1953, less than half of that had been made available. Without credit from the government, or any reasonable ability to earn a surplus
, peasants were unable to invest in their own farms and the co-operatives began to crumble.
's “New Course,” introduced in 1954, promised an easing of social tension between co-operatives and the state. First, the compulsory deliveries were abolished, alleviating much stress for farmer
s. Second, the government devoted nearly one quarter of its national investment to agriculture
and in just one year “more tractor
s were put into service than during the entire 1950-3 period.” These new beginnings would not last long, however, as power struggles within the MDP in the spring of 1955 led to Mátyás Rákosi
's return to power and a condemnation of the “right deviation” supported in the Nagy
's New Course. Rákosi
renewed the drive for collectivization, again using physical force to encourage membership. This attempt failed to last even as long as the previous drive. Nikita Khrushchev
's secret speech
and Rákosi
's ensuing resignation led to second failure at collectivization. The weaknesses in the Stalinist model had been rather apparent to some after the first wave in the early 1950s, but the inflexibility of the Rákosi
government left no room for any creative solutions.
and the re-establishment of political order, officials of the new Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (MSzMP) began to draw up a plan for a more gradual collectivization drive. Like Nagy
's New Course, the changes suggested in the July 1957 Agrarian Theses were not drastic, but they made room for the possibility of further reforms. Some changes came almost immediately. The compulsory deliveries were not reintroduced and the purchasing prices introduced in 1957 were 80% higher than the compulsory prices had been.
s. In March 1958, Khrushchev
suggested that machine stations had outlived their usefulness, and they were soon abolished. More purchasing of machinery was allowed the following year, and in 1961, a number of machine stations were allowed to sell off their obsolete machines. Furthermore, the machine stations in Turkeve and Székesfehérvár
were converted into repair shops. Out of 235 machine stations in use in 1961, only 63 were open in 1964 and by the end of the decade, only a few remained in poor areas. Most of the stations were transformed into repair shops to service the machinery quickly being acquired by the co-operatives. The new independent machine ownership would later spawn further demands by the collective farmers.
required to shelter livestock
co-operatively could simply not be built quickly enough. The government adopted the common-sense solution of allowing members to keep animals on their household plots. The solution was a good fit. The farmers enjoyed the benefits of keeping their own animals (including milk
, eggs
, even calves
and pig
lets) and the government avoided the unnecessary slaughter of animals that would have resulted from strict enforcement. Although the household plots had long existed, the idea of household stock-breeding was not approved of by everyone. In 1959, a report to the Political Committee worried that in some areas, local farm leaders continued to oppose the creation of household plots and made life difficult for those private owners. Government attempts push for tolerance
of their measures stressed the “transitional” nature of the situation. In the summer of 1960, Lajos Fehér, Deputy Prime Minister, insisted that "...[h]ousehold farming is an integral complementary part of cooperative farming ... It will be needed so long as the economic activity of the co-operative ... has not reached a high enough level for collective production to take over the supply . . . In many places the transitional measures are being branded in a sectarian manner as 'capitalist tendencies' or regarded as some sort of 'sin or act against socialism' ... These damaging, narrow-minded ideas must now be forcefully eliminated, and everybody must understand ... the country needs meat!"
Also allowed was the practice of sharecropping
, in which co-operatively owned land was divided up between families
and worked on relatively independently. The family would receive pay based on their work hours but also a percentage of the surplus from their particular strip of land. This helped to motivate members to work harder, particularly with crops like potatoes that required more manual labor. Both of these transitional measures integrated pre-soviet “family labor” practices with the ideal “socialist wage labor” to balance ideology
with economic well-being.
s. Private ownership meant independence
and self-sufficiency
, collectivization meant negotiation and uncertainty. Although pension
s for members of co-operatives were a legal requirement after 1958, some elderly potential members were not convinced of the long-term financial security of co-operatives, and chose to leave their farm
s to seek industrial
work where they were sure of a pension
. In the end, however, psychological factors might have been the deciding influence. Demoralized after two successive (and harsh) collectivization campaigns and the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
, the peasants were less interested in resisting, and as membership levels increased, those who remained likely grew worried about being left out.
, Poland
and Czechoslovakia
underwent a Stalinist phase of collectivization in the 1950s before leaving it behind in the search for a new model. In Poland
, a sort of “dual agricultural” model was developed in which 20% of land was controlled by large, inefficient state farms
, and the rest privately owned, mostly in the form of small peasant farms. This isolated situation left the peasant
s open to obvious discrimination and they suffered from a lack of financial and structural support from the state. In Czechoslovakia
, the state had only a bare tolerance for household plots and the transitional system was marked by its almost total inflexibility. In contrast, transitional measures in Hungary
worked with the concerns of the farmers, allowing them mechanical independence, semi-private production on their household plots and crop-shared fields, and a decent standard of living from higher agricultural producer prices and substantial government investment.
People's Republic of Hungary
The People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
, agricultural collectivization was attempted a number of times in the late 1940s, until it was finally successful in the early 1960s. By consolidating individual landowning farmers into agricultural co-operatives, the Communist government hoped to increase production and efficiency, and put agriculture under the control of the state.
Post-War background
In early 1945, the provisional Hungarian government had appointed “land claimants” committees to examine the situation of the peasantry and develop a plan for land reformLand reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
. When the proposed legislation was passed in March, it merely acknowledged the seizures the peasants had already undertaken. Prior to the reforms, half of agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
land had controlled by large, privately owned “hacienda
Hacienda
Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...
-type” estates. The provisional government legislation redistributed 35% of Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
's territory, some 93,000 square kilometers of land. While the wealthy who lost their land in the deal had obviously lost out, the problems of smaller peasant landholders were by no means solved. Many of them saw only slight increases in their property size to 11,000 square meters, “too small to provide a livelihood, let alone the basis for efficient agricultural production.” These smallholders formed a political party
Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party
The Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party is a political party in Hungary...
which won a significant majority in the November election, but political maneuvering and election fraud by the Communist
Hungarian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Hungary , renamed Hungarian Communist Party in 1945, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven...
s led to its failure in the following election.
First attempt at collectivization
While it remains unclear how the Smallholders PartyIndependent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party
The Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party is a political party in Hungary...
would have solved the problems resulting from their dwarf properties, the plans of the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) soon became clear. The model of Stalinist collectivization would be adopted and applied with physical force if necessary. In July 1948, government regulations allowed the seizure of larger landholdings from nagygazdák (Hungarian [kulak]s). These regulations enabled over 800 square kilometers of land to be confiscated, 60% of which went to recently formed farming co-operatives, the rest going to private peasants. This first serious attempt at collectivization corresponded with the first Five Year Plan
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
, and both bore the marks of Stalinist agricultural policy. Both economic and direct police pressure were used to coerce peasants to join co-operatives, but large numbers opted instead to leave their villages. In the early 1950s, only one quarter of peasants agreed to join co-operatives. Even once collectivized, farms were subject to harsh compulsory deliveries (production quota
Production quota
A production quota is a goal for the production of a good. It is typically set by a government or an organization, and can be applied to an individual worker, firm, industry or country. Quotas can be set high to encourage production, or can be used to limit production to control the supply of goods...
s in physical units passed down from central planning) and incredibly low agricultural producer prices. Although individual families were allowed a small private household plot intended to serve their own personal needs, decrees passed in 1949 and 1950 limited these plots with an absolute limit of 4,300 square meters, and its output was also subject to compulsory deliveries. The Five Year Plan
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
initially promised 11 billion forints of credit for co-operatives (later downscaled to 8 million) but by 1953, less than half of that had been made available. Without credit from the government, or any reasonable ability to earn a surplus
Economic surplus
In mainstream economics, economic surplus refers to two related quantities. Consumer surplus or consumers' surplus is the monetary gain obtained by consumers because they are able to purchase a product for a price that is less than the highest price that they would be willing to pay...
, peasants were unable to invest in their own farms and the co-operatives began to crumble.
Nagy's New Course and Rákosi's return
Although certainly not radical, Imre NagyImre Nagy
Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
's “New Course,” introduced in 1954, promised an easing of social tension between co-operatives and the state. First, the compulsory deliveries were abolished, alleviating much stress for farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
s. Second, the government devoted nearly one quarter of its national investment to agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and in just one year “more tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
s were put into service than during the entire 1950-3 period.” These new beginnings would not last long, however, as power struggles within the MDP in the spring of 1955 led to Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
's return to power and a condemnation of the “right deviation” supported in the Nagy
Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
's New Course. Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
renewed the drive for collectivization, again using physical force to encourage membership. This attempt failed to last even as long as the previous drive. Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's secret speech
On the Personality Cult and its Consequences
On the Personality Cult and its Consequences was a report, critical of Joseph Stalin, made to the Twentieth Party Congress on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It is more commonly known as the Secret Speech or the Khrushchev Report...
and Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
's ensuing resignation led to second failure at collectivization. The weaknesses in the Stalinist model had been rather apparent to some after the first wave in the early 1950s, but the inflexibility of the Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
government left no room for any creative solutions.
1957 Agrarian Theses
After the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
and the re-establishment of political order, officials of the new Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (MSzMP) began to draw up a plan for a more gradual collectivization drive. Like Nagy
Nagy
Nagy is the most popular Hungarian surname, meaning "great". It is pronounced , roughly like nawdge. It may refer, among others, to the following people:* Andrea Nagy , Hungarian basketball player...
's New Course, the changes suggested in the July 1957 Agrarian Theses were not drastic, but they made room for the possibility of further reforms. Some changes came almost immediately. The compulsory deliveries were not reintroduced and the purchasing prices introduced in 1957 were 80% higher than the compulsory prices had been.
Tractors and machine stations
The government began to allow the co-operatives to purchase limited amounts of machinery for their own use. Until this point, all farm machinery had been kept in special state-run machine stations, but new regulations encouraged co-operatives to buy most forms of light machinery. By the end of the year, the 2557 existing agricultural co-operatives had purchased over 1000 light tractorTractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
s. In March 1958, Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
suggested that machine stations had outlived their usefulness, and they were soon abolished. More purchasing of machinery was allowed the following year, and in 1961, a number of machine stations were allowed to sell off their obsolete machines. Furthermore, the machine stations in Turkeve and Székesfehérvár
Székesfehérvár
Székesfehérvár is a city in central Hungary and is the 9th largest in the country. Located around southwest of Budapest. It is inhabited by 101,973 people , with 136,995 in the Székesfehérvár Subregion. The city is the centre of Fejér county and the regional centre of Central Transdanubia...
were converted into repair shops. Out of 235 machine stations in use in 1961, only 63 were open in 1964 and by the end of the decade, only a few remained in poor areas. Most of the stations were transformed into repair shops to service the machinery quickly being acquired by the co-operatives. The new independent machine ownership would later spawn further demands by the collective farmers.
Household plots & share-cropping
Another shift that resulted from the Agrarian Theses was a new willingness on the part of Party to accept household plots belonging to members of co-operative farms. The acceptance of household plots grew primarily out of necessity; the infrastructureInfrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
required to shelter livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
co-operatively could simply not be built quickly enough. The government adopted the common-sense solution of allowing members to keep animals on their household plots. The solution was a good fit. The farmers enjoyed the benefits of keeping their own animals (including milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
, eggs
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
, even calves
Calf
Calves are the young of domestic cattle. Calves are reared to become adult cattle, or are slaughtered for their meat, called veal.-Terminology:...
and pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
lets) and the government avoided the unnecessary slaughter of animals that would have resulted from strict enforcement. Although the household plots had long existed, the idea of household stock-breeding was not approved of by everyone. In 1959, a report to the Political Committee worried that in some areas, local farm leaders continued to oppose the creation of household plots and made life difficult for those private owners. Government attempts push for tolerance
Toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...
of their measures stressed the “transitional” nature of the situation. In the summer of 1960, Lajos Fehér, Deputy Prime Minister, insisted that "...[h]ousehold farming is an integral complementary part of cooperative farming ... It will be needed so long as the economic activity of the co-operative ... has not reached a high enough level for collective production to take over the supply . . . In many places the transitional measures are being branded in a sectarian manner as 'capitalist tendencies' or regarded as some sort of 'sin or act against socialism' ... These damaging, narrow-minded ideas must now be forcefully eliminated, and everybody must understand ... the country needs meat!"
Also allowed was the practice of sharecropping
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...
, in which co-operatively owned land was divided up between families
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
and worked on relatively independently. The family would receive pay based on their work hours but also a percentage of the surplus from their particular strip of land. This helped to motivate members to work harder, particularly with crops like potatoes that required more manual labor. Both of these transitional measures integrated pre-soviet “family labor” practices with the ideal “socialist wage labor” to balance ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
with economic well-being.
Resistance
With relatively little use of force, the great wave of collectivization occurred between 1959 and 1961, earlier than forecast in the Agrarian Theses. At the end of this period, more than 95% of agricultural land in Hungary had become the property of collective farms. In February 1961, the Central Committee declared that collectivization had been completed. This quick success should not be confused with enthusiastic adoption of collective idealism on the part of the peasantPeasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s. Private ownership meant independence
Independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....
and self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
, collectivization meant negotiation and uncertainty. Although pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
s for members of co-operatives were a legal requirement after 1958, some elderly potential members were not convinced of the long-term financial security of co-operatives, and chose to leave their farm
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
s to seek industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
work where they were sure of a pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
. In the end, however, psychological factors might have been the deciding influence. Demoralized after two successive (and harsh) collectivization campaigns and the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
, the peasants were less interested in resisting, and as membership levels increased, those who remained likely grew worried about being left out.
Benefits
Whether or not peasants really wanted to join, the adjustments made to the agricultural system in 1957 clearly managed to satisfy the membership adequately enough that the co-operatives did not fall apart as they had in the past. Like HungaryHungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
underwent a Stalinist phase of collectivization in the 1950s before leaving it behind in the search for a new model. In Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, a sort of “dual agricultural” model was developed in which 20% of land was controlled by large, inefficient state farms
Sovkhoz
A sovkhoz , typically translated as state farm, is a state-owned farm. The term originated in the Soviet Union, hence the name. The term is still in use in some post-Soviet states, e.g., Russia and Belarus. It is usually contrasted with kolkhoz, which is a collective-owned farm...
, and the rest privately owned, mostly in the form of small peasant farms. This isolated situation left the peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s open to obvious discrimination and they suffered from a lack of financial and structural support from the state. In Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, the state had only a bare tolerance for household plots and the transitional system was marked by its almost total inflexibility. In contrast, transitional measures in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
worked with the concerns of the farmers, allowing them mechanical independence, semi-private production on their household plots and crop-shared fields, and a decent standard of living from higher agricultural producer prices and substantial government investment.
Sources
- Nigel Swain, Collective Farms Which Work? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985),
- Nigel Swain, Hungary: The Rise and Fall of Feasible Socialism (London: New Left Books, 1992)
- Nigel Swain, Central European Agricultural Structures in Transition (Discussion Paper for Frankfurt Institute for Transition Studies, 1999)
- Ivan T. Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms 1953-1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
- Peter D. Bell, Peasants in Socialist Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)