The Collective Farms of Eastern Europe

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The Collective Farms of Eastern Europe

The ideology of collectivisation 1st became a viable policy in

Stalinist Russia. The primary thinking behind this revolutionary

initiative was to improve agricultural production to a level that

could sustain the ever-increasing urban masses. Furthermore the

decision makers in Eastern Europe wished to ensure an abundant supply

of cheap food was available so that they could control, and keep real

wage rates at a manageable level. The collectivisation of agriculture

was envisaged by the socialist regimes as the “Ideal vehicle to

achieve this objective.” (1) The large-scale cultivation necessitated

by collectivisation was seen by the socialist regime as a fundament

strategy to improve the total productivity of the agricultural sector.

Within a short space of time its origins and principles had began to

spread rapidly throughout the Eastern European states, until the

widespread adoption of the policy became an essential tool for the

majority of socialist regimes.

As one looks at collectivisation throughout Eastern Europe, it becomes

apparent early on that no 2 nation states had identical results from

the adoption of this policy. Each State has to be judged on its own

merits and individual socio-economic results.

Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia were 3 infant states that had

collectivisation enforced upon them by the expansionist German regime.

In the immediate aftermath of the war they simultaneously decided that

they would progress with the ‘cooperative farm’ ethos that the Nazi

government had installed in their societies. It had shown a level of

effectiveness and efficiency that when ma...

... middle of paper ...

...on,

1994).

2. G. And N. Swain, Eastern Europe since 1945 (Basingstoke, 1998).

3. D. H. Aldroft and S. Morewood, Economic change in Eastern Europe

since 1918 (Aldershot, 1995).

4. M. Kaser and E.A. Radice, (eds.) The Economic History of Eastern

Europe 1919-1975, Volume II: Interwar Policy, the War and

Reconstruction (Oxford, 1985).

5. J. Lovenduski and J. Woodall, Politics and Society in Eastern

Europe (London, 1987).

6. G. Kolankiewicz and Paul G. Lewis, Poland: Politics, Economics and

Society (London, 1988).

7. M. Shafir, Romania: Politics, Economics and Society (London, 1985).

8. L. P. Morris, Eastern Europe since 1945.

9. A. L. Cartwright, The Return of the Peasant.

10. I. T. Berend, Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993: Detour from

the Periphery to the Periphery (Cambridge, 1996).

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