Țăranii sub asediu: colectivizarea agriculturii în România

by Gail Kligman, Katherine Verdery, Justina Bandol (trad.)

In 1949, regimul comunist roman, aflat la inceputurile sale, a dezlantuit o intensa si brutala campanie de colectivizare a agriculturii, dupa modelul sovietic, intr-o tara cu un pronuntat profil agrar. Gail Kligman si Katherine Verdery analizeaza modul in care colectivizarea a zdruncinat din temelii viata rurala, transformind comunitatile satesti traditionale in organizatii birocratice fundamentate pe „lupta de clasa”. Faptul ca oameni slab pregatiti, dintre care multi nu erau convinsi de beneficiile colectivizarii, aplicau pedagogii si tehnologii importate din Uniunea Sovietica a avut drept consecinta acte de violenta greu de controlat chiar si de liderii partidului. Autoarele arata ca vastul proces de inginerie sociala nu a afectat doar proprietatile taranilor, ci a fost crucial pentru crearea partidului-stat, a mecanismelor de conducere si a „omului nou”. Avind ca surse documente de arhiva, istorii orale si date etnografice, Taranii sub asediu arunca o noua lumina asupra colectivizarii din Romania in epoca sovietica.

Genres: History

488 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2011

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mildly idiotic text from two authors who barely understand the subject.

> Because communist power arrived in Romania from without, not through an internally generated revolutionary process, the Party faced a population minimally predisposed to its ideas.

This can be said of any place, from the Soviet Republics to Hungary to Cuba. A small revolutionary group took over. More, Marxism, and later Leninism, is preoccupied with the proletarians, factory workers. Neither Marx, nor Lenin have any idea of how to deal with the peasants, but Lenin discovers quite quickly that they are counter-revolutionary in their [the peasants'] ambition to cling to land ownership.

> Seeking to reduce the evident confusion in defining what a chiabur was, the Party leadership sent down to officials in the regions a document entitled “Basic Indicators for Identifying Chiabur Households,” instructing them on precisely how to do so.

No. It's about setting up a bureaucracy and having to deal with quite uneducated individuals. So there must be some rules and the rules should be as simple to understand as possible or the activists in the countryside won't apply them.

[Stefania Vede · Rating 3 out of 5]

O sinteză a procesului colectivizării din România, cu un puternic accent pe metode și practici de implementare. Nu există din păcate informații despre rezultatele colectivizării pentru satele studiate.

[grace elston · Rating 4 out of 5]

yeah i read it … cover to cover bro i swear …

[Andrei M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book documenting how the Romanian Communist Party came of age via the colossal task of collectivizing agriculture. While many details are part of collective memory for many Romanians (and not entirely engaging), the authors - mostly non-Romanian academic sociologists who spent in years in pre- and post-communist Romania doing field work - do an incredible job of describing Romanian village life and attitudes of the Romanian peasant - many of which are still recognizable in Romanian culture today. The Party, whose Central Committee wanted to create a more "rational" and "depersonalized" bureaucratic state, had no choice but to delegate responsibility for the monumental task of collectivizing agriculture to low-level activists who had their own interpretations of orders from above and who, in the end, had to embed themselves in village relationships to achieve their ends. The last chapters in particular are incredible, touching upon topics that are still very much relevant today in Romania (and beyond), such as Foucault's panopticon, "getting by" in Romania, selective memory, and the deeply personalized - indeed, corrupt - relationship Romanians have with the state.