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Violence and social (dis)continuity: comparing collectivization in two East European villages

2005; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0307102042000337279

1470-1200

Tatjana Thelen,

Historical Gender and Feminism Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1For different legal approaches depending on differences in the socialist organization of agriculture see N. Swain, The Rural Transition in Post-socialist Central Europe and the Balkans (Halle/Saale, 2000); as an example of differing influence and the interests of different actors see B. v. Hirschhausen, Les nouvelles campagnes Roumaines. Paradoxes d'un retour 'paysan' (Paris, 1997). 2See G. Elwert, 'Conflict: anthropological aspects' in N. J. Smelser (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Amsterdam, 2001), 2542–7. 3 ibid., 2543 and H. C. Kelman, 'Violence without moral restraint: reflections on the dehumanization of victims and victimizers', Journal of Social Issues, xxix, 4 (1973), 39. 4The article is based on fieldwork in 1999 and 2000 in Mesterszállás (Hungary) and Kisiratos (Romania). Apart from participant observation and different interview techniques, archive work was part of the research. Quotations from taped interviews are marked with the date, quotations from informal talks with diary notes (DN) and date. 5Swain, op. cit., 6. See also N. Swain, 'Agricultural restitution and co-operative transformation in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia', Europe-Asia Studies, li, 7 (November 1999), 1199–1219. 6Swain, The rural transition, op. cit., 7. 7K. Verdery, 'Fuzzy property: rights, power and identity in Transylvania's decollectivization' in M. Burawoy and K. Verdery (eds), Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World (Lanham, 1999), 53–81. 8In Mesterszállás, land auctions were based on arrangements in advance. There are no data on land auctions, but Hungarian sociologists assume that in about 70 per cent of all cases not genuine but agreed-on auctions took place (I. Harcsa, I. Kovách and I. Szelényi, 'The price of privatization: the post-communist transformational crisis of the Hungarian agrarian system' in I. Szelényi (ed.), Privatizing the Land – Rural Political Economy in Post-communist Societies (London, 1998), 214–39. See also A. Burgerné Gimes, 'A Magyarországi Földpiac' [The Hungarian Landmarket], Statisztikai Szemle (1996), 74 evf. 5.–6. sz., 411–20. For the description of a real auction see N. Swain, 'Getting land in central Europe' in R. Abrahams (ed.), After Socialism. Land Reform and Social Change in Eastern Europe (Providence and Oxford, 1996), 204–13. 9Today the rejection of a marriage in Mesterszállás by the parents is sometimes explained as follows: 'The family does not match ours.' But this often entails a different social origin. The answers in the questionnaires also hint at a socially homogeneous marriage pattern. In 49 households both partners were asked, 'Have you had compensation vouchers at your own disposal?' In 39 cases either both or none of them had personal claims. These data are influenced by the age of respondents, since the younger generation only inherited claims if the parents had died. Still, the numbers indicate that in most cases either both partners stemmed from a poor or both from a rich family. 10Kulak is a pejorative term, taken from the Russian, which was adopted in Hungarian to label rich peasants (see below). 11But this may also have been influenced by the fact that appropriation of furniture in Kisiratos may more often have occurred from former German property (see below). 12E. Fél and T. Hofer, Proper Peasants – Traditional Life in a Hungarian Village (Budapest and Chicago, 1969). 13 A Magyar Korona Oszágainak 1990 évi népszámlalálsa (Budapest, 1902), 302–3. 14 ibid., 382–3. 15The current numbers for Kisiratos are: 1781 Hungarians, 58 Romanians, 10 Gipsy and 1 German. Religious distribution in Kisiratos: 1774 Roman Catholics, 51 Orthodox, 12 Calvinist, 2 Protestant, 1 Greek Catholic, 1 other (1992 Recenamântul Populaiei si Locuintelor, CNS, România, 1994). 16M. Hollos, 'The effect of collectivization on village social organization in Hungary', East European Quarterly, xvii, 1 (March 1983), 57–65. 17The process was induced by the abolishment of serfdom, but took several decades to be completed. For an overview and some of the eminent problems see L Für, 'Jobbágyföld – Parasztföld', in I. Szabó (ed.), A Parasztság Magyarországon A Kapitaliszmuskorában 1848–1914 (Budapest, 1965), 33–153. 18During the post-war reform, around 30 per cent of the agricultural land was distributed to 642,000 people in Hungary, but often beneficiaries received less than 0.5 ha each; see S. Lacka, 'A Földterület és a Földhasználat Alakulása 1945 és 1994 között', Statisztikai Szemle (1996), 117–29; F. Donáth, Reform and Revolution: Transformation of Hungary's Agriculture 1945–1970 (Budapest, 1980). In Mesterszállás, as elsewhere, the number of peasants owning less than 3 ha rose after the reform (from 73 in 1941 to 119 in 1949, KSH 1941, 1949); 101 families received land, with some of them again registered as having great difficulties three years later. See F. Horváth and I. Csabai, Mesterszállás Község. 25 éve fejlødés 1945–1969 között (Mesterszállás, 1969), 15. Official statistics about land reform in Romania state that more than a million ha were distributed to 918,000 peasants, who received an average of 1.3 ha each. See J. M. Montias, Economic Development in Communist Rumania (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1967) 89; G. Ionescu, Communism in Rumania 1944–1962 (London, 1964), 111. It is not known to the author how many people in Kisiratos received land, but the villagers remember the distribution of the Schneider property, one of the ethnic German families, and the distribution of building sites to the poor, still called the 'Groza-settlement' (Groza telep). 19KSH 1881, 1897, 1900, 1980 and Institutul Central de Statisticâ, 1938, 1944, 1956. 20For more information about the village history see G. Barna (ed.), Mesterszállás. Fejezetek a község történetébol (Mesterszállás, 1995) and G. Barna and K. Gulyás (eds), Mesterszállás. Az önállóság útján 1897–1997 (Mesterszállás, 1997); for ethnographical and sociological descriptions of the Hungarian tanya see I. Györffy, 'A magyar tanya' in I. Györffy, Alföldi Népélet (Budapest, 1983). According to scattered archive material, the first settlement of Kisiratos took place in 1819, while the official founding year was 1828. At this time 125 persons were living in Kisiratos (Országos Levéltár Budapest, Dep. Regnicolaris, 1828-as összeirás and Országos Levéltár, Budapest: Archivum palatinale; Landesconskrition, 1828). For a more detailed comparison of the history of the two villages see T. Thelen, Privatizierung und soziale Ungleichheit in der osteuropäischen Landwirtschaft: Zwei Fallstudien aus Ungarn und Rumänien (Frankfurt a.M., 2003). 21For example, E. Lettrich, 'The Hungarian tanya system: history and present-day problems' in B. Sárfalvi (ed.), Research Problems in Hungarian Applied Geography (Budapest, 1969), 151–68. 22This emotional linkage seems to be more powerful for men than women, who recall the bitter experiences of isolation and hard work. This may also help explain why women did not reclaim the historical property of their parents as men did. See T. Thelen, ' "The new power of the old men": privatization and family relations in Mesterszállás (Hungary)', East Europe Review, xxi, 2 (Fall 2003). 23N. Spulber, 'Collectivization in Hungary and Romania' in I. T. Sanders (ed.), Collectivization of Agriculture in Eastern Europe (Kentucky, 1958), 140–65; K.-E. Wädekin, Agrarian Policies in Communist Europe. A Critical Introduction (New Jersey, 1982). 24For the collectivizing techniques in Romania see, for example, A. L. Cartwright, The Return of the Peasant. Land Reform in Post-Communist Romania (Aldershot, 2001), 66–88; in Hungary see S. Orbán, Két agrárforradalom Magyarországon (Budapest, 1972), Donáth, Reform and Revolution, op. cit. and J. Sokolvsky, Peasants and Power. State Autonomy and the Collectivization of Agriculture in Eastern Europe (Boulder, 1990), 87–150. 25In Hungary the exact amount was 25 hold, which equals 14.5 ha. 26Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár: Megyei Tanács VB. Pénzügyi Osztaly. Szám nelküli iratai 1950–3. 27They were listed as chiabur, the Romanian equivalent of kulak. 28For similar cases of arbitrary registration see Cartwright, op. cit., 72. 29Directiunea Centralâ de Statisticâ, Registrul Agricol Comunal, 1951–55. In the registers about 200 households were found to be missing. 30Spulber, op. cit., 142–3. 31The 14 male members brought 97 cadastral yoke (c. 58.2 ha), that means on average less than 5 ha each for them (Jáz-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár, Tsz iratok Uttöro, vezetési ügyek 1950–72). Usually the first members of collective farms were from the lower social strata of the peasant society; see, for example, Donáth, op. cit., 242. 32In Romania, as elsewhere, the soil of a collective farm ideally consisted of the landed property of its members, but as in Hungary (see above), in a lot of cases only poorer peasants were willing to join the co-operatives so that the amount of in-brought land was not enough to set up a viable farm. In Romania it is reported that the Ministry of Agriculture in these cases denied the application to set up a co-operative (see Cartwright, op. cit., 73–4). 33In 1952 the 'Peace' co-operative (Béke) and in 1955 the 'Rákóczi' (name of a national idol) co-operative were founded (Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár: Rákóczi mg tsz, resp. Béke mg tsz). 34In fact, he was a landless labourer before he married the daughter of a small peasant in Mesterszállás. For more information on life histories in Mesterszállás see Thelen, op. cit. 35Up to 1959 rich peasants were officially not allowed to join co-operatives (Donáth, op. cit., 235). 36 Hold is an old unit for measuring land and equals about 0.6 ha. 37Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár: Rákóczi mg tsz. 38According to the description of former members and lacking another explanation for the letters it is suggested that the co-operative was named after the Russian toz in the thirties; see M. Hollos and B. C. Maday: 'Introduction' in their New Hungarian Peasants: An East Central European Experience with Collectivization (New York, 1983), 1–4. According to Sampson, op. cit., 153, toz stands for 'Tavarishshestwo po obshchestvennoi obrabotki zemli', and was also used in other Romanian villages. 39D. A. Kideckel in his study of collectivization in another settlement also points to the importance of family and friendship networks: 'The socialist transformation of agriculture in a Romanian commune, 1945–1962', American Ethnologist, ix, 2 (1982), 320–40. 40Goldcrown is an old measure for the quality of land used under the Habsburg Empire in land registration. 41See Donath, op. cit., 226. 42 ibid., 266. 43These incidents were confirmed by local informants as well as by a report of the head of the Executive Committee from 18 February 1957 (Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár). 44Történet Hivatal: 146/k.v.–150377.384–7. An exception was the priest, who took part in the council, but was not a kulak. 45The role of the rural populations in the 1956 events is contested. Donáth, op. cit., 268 argues that peasants were hesitant to participate in violent events, precisely because 'the fact that the reactionary elements had acted more openly in the villages than in the capital and the representatives of reaction were long known to the peasants'. 46See for example 11 January 1957 and 22 February 1957 (Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár: Mesterszállás KT.VB. 1956/1957). 47See Montias, op. cit., 90–1. 48In Romania, the overall influence of de-Stalinization was less strong than in other eastern European countries (Ionescu, op. cit., 257). 49Donáth, op. cit., 271. 50See Orbán, op. cit., 217. 51Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltár: Földrendezés, földügyiminiszter 216/1959. 52According to I. Szelényi, about 2–3 per cent of the population, usually 'stubborn peasants', remained in private agriculture; see Socialist Entrepreneurs. Embourgeoisement in Rural Hungary (Wisconsin, 1988), 88 and 35. 53Donáth, op. cit., 286; Orbán, op. cit., 221. 54Szelényi, op. cit., 152. 55In other parts of Romania, mostly hilly regions, private farms remained. They made up approximately 4 per cent of all land (Montias, op. cit., 93). 56There are hints in the literature that early collectivization in Romania meant generally more extensive use of violence and profound changes in local society; see B. v. Hirschhausen, op. cit., 161–3. S. L. Sampson suggests in his study of another early collectivized settlement that 'the penalty of being the first' probably caused a higher degree of alienation between citizens and the local political institutions than in communities in which collectivization was delayed: National Integration Through Socialist Planning: An Anthropological Study of a Romanian New Town (Boulder, 1984), 158. But this may have been the case in other regions with early collectivization too. 57For the influence of the later decades of socialism on these villages, especially reliability of state support for agriculture, and the policies concerning staff and substitution of long-term rights in these villages, see Thelen, op. cit. and T. Thelen, 'Post-socialist entrepreneurs in rural Hungary: social continuity and legal practice in Mesterszállás', Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, xlvi, 3–4 (2001), 315–42. For the Hungarian economic reforms in general see I. B. Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms 1953–1988 (Cambridge, 1990) and for the change in management in agricultural collectives in the 1960s and 1970s see N. Swain, Collective Farms which Work? (Cambridge, 1985), 116–17. For sociological and anthropological descriptions see P. Juhász, 'Az agrárértelmiség szerepe és a mezogazdásági szövetkezetek', Medvetánc, 1 (1983), 191–213; C. M. Hann, 'Progress toward collectivized agriculture in Tázlár, 1949–78' in M. Hollos and B. C. Maday (eds), New Hungarian Peasants: An East Central European Experience with Collectivization (New York, 1983), 69–92; and M. Sárkány 'Economic changes in a northern Hungarian Village', ibid., 25–56. For the development of Romanian socialist agriculture see Cartwright, op. cit. and P. Ronnas, 'Turning the Romanian peasant into a new socialist man: an assessment of rural development policy in Romania', Soviet Studies, xli, 4 (1989), 543–59; for anthropological work on rural communities J. W. Cole, 'In a pig's eye: daily life and political economy in southeastern Europe' in J. W. Cole (ed.), Economy, Society and Culture in Contemporary Romania, Research Report No. 24, Department of Anthropology (Amherst, 1984), 159–74 and D. A. Kideckel, 'The social organization of production on a Romanian co-operative farm', Dialectical Anthropology, 1, 3 (1976), 267–76. 58Also, in Arad county, there was armed peasant resistance: see G. Iancu and V. Târau, 'The peasants' uprisings in the counties of Arad and Bihor in 1949' in G. Cipaianu and V. Târau (eds), Romanian and British Historians on the Contemporary History of Romania (Cluj Napoca, 2000), 153–66. 59Montias, op. cit., 93.