Simple forms of agricultural cooperation as covert methods of collectivisation
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Instytut Historii Wydział Humanistyczny
Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie
Online publication date: 2020-05-20
Publication date: 2020-05-20
KMW 2020;307(1):82-97
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ABSTRACT
Along with the change in the agricultural policy in 1948 that was inspired by the Kremlin and imposed during the 2nd Cominform in Bucharest, the collectivisation of the rural area became a doctrinal issue in the agricultural policy of Communist states. Apart from the direct methods of collectivisation that concerned strong administrative and economic pressures towards the peasants, the authorities also undertook actions that were to introduce the production cooperatives in a more clouded manner. These included, among others, establishing self–help villages, joint agreements between the villagers and State Machinery Centres (Pol. Państwowe Ośrodki Maszynowe, POM) for machinery services for their fields, developing simple forms of agricultural cooperation in the arbitrarily created units for cultivation, grassland, farming, etc. These activities, aided by a system of con-cessions and preferences, brought certain results, especially towards the end of the discussed period. They prove the wide array of measures and methods used by the Communist authorities in their attempts at collectivisation.