The Value of Labor by Martha Lampland

Author:Martha Lampland [Lampland, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Economic History, History, General, Europe, Eastern, Modern, 20th Century, Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Sociology
ISBN: 9780226314600
Google: 1GUpDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2016-09-15T00:48:13+00:00

Planning Agricultural Policy

In the first few years following the end of the war, new socialist states pursued different strategies toward agriculture. The character of collective farms and the rate of their introduction varied in the region, with Yugoslavia and Bulgaria leading the way in the early years (1944–1946) and Albania close behind (Wädekin and Jacobs 1982, 35). After the elections in 1947 securing the Communist Party’s control of government, indeed even as late as early June 1948, the party had decided not to mount a vigorous collectivization campaign. The party’s busy political agenda in late fall 1947—further nationalization in industry, formally nationalizing the banking sector, and progressively removing all other parties from the political scene—meant agriculture was not top on the list of priorities (Balogh et al. 1978, 156–60; Rainer 1996, 388; Pető and Szakács 1985, 85). But Soviet pressures to collectivize agriculture in its client states in Eastern Europe had increased in 1947 and 1948. The broad contours of collectivized production in the Soviet Union—joint ownership, labor brigades, shared costs and revenues—were familiar. The technicalities were less obvious but just as crucial to getting cooperative farms up and running. Finally, the tensions between the new socialist states and the Soviet Union, most notably the break with Yugoslavia, played a crucial role in finally convincing the Hungarian Communist Party to launch a swift collectivization drive.

The road to socialist agriculture lead through thick brambles; a jumble of abstract theoretical debates over historical development were intertwined with questions over the degree of latitude Eastern European socialist states could exercise in setting their own national strategies, all refracted through the lens of Soviet political history. It was simple to draw the conclusion from Soviet history that peasants could not be left to their own devices, their atavistic attitudes towards property and production constituting insurmountable barriers to socialist agriculture that the state would be forced to smash. What was less clear to the leaders of new socialist states was how this specific historical experience from the east would translate into policies at home. Disagreements over basic issues concerning property relations, class struggle, and mobilizing the peasantry were complicated in Hungary by clashing personal and political agendas within the party, as well as the ever-looming gaze of the Soviets. How could they commit themselves to the class struggle without endangering the country’s food supplies in the bargain? A reasonable compromise appeared to lie in more discriminating policies of class differentiation, building alliances with poorer peasants while punishing wealthier farmers.

In Hungary, the national policy plan being crafted by the party in late 1947, early 1948 touched only superficially on agriculture. Even though Imre Nagy was recognized as the specialist in agrarian issues among the ruling elite of the Communist Party, he had fallen out of favor and was consigned to a minor role in policy making. Nagy did not draft any portion of the guiding principles touching on agriculture, only being asked to comment on the draft once it had been written. Concerned about the direction

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