Journal Analele Banatului N.S. Archaeology-History

Ionuţ Raul Rus

Cotele obligatorii şi ţărănimea în judeţul Timiş – Torontal 1945 – 1948 / Compulsory Quotas And The Peasantry In Timiş-Torontal County 1945 – 1948

Jan. 1, 2012

Abstract

! e present article aims to present – using archival information – a phenomenon newly appeared in the Romanian post-war society, phenomenon that seems to be typical rather for the times of war and occupation: the forced taking over of products (compulsory quotas) through which the State simply confi scated an important part from the harvest of the farmers and the reaction of the peasantry from Timiș-Torontal county at the collecting. ! e method was of Soviet inspiration, experienced since the civil war that troubled Russia at the end of the First World War. ! ey were for the fi rst time applied in Romania in the year 1945 to a peasantry impoverished by the years of war, by the requisitions performed by the Soviet troops of occupation, by the drought and hunger which haunted a great part of the country during 1946–1947. In the terms of dramatic decrease of the agricultural production caused by the war, the collecting off ered a quick answer at the feeding needs of the urban population and at the economic exploitation of the country by the Soviet occupation power, two diffi cult tasks which the bankrupt economic policy of the communist regime couldn’t satisfy. Above all, the collecting proved to be an instrument of the class struggle at the country side. ! e collecting system prepared the fi eld for the socialist agriculture structures installation, through deliberate decay of rich peasant establishments which resisted against collectivization and through reinforcement of the political control on the rural population. ! is exploitation system devitalized the rich peasant establishments, true engines of the rural economy, leading this way at the decay of the peasant communities. ! e collecting system was organized with the help of a developed legal framework, extremely repressive, that described accurately the obligations of the farmers and established severe punishments against those who refused to deliver the specifi ed quotas. It was implemented by the party machinery at the local level, supported by the local authorities, by militia and by justice. ! e history of collecting can be divided into four distinct periods. ! e fi rst period, situated between the years 1945–1947, the second period between the years 1948–1952, the third period between the years 1953–1956 and the last period between the years 1957–1962, mark the transition from quotas to contracts, the pragmatism of the party policy in the matter of assuring the state fund through contracts strongly contrasted with the violent character of the collectivization after 1958. ! e measure of introducing the compulsory quotas was received with discontent by the great majority of the peasants and the resistance at the phenomenon took diff erent shapes which are presented in this study together with the coercive measures brought into force by the state and party bodies on the peasants who refuse to deliver the imposed quotas.