The Collectivization of Agriculture Total Repression, 1957-1962
The Collectivization of Agriculture Total Repression, 1957-1962

Summary/Abstract: The repression was, from the very beginning, a feature of the process of collectivisation. Initially directed against larger land properties and supported by laws that punished those who failed to accomplish the State Plan, the repression was later carried out on the peasants’ small farms, mercilessly crushing anything that might have become an obstacle in its path to abundance. Whereas the indictments in the early 1950s relied on economic reasons (failure to pay the taxes, failure to keep to the collecting plan). After 1957, the legal grounds shifted towards political charges so that a person’s wish to leave the Collective Agricultural Unit was sanctioned as an attack against the Communist regime by the courts of law. Any critical remark or shadow of discontent was therefore turned into evidence for convicting peasants to long prison sentences.

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