Peasants under Siege

The Collectivization of Romanian Agriculture, 1949-1962
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-691-14972-1
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 520 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 879 g

In 1949, Romania's fledgling communist regime unleashed a radical and brutal campaign to collectivize agriculture in this largely agrarian country, following the Soviet model. Peasants under Siege provides the first comprehensive look at the far-reaching social engineering process that ensued. Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery examine how collectivization assaulted the very foundations of rural life, transforming village communities that were organized around kinship and status hierarchies into segments of large bureaucratic organizations, forged by the language of "class warfare" yet saturated with vindictive personal struggles. Collectivization not only overturned property relations, the authors argue, but was crucial in creating the Party-state that emerged, its mechanisms of rule, and the "new persons" that were its subjects. The book explores how ill-prepared cadres, themselves unconvinced of collectivization's promises, implemented technologies and pedagogies imported from the Soviet Union through actions that contributed to the excessive use of force, which Party leaders were often unable to control. In addition, the authors show how local responses to the Party's initiatives compelled the regime to modify its plans and negotiate outcomes. Drawing on archival documents, oral histories, and ethnographic data, Peasants under Siege sheds new light on collectivization in the Soviet era and on the complex tensions underlying and constraining political authority.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kligman, Gail

Verdery, Katherine

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Marxismus, Kommunismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations ix

List of Tables xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

Abbreviations xxi

Introduction 1

Part I. Laying the Groundwork

Chapter 1. The Soviet Blueprint 49

Chapter 2. The Village Community and the Politics of Collectivization, 1945-62 88

Chapter 3. Creating Party Cadres 150

Part II. Pedagogies of Power: Technologies of Rural Transformation

Chapter 4. Pedagogies of Knowledge Production and Contestation 215

Chapter 5. Pedagogies of Persuasion 283

Chapter 6. Fomenting Class War 324

Part III. Outcomes

Chapter 7. The Collectives Are Formed 369

Chapter 8. The Restratification and Bureaucratization of Rural Life 408

Conclusion 444

Appendix I. Project and Participants 461

Appendix II. Methodology 464

Appendix III. List of Interviewers and Respondents 472

Bibliography 477

Index 499

Über Autor(innen)

Gail Kligman is professor of sociology and director of the Center for European and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Katherine Verdery is the Julien J. Studley Faculty Scholar and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center.