The historical experience of the peoples who embarked on the path of revolutionary transformation after the Second World War provides rich material for studying the general laws of socialist construction, as well as the peculiarities of this process in each of the countries of the world socialist system. The socialist transformation of agriculture is one of the most complex and difficult tasks of socialist construction, connected with the transition of the vast mass of the peasantry from small individual farms to large-scale social economy.

The problems associated with the socialist transformation of Romania's agriculture were mainly addressed by Soviet authors only in general works on the history of socialist construction in that country1 . The CPR has published a number of collective works by Romanian economists on the development of the country's agriculture during the period of building the foundations of socialism, ² and published individual articles in Romanian historical journals ^.3 Special works on the history of cooperation of the Romanian peasantry have not yet been published. In this article, based on published materials, statistical data and the press, an attempt is made to trace the process of socialist transformation of agriculture in Romania in 1949-1962, to highlight its stages.

Before the Second World War, 3/4 of the Romanian population was engaged in agriculture, which was the main branch of the country's economy. A significant part of the agricultural land was concentrated in the hands of landlords, and the peasantry dragged out a poor existence, experiencing an acute shortage of land and being subjected to severe exploitation. According to official data, before the Second World War, landlords, who made up an insignificant part of landowners (only 0.8%), owned 32.2% of the country's agricultural area, and 3/4 of peasant farms (2460 thousand peasant households) belonged to

¹ I. P. Oleynik. Victory of Socialism in Romania, Moscow, 1962; N. I. Lebedev, E. D. Karpeshchenko. History of the Romanian People's Republic, Moscow, 1964; A. A. Yazkova. Narodnaya Rumania, M. 1965; N. P. Frolov. Agrarian relations in bourgeois-landlord Romania and the land question in the People's Democratic Revolution, Moscow, 1960 (dokl. diss).

² "Probleme ale dezvoltarii si consolidarii agriculturii socialiste". Bucuresti. 1960; "Agricultura Rormniei. 1944 - 1964". Bucuresti. 1964; chapters in books: "Probleme ale desavirsirii constructiei socialiste in RPR". Bucuresti. 1962; "Probleme ale crearii si dezvoltarii bazei tehnice-materiale a socialismului in RPR". Bucures.ti. 1963; "Dezvoltarea economic a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964". Bucuresti. 1964; "Alianja clasei muncitoare in Romania". Bucuresti. 1969.

³ "Incheierea colectivizarii-victorie a intregului popor". "Studii (revista de istorie)", 1962, N 4; Fl. Balaure, M. Popescu. Dezvoltarea agriculturii socialiste, calea bunei stari a taranimii. "Analele Institutului de istorie a partidului de pe linga CC al PMR", 1964, N 2; "O noua etapa in dezvoltarea agriculturii noastre socialiste". "Lupta de clasa, 1962, N 5; Gn. Surpat. Infaptuirea programului PCR de cooperativizare a agriculturii. "Anale de istorie", 1969, N 1.

a group of smallholders. In addition, 700 thousand peasants were completely landless. Half of the peasant farms did not have the most basic agricultural equipment, and more than a third of the farms did not have working cattle ^.4 Semi-feudal methods of exploitation of the peasantry (land use and mining) were widespread. The characteristic features of agriculture in old Romania were the technical backwardness of agriculture, low crop yields, and low productivity of livestock production. The peasants fought for the division of the landlords ' land and its transfer to their ownership. The Communist Party of Romania, while pursuing a policy of strengthening the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, supported the peasants ' struggle for land. Therefore, the Communist Party considered the elimination of landownership and the allocation of land to the peasantry as one of the most important tasks of the people's democratic revolution, which unfolded in Romania in the context of the historical victories of the Soviet Army over Nazi Germany and the liberation of the country. In 1945, under conditions of acute class struggle, a radical agrarian reform was implemented ^.5 Landlords ' holdings of more than 50 hectares, as well as land and all property belonging to fascist elements, were confiscated. Of the 1.4 million hectares of confiscated land, 1.1 million hectares went to farmers, and the rest to state-owned estates. Subsequently, in 1948, ^the lands belonging to the royal family were confiscated and transferred to the state fund, and in 1949 - land plots of up to 50 hectares and model farms left to the landlords under the Agrarian Reform Act of 1945.6 Thus an entire exploiting class was eliminated by revolutionary means - the landowner class, the most reactionary force that stood in the way of the country's economic and social development, the social base of political reaction. In the villages of Romania, 400 thousand new peasant farms were created, and 500 thousand peasant farms increased their land allotments7 .

In demanding the transfer of landlords 'land to the private ownership of the peasantry, the Communist Party of Romania proceeded from specific historical conditions, taking into account the deep tradition of private ownership of land by the peasantry and the long-term revolutionary struggle of the peasantry for the redistribution of landlords' land. The implementation of this measure ensured that the peasantry was drawn to the side of the proletariat, and strengthened the alliance between the working class and the peasantry. In the future, the process of industrial cooperation of peasant farms in Romania proceeded while maintaining the private ownership of land by peasants, which had a certain impact on the forms and rates of cooperation.

As a result of the agrarian reform, the basic means of production were redistributed in favor of the working peasants. Before the reform, the share of peasant farms with land plots of up to 10 hectares, which accounted for 93% of all farms, accounted for 48% of the land area, but after the reform, the share of these farms increased to 94.1%, and their agricultural area increased to 71%. In total, in 1948, the peasantry owned about 80% of the country's agricultural area and 92.7% of the arable land. Small; and the smallest peasant farms (from 0.5 to 5 ha) comprised

⁴ "Relatii agrare si miscari taranesti in Romania (1908 - 1921)". Bucuresti. 1967," p. 576; "Agriculture Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 23; N. N. Stanescu. Cooperativizarea agriculturii in RPR. Bucuresti. 1957, p. 118.

⁵ See T. A. Pokivailova. From agrarian reform to the socialist transformation of agriculture in Romania. "New and recent History", 1964, N 4. R. Nichita, M. Popescu. Transformed aggrare in Romania in anii 1944-1947. "Anale de istorie", 1969, N 1.

⁶ C. Murgescu. Reforma agrara din 1945. Bucuresti. 1956, p. 163.

⁷ "Agricultura Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 23.

the vast majority of all farms are ⁸ . It is quite understandable that small peasant farms in conditions of extensive farming, extreme fragmentation and low technology could not overcome the age-old backwardness of the Romanian countryside, meet their needs and provide the city with food and raw materials. The marketability of agriculture was low. The general state of agriculture required its radical restructuring. The working peasantry continued to be exploited by the kulaks, who maintained a strong economic position in the villages. In 1948, Kulaks accounted for 5.15% of all peasant farms and owned about 20% of agricultural land9 .

On December 30, 1947, the monarchy was abolished in Romania and the People's Republic was proclaimed. After the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the nationalization of the main means of production in industry in 1948, the Romanian Workers ' Party ¹⁰ began to develop a program for building a socialist society. In the area of socialist transformation of agriculture, the party proceeded from Lenin's position on cooperation as the main form of transition of the peasantry from small private farms to the path of socialist farming, and used the experience of the Soviet Union, the first socialist state to implement collectivization of the peasantry. The Romanian Workers ' Party followed the path of industrial cooperation of the peasantry, as well as the creation of state farms and MTS in the countryside, based on state public ownership. It is necessary to note the favorable international conditions in which the socialist construction in Romania was developing. The existence of a world socialist system, the great economic assistance and political support provided by the Soviet Union were essential factors in eliminating the country's age-old backwardness, and in successfully solving the tasks of socialist construction, including in the field of agriculture.

The March 1949 plenum of the RRP Central Committee pointed out that the main form of transition of the peasantry to the path of socialist farming should be production cooperation and cooperation in the country should take place only as the material and technical base in agriculture is created. In bourgeois-landowner Romania, there was no domestic production of agricultural machinery, which led to an extremely weak technical equipment of agriculture. Therefore, one of the most important tasks facing the people's democratic State was the development of agricultural engineering on the basis of the country's industrialization.

The Soviet Union provided great assistance in organizing agricultural engineering in the country. Back in 1946, the IAR aviation plant in Brasov, with the assistance of the USSR, was converted into a tractor plant, first owned jointly by Romania and the USSR (Sovromtractor), and later transferred to the Romanian state. With the help of Soviet specialists, the production of the KD-35 tractor and some other types of agricultural machinery was established here. The Soviet Union also provided Romania with scientific and technical documentation for the production of a number of agricultural machines, on the basis of which the plant "Styagul Roshul" in Brasov mastered the production process.-

⁸ С. Murgescu. Op. crt., p. 223; "Dezvoltarea agriculturii Republicii Populare Romine. Directia centrala de statistics". Bucuresti. 1961, p. 38; "Agricultura Rominiei. 1944- 1964", p. 26.

⁹ " Development of the economy of the Romanian People's Republic on the path of socialism. 1948-1957". Moscow, 1958, p. 190 (translated from Russian).

¹⁰ The Romanian Workers ' Party was formed in 1948 as a result of the merger of the CPR and the SDP on a Marxist-Leninist platform. In 1965, the RRP was renamed the Romanian Communist Party.

driving trucks ¹¹ . As a result of Soviet-Romanian cooperation, conditions were created in Romania for the development of industry, including the production of agricultural machinery, which, in turn, ensured a rapid pace of technical reconstruction of agriculture.

During the first five-year plan (1951-1955), 16 plants for the production of agricultural machinery grew in Romania. In addition, agricultural machinery began to come from the USSR. Thus, in 1947, Romania received 463 tractors, 86 agricultural and 515 trucks from the USSR. Soviet agricultural machinery and equipment were also imported into the country in subsequent years. Since 1951, MTS began to be equipped with self-propelled combines imported from the USSR. By 1956, 544 such combines had been produced. Cooperation with the Soviet Union in the construction of plants for the production of mineral fertilizers was of great importance for creating the material and technical base of agriculture. In 1956, the USSR granted Romania a loan of 270 million rubles for the construction of five chemical plants, including plants for the production of mineral fertilizers. Assistance was also provided for the construction of a superphosphate plant in Novodari, a nitrogen fertilizer plant in Roznov, and a Borzesti chemical plant that produces insecticides for agriculture ^.12

Thanks to the development of domestic mechanical engineering and the growth of agricultural machinery supplies from the USSR, the technical equipment of agriculture increased every year. In 1950, Romanian agriculture had 2.3 times more tractors and 2.4 times more tractor plows than in 194813 . Tractors and other agricultural machinery were mainly concentrated in MTS. The first 76 MTS were established in Romania in 1948, in 1950 their number increased to 133. In 1950 MTS had 5,833 tractors, 6,177 tractor plows, 910 mechanical cultivators, 988 mechanical seed drills, 17 combine harvesters ¹⁴ . MTS was served by production cooperatives and individual peasant farms. Of course, in 1948-1950, only the first steps were taken to equip agriculture with machinery, and the available agricultural machinery was completely insufficient to change the nature of agricultural labor on a large scale. In 1948, state farms were created on the basis of state estates in Romania, which played a certain role in the socialist transformation. State farms and MTS were the sprouts of the socialist sector in agriculture.

In the summer of 1949, the first collective farms were organized in the country's villages. In total, 56 collective farms were created in 1949, bringing together 4327 peasant families. However, even before the decision on the formation of collective farms was made, in the fall of 1948 and spring of 1949, farmers began to unite their lands within the radius of the MTS in order to use agricultural machinery together. In addition, the simplest production associations of peasants began to appear in the villages for the joint cultivation of industrial crops, vegetables, livestock breeding, the use of irrigation installations, etc. But after the formation of the trans-

¹¹ Gh. Gaston. Marin. Ajutorul economic al URSS in construirea socialismului in ara noastra. "Probleme economice", 1957, N 10, p. 126.

¹² "Probleme economice", 1948, N 2, p. 86; "Dezvoltarea agriculturii in Republica Populara Romina", p. 193; Gh. Gaston Mar in. Op. cit., pp. 124 - 127; С. Д. Сергеев. Economic cooperation and mutual aid of socialist countries, Moscow, 1964, p. 146.

¹³ "Dezvoltarea economica a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 64.

¹⁴ "Anuarul statistic al RPR 1962". Bucuresti. 1962, p. 207.

The peasants ' initiative to create the simplest types of production cooperatives did not receive support from state and party bodies and, in fact, stalled. For several years, collective farming was seen as the only form of productive cooperative.

According to the approximate charter, land, working cattle, and basic agricultural implements were socialized in collective farms. All work was done together, and the distribution of income was based on labor. In the personal use of peasants who joined collective farms, there remained land plots with an area of 0.2-0.3 hectares, a residential building with outbuildings, a limited number of productive livestock and agricultural equipment necessary for processing the remaining land. In the initial period, collective farming was mainly conducted by small-scale and landless peasants, who in 1950 accounted for 68.7% of all members of collective farms ^.15 Such peasants, as a rule, had neither working cattle nor agricultural equipment. The size of the combined plots was small. Therefore, the free transfer of land, as well as farm buildings and agricultural equipment from state funds, was of great importance for the formation and development of collective rural farms. Structures, structures, and materials transferred to collective farms accounted for 53% of the total value of their property in the first years of cooperation. In general, collective farming was weak in the initial period. To a large extent, this was due to objective reasons: organizational imperfection of cooperatives, lack of work experience, lack of managerial personnel and specialists. The peasants who joined collective farms had no experience either in managing large-scale farms or in organizing labor. For these reasons, at that time collective agriculture in Romania could not yet reveal the advantages of large-scale social economy, and the bulk of the peasantry, especially the middle peasants, kept aloof from them.

In 1952, 4,000 communist workers were sent to improve party work in rural areas, and a thousand of them were sent directly to collective farms. ¹⁶ The exchange of experience between Romanian peasants and Soviet collective farmers and agricultural specialists was of great importance for eliminating shortcomings in the economic activities of collective farms. In the summer of 1949, a delegation of Romanian peasants came to the Soviet Union to get acquainted with the work of the best Soviet collective farms, state farms and MTS. During 1949-1953. The Soviet Union was visited by about a thousand peasants from Romania. In turn, Soviet collective farmers and agricultural specialists visited the villages of Romania. These contacts were also of great political significance, as they destroyed the false ideas about Soviet collective farms that had been propagated in the past by reactionary circles in bourgeois-landlord Romania ^.17

In 1950-1952, attempts were made in Romania to accelerate the pace of creation of collective rural farms, although the Romanian countryside lacked sufficient material and technical prerequisites and the majority of the peasantry was not ready for the transition.-

¹⁵ "Anuarul statistic al RPR 1959". Bucuresti. 1960, p. 201.

¹⁶ "Rezolutn si hotSrfri ale CC al PMR". Vol. II. 1951 - 1953. Bucuresti. 1954, pp. 246 - 247.

¹⁷ "Frontul Plugarilor", 18.VI.1949; "Congresul al II - lea al Partidului Muncitoresc Romin". Materiale. Bucuresti. 1956, p. 478.

rekhodu on the path of social management of the economy. Often, the creation of collective rural farms was not accompanied by their organizational and economic strengthening, the principle of voluntary participation of peasants in collective farms was violated in some cases, violations in the field of financial policy in rural areas, excesses in relation to the middle peasant were allowed, and lower types of production cooperatives were not used ^.18 The acceleration of the pace of collectivization was closely linked to the acceleration of the pace of socialist industrialization during this period. Agriculture was one of the sources of savings for the development of industry, and collectivization was considered as the main way to increase the marketability of agricultural production. Unjustifiably accelerating the pace of cooperation could not but have a negative impact on the development of the Romanian countryside.

The August 1953 plenum of the RRP Central Committee took measures to eliminate the shortcomings and outlined a program for the development of the cooperative movement in the country. Much attention was paid to the creation of agricultural partnerships as intermediate types of production cooperatives; investment in agriculture increased; measures were envisaged to provide assistance to production cooperatives and individual peasant farms.

A characteristic feature of the cooperation of the peasantry in Romania in the future was the widespread use of agricultural partnerships for joint cultivation of land. Under the conditions of preserving the private ownership of land by peasants, agricultural partnerships were a very flexible form of industrial cooperation. Here, the peasant was not required to immediately break with his property. The peasants in agricultural associations, while remaining owners of their land, working cattle and agricultural implements, had the right to combine only part of their land for joint cultivation. The boundaries were plowed open, and the main agricultural work was carried out together. Farmers shared MTS agricultural equipment. The distribution of income was based on the quantity and quality of the combined land. Members of agricultural associations who provided assistance to other members of the cooperative received payment for their work in kind or in cash from the income of these peasants at a rate set by the general meeting. At the general meeting, all the main issues of the cooperative were resolved. The working peasants, united for the joint cultivation of the land, received tangible benefits even without the complete socialization of the means of production. They could make the most efficient use of inventory, working cattle, and MTS agricultural machines. In addition, the State provided them with some financial and organizational support. In Romania, agricultural associations became an intermediate form of production cooperation, through which the transition of peasants, including the middle peasants, from private to public ownership and collective labor was made. In 1955, the middle peasants made up 67.8% of peasant families united in agricultural partnerships, in 1956-69.3%. In 1955, agricultural partnerships covered more peasant households than collective farms ^.19

The preservation of private ownership of land had a significant impact on the forms of production cooperatives and determined the originality of their structure. In 1956, a new type of cooperative appeared in the villages of Romania - a production cooperative with rent. In such cases,-

¹⁸ "Rezolutii si hotariri ale CC al PMR". Vol. II. 1951 - 1953, pp. 71 - 72.

¹⁹ " Development of the economy of the Romanian People's Republic on the path of socialism. 1948 - 1957 гг.", стр. 211; "Dezvoltarea agriculturii Republicii Populare Romlne...". p. 38.

In the past, the peasants combined all the land, basic agricultural tools, and working cattle, and all the work was done together. In terms of the degree of socialization of the basic means of production and the organization of labor, such cooperatives approached the highest form of production cooperation - collective agriculture. However, the land continued to be the private property of the peasants, and approximately 25-30% of the income was distributed by land, and the remaining 75-70% - by labor. Production cooperatives with rent have become somewhat widespread in Oltenia, Brasov and Bucharest regions. In 1956-1959, there were 125 of them. In the future, this form of cooperation of the peasantry did not become widespread in Romania. In 1960, their number was reduced to 30, and the rest were transformed into collective farms.

During the first five - year plans (1951-1955 and 1956-1960), the material and technical base of agriculture was created in Romania. Already in 1955, there were twice as many agricultural machines in agriculture as in 1950, and the tractor fleet increased 6.5 times ²⁰ . There were objective prerequisites for the expansion of the cooperative movement. The pace of co-operation of peasant farms increased especially after the second Congress of the RRP, held in December 1955. After the Congress, the party's organizational and political work on involving the peasantry in cooperatives became widespread. If at the end of 1955 14% of peasant families were united in various types of production cooperatives, which occupied 13% of the arable area, then in 1959 the cooperative sector covered 73% of all peasant families with 58% of the arable area. Together with state farms and other state agricultural institutions, the socialist sector in 1959 owned about 73% of the country's agricultural land and about 74% of the country's arable land ^.21

In 1956-1958, not only individual farms, but entire villages, districts, and even oblasts were fully co-operated. In October 1957, the Dobrudja cooperation was completed. At the same time, cooperation in certain regions of the country was uneven. This was due to the significant differences in the historical socio-economic conditions of the peasantry here; In accordance with the tasks of developing the national economy, the main attention was paid to the large grain regions of the country, such as Bucharest, Constanta, Banat, Galac regions, in order to make them the main suppliers of agricultural products. First of all, loans, machinery and agricultural specialists were sent here. In addition, the lack of inventory was most acute in the peasant farms of the eastern and south-eastern regions of Romania. Here, in areas where extensive agriculture was extremely backward in the past, farmers primarily felt the benefits of social farming, so the process of cooperation in these areas was faster than in others. In the foothill areas, where livestock and horticulture were highly developed, cooperation was much slower, and in mountainous areas it was particularly difficult due to the dispersion of land plots.

In 1956-1958, agricultural partnerships became the predominant form of industrial cooperation. In two years (1956-1957), about one million peasant families, or a third of all uncooperated peasant farms, joined them-5 times more than in all previous years. In 1958, the number of agricultural workers-

²⁰ N. N. Stanescu. Op. cit., pp. 124 - 126.

²¹ "Dezvoltarea agriculturii Republicii Populare Romine...", pp. 38 - 39; "Dezvoltarea economica a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 106.

partnerships accounted for 80% of all cooperatives. They comprised 75% of cooperative farmers and 57.6% of cooperative agricultural acreage ^.22

Simultaneously with the quantitative growth of agricultural partnerships, they were expanding the elements of social economy and collective labor. In 1959, farmers united 80% of all their land in agricultural associations, and together they carried out 73% of autumn plowing, more than 70% of autumn sowing, and about 66% of grain harvesting ^.23 More and more of the income in agricultural associations was distributed by labor, and less and less by land. In some of them, up to 60-70% of income was distributed ^by labor24 . The wide spread of agricultural partnerships in Romania has ensured a gradual process of co-operation of peasant farms.

In 1956-1959 there was a growth and organizational and economic strengthening of collective rural farms. Their number increased from 2,580 in 1956 to 3,028 by the end of 1958, and the number of peasant families who joined them doubled. By the end of 1958. they united 468 thousand farms and covered 17.5% of the country's arable land area. Thanks to the help of the state and the hard work of the peasants, collective farms from year to year achieved higher yields than agricultural partnerships and individual peasant farms. So, in 1958, the average yield of wheat in them exceeded the yield in individual farms by 27.5%, corn - by 37%, sunflower - by 43% and sugar beet-by 9% ²⁵ . The material well-being of the peasants who joined collective agriculture grew. Mechanization of the main works made it easier for the peasants to work. Of great importance was the abolition of mandatory deliveries in 1956 and their replacement by a system of procurement and contracting. This contributed to the strengthening of the principle of material interest among peasants in the development of agricultural production.

Socialist construction in the Romanian countryside created conditions for limiting and ultimately eliminating the exploitation of the peasantry by the kulaks. In the initial period of cooperation, when small-scale production dominated agriculture, the RRP pursued a policy of economic restriction and gradual displacement in relation to the kulaks, and fought to eliminate the political influence of the kulaks on the working peasantry. The policy of economic restriction led to a decrease in the economic power of kulak farms and a reduction in their number, to a narrowing of the sphere of capitalist exploitation. Until 1956, Kulaks were not accepted into cooperatives at all. In 1956, under the conditions of strengthening the socialist sector in agriculture, some categories of kulaks, former kulaks and their children were allowed to join cooperatives. When the socialist sector took a dominant position in agriculture, there was an objective need to put an end to the remnants of exploitation in the country's rural areas. In March 1959, the Grand National Assembly passed a law on the elimination of all forms of exploitation of the working peasantry, which prohibited the leasing of land and the use of wage labor. Land plots that could not be cultivated by the labor of those to whom they belonged were transferred to collective farms, state farms, or other socialist agricultural institutions. Former fists could freely

²² "Dezvoltarea agriculturii Republicii Populare Romine...", p. 38.

²³ "Dezvoltarea economica a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 118.

²⁴ "Aspecte din activitatea intovarasirilor agricole". "Probleme economice", 1960, N2, pp. 125 - 126.

²⁵ "Dezvoltarea agriculturii Republicii Populare Romine...", pp. 38, 158 - 161.

join cooperatives. Thus, the elimination of capitalist exploitation in the villages of Romania during the period of mass cooperation was carried out on the basis of the seizure of surplus land from kulak farms and the gradual involvement of this category of peasants in cooperatives. The Romanian Workers ' Party was guided by concrete historical conditions within the country and in the international arena when defining its political line with regard to the Kulaks. The existence of a world socialist system, the assistance and support that the Soviet Union and other socialist countries constantly provided to the Rumanian people, the creation of a material and technical base in agriculture, and the state's material assistance to the working peasantry - all this undoubtedly determined the policy towards the kulaks.

1959 marks a new stage in the development of the cooperative movement in Romania. In agriculture, by this time, there were objective prerequisites for mass collectivization. The wide spread of the lower types of production cooperatives, which united a significant part of the peasantry, prepared the conditions for the transition of the peasantry to a large-scale social collective economy. A massive turn of the peasantry towards the highest form of production cooperative - collective agriculture-began. A characteristic feature of the development of cooperative peasant farms during this period was that the transition of the peasantry to the path of mass collectivization took place on the basis of the technical reconstruction of agriculture. In 1961, the Romanian agriculture sector had 51,952 tractors, 56,220 tractor plows, 48,000 mechanical seed drills, and 23,427 combine harvesters; 90% of plowing and sowing operations and 70% of grain harvesting operations were mechanized in collective farms, while the main agricultural operations were almost completely mechanized in state farms. The construction of plants for the production of mineral fertilizers has taken on a wide scale. From 1949 to 1962 about 14 thousand specialists with higher education, 25 thousand specialists with secondary education and more than 100 thousand machine operators were trained for agriculture. Many specialists were educated in the USSR. Almost 9 times more agronomists, animal technicians, veterinarians and mechanical engineers worked in the country's agriculture than in 1938. The People's Democratic State provided great assistance to collective farmers by providing them with loans. During the 1950s and 1960s, collective farms received loans from the state in the amount of 3,645 million lei26 . With the development of the material and technical base of agriculture and the strengthening of the socialist sector, the pace of transition of the peasantry to the path of collectivization accelerated more and more.

Mass collectivization of the peasantry took place mainly as a result of the transformation of agricultural partnerships into collective farms. The political work of the Communists in raising the level of consciousness of the peasantry, its political activity, and explaining the advantages of collective farming was of great importance. In 1959 and the first months of 1960, 2,500 agricultural associations with a total area of ¹ million hectares were transformed into collective farms27 .

In 1959-1960, the transition of the peasantry to the highest form of production cooperation was particularly rapid in the main grain areas, and in 1960-1961 this process covered the entire country.

²⁶ "Probleme ale crearii si dezvoltarii bazei tehnice-materiale a socialismului in RPR", p. 238; "Consfatuirea pe tara a taranilor colectivisti". Bucuresti. 1962, p. 170; "Dezvoltarea economica a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", pp. 117, 119.

²⁷ "Dezvoltarea economica a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 106.

At the beginning of 1961, the Bucharest region, the country's largest breadbasket, was collectivized. In a year and a half - from June 1960 to the end of 1961 - 3,350 agricultural associations were united in collective farms. Of the 867,000 peasants who joined collective farms during this period, 90% passed through agricultural partnerships ^.28 In Romania, the provisions of Lenin's cooperative plan on the need for a gradual transition of the peasantry from the lowest forms of cooperation to the highest ones were successfully implemented. In practice, agricultural associations confirmed the enormous importance of the lower types of production cooperatives for the transition of the bulk of the peasantry to large-scale social economy, greatly facilitating the path of the peasantry to socialism. By June 1961, collective agriculture dominated the cooperative sector: it covered 68% of the arable area of the cooperative sector, and by the end of the year it was already 77%. Less than 10% of peasant land remained outside the cooperative sector ^.29 There were objective opportunities to complete the collectivization of the peasantry.

During the period of mass cooperation of the peasantry, many of the newly created collective farms were weak at first. In some areas, the growth in the number of production cooperatives often outstripped the opportunities for their successful economic development. Many small collective farms have emerged, both in terms of the number of peasant families and agricultural areas. Many farms were not provided with specialists, and the level of labor organization and agricultural production was low. Therefore, much attention was paid to their economic and organizational strengthening and consolidation, while at the same time the maximum size of farms for different zones of the country was determined. An important tool in their organizational and economic strengthening was the principle of material interest. To this end, the forms of organization and remuneration of labor were improved, tractor crews from MTS were assigned to individual collective farms, and the practice of cash advances and issuing bonuses for over-planned products was developed. In 1960, 2,400 collective rural farms accrued income for workdays based on their output, and in 1961, 2,400 collective farms received income for working days based on their output. 2300 collective farms periodically issued cash advances to their members ³⁰ .

The most profound revolutionary changes in the life of the Romanian peasantry, the restructuring of the entire rural way of life, not only did not cause a drop in the level of agricultural production, but were also accompanied by its growth. In 1959-1960, the output of collective farms per 100 ha increased by 11.7% compared to 1955-1956. In 1956-1960, the gross grain harvest exceeded the pre-war level (1934-1938) by 1,170. 5 thousand tons and by 953.9 thousand tons the level of 1951-1955, when the small-scale commodity sector was predominant. In 1961, the total agricultural output was 31% higher than in 1938. In 1961, sugar beet production increased 7 - fold, sunflower-10-fold, and potato-more than 2-fold compared to the pre-war level. The yield of major agricultural crops has increased. The average yield of wheat for the period 1960 - 1961 exceeded the pre-war one by 26%, and maize-by 50% ^.31

²⁸ "Consfatuirea ре tara a taranilor colectivisti", p. 674.

²⁹ "Scinteia", 2.VII 1961; "Consfatuirea pe tara a taranilor colectivisti", p. 674.

³⁰ M. Popescu. "Transformarea socialists a agriculturii". Bucuresti. 1962, p. 47; "Victoria socialismului in agricultura". Bucuresti. 1962, p. 43.

³¹ "Dezvoltarea economica a Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", pp. 119, 120; "Anuarul statistic al RPR 1962", p. 218 - 219; "Agricultura Rominiei. 1944 - 1964", p. 101.

At the same time, animal husbandry also developed. In 1962, the number of cattle increased by 28.9%, the number of sheep-by 22.9%, pigs-by 69%, poultry-by 63.3% compared to 1938. During the period 1948-1961, meat production increased from 482 thousand tons to 1,057 thousand tons, milk - from 16,941 thousand liters to 29,500 thousand liters, wool-from 15,910 tons to 23 thousand tons, eggs - from 963 million units to 2,600 million units ^.32

The construction of socialism in Romania ensured an increase in the material and cultural standard of living of the peasantry. In 1960, farmers bought 2 times more clothing, 2.6 times more knitwear, and 3.3 times more shoes through rural cooperatives than in 195533 . In 1960, compared with 1955, the average annual consumption of grain per person in rural areas increased by 32%, potatoes - by 23%, sugar - by 3.9 times. From 1951 to 1962, farmers built more than 808,000 houses. In addition, many schools, hospitals, clubs, cinemas, etc. were built, and over 3,000 villages were electrified ^.34

In the spring of 1962, the transition of the peasantry from small private farms to large collective farms was completed in Romania. In April 1962, there were 6,546 collective farms in the country, which united about 3,200 thousand peasant families. The socialist sector in agriculture covered 96% of arable land and 93.4% of all agricultural acreage ^.35 Socialist relations of production have become dominant in the national economy. The Ninth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, held in July 1965, emphasized that the triumph of socialism in the city and countryside, the final elimination of the exploitation of man by man, is the greatest victory of the Romanian workers after the conquest of power.

The completion of the production cooperation of the peasantry created conditions for the further development of agriculture, the growth of agricultural products and the improvement of the living standards of the peasantry.

In 1968, there were 96,368 tractors, 55,738 mechanical seed drills, 47,092 combine harvesters in the Romanian agricultural sector, about 484,600 tons of mineral fertilizers were applied, and irrigation works were carried out on an area of 505,400 million hectares. ³⁶ Socialist production relations in agriculture were being improved. In March 1966, the Congress of agricultural production cooperatives adopted a new Charter of the agricultural artel. In order to improve the organization and management of agriculture, the National Union of Agricultural Production Cooperatives was established, as well as district and regional unions, which became public economic organizations of the cooperative peasantry.

The completion of the production cooperation of the peasantry in Romania, as in other countries of the world socialist system, once again confirmed the great vitality and international significance of Lenin's cooperative plan and showed that the voluntary transition of the peasantry from small private-owned farms to the path of large-scale cooperative socialist economy is one of the general laws of development of the countries that

³² "Scinteia", 1.III. 1962; "Anuarul statistic al RPR 1962", pp. 280 - 281.

³³ "Desvoltarea agriculturii Republici Populare Romine", p. 371.

³⁴ V. Malinschi. Victoria socialismului la sate si "clarviziunea" unor economisti burghezi. "Probleme economice", 1962, N 7, p. 14; "Probleme ale crearii si dezvoltarii bazei tehnice-materiale a socialismului in RPR", p. 338.

³⁵ "Victoria socialismului in agriculture", p. 11.

³⁶ "Anuarul statistic al RSR. 1969", pp. 275, 309 - 311.

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