Abstract:
In the first half of the 20th century, after a gap of a quarter of a
century, at the end of each of the two world wars, Romania accomplished an
agricultural Reform. Both in 1921 and in 1945, the initiators of the reform
had in view the appropriation of land to peasants who had no land or who
had little land on the basis of the expropriated estates and the creation of
favorable conditions for agricultural progress. Both politicians and officials
from the economic field have been involved in debates related to the
expropriation of extensive properties and land allotment to peasants. The
debaters have expressed contradictory opinions, expressing both their
political parties’ ideological principles and their relations with either
important landlords or peasants.
At the end of World War II, Romanian agriculture was ruined, as a
consequence of the military operations that had taken place on its territory
and the plunder by both the German army which was backing out and the
Soviet one which was taking offensive. Along with these unfortunate
consequences, the drought from 1945 and 1946, the payment of
compensation imposed by the Allied forces to Romania by the Armistice
Agreement on 12th September 1944 and also the beginning of land reform
have all managed to deepen the crisis in the agricultural sector. Under these
circumstances, recovery in agriculture could be performed exclusively by the
nation’s sustained and collective effort.
The Petru Groza cabinet, which was installed by Soviet authorities on
6th March 1945, took a series of measures which were intended to support
farmers, the nation’s main food suppliers. Yet, state-support was merely
symbolic, in reality peasants being under important indirect fiscal pressure
because of the system of compulsory quotas of agricultural products that the
state procured below production costs.
