Report Outline
Agricultural Problems in Communist Countries
Collective Farming in Soviet Russia
Individual Farming and Agricultural Efficiency
Agricultural Problems in Communist Countries
Cominform Criticism of Yugoslav Farm Policy
When the Yugoslav Communist Party was denounced by the Cominform in June for its departure from official Communist policy, the charge was based in the main on failure of the party in Yugoslavia to initiate and vigorously to prosecute a program of collectivization of farms. The reply of the Yugoslav Communist Party leadership a month later was a reaffirmation of its policy of leaving the two million small peasant holdings in private hands for the present. Speaking before the Fifth Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party, July 23, Lieut. Gen. Bozhidar Maslaritch, president of the All-Slav Committee, stated that the conditions which made collectivization desirable in the Soviet Union did not exist in Yugoslavia; that to force the change on the 80 per cent of the population of the country who are peasants, and who are strongly anti-collectivist, would be to invite disaster.
The Communist government in Yugoslavia, headed by Premier-Marshal Tito, is faced with the problem of maintaining itself in power in a country where governments have been exceptionally unstable; a country in which the various nationality groups—of which the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes are only the largest—work in uneasy and jealous alliance. The peasant masses are suspicious of the urban upper class population which they feel has in the past controlled government in its own special interest.
In the face of the government's many difficulties, the Communist Party is attempting to carry out two drastic programs simultaneously: to communize Yugoslavia and to industrialize it. The two programs are closely connected, and rapid expansion of industry on the scale contemplated could hardly have been undertaken without nationalization of industry. Tito told the National Assembly, Apr. 26, 1947: “The planned economy and its success are inseparably linked with the new social order in the New Yugoslavia.” It seems clear, however, that the Communist leaders in Yugoslavia have determined to use their own judgment about the extent to which orthodox Communist policy will serve the purpose of carrying out their national plan, and will not hesitate to modify it to suit the occasion or to make concessions within Yugoslavia to win support for the industrialization plan from those who oppose Communism. |
|
