ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

The Romanian legislation between 1949-1952 – an unconditional base of the collectivization 97according to decree 444 of October 28, 1953 13 (in the Craiova region, 12,467peasants were given a land surface of 19,761 hectares) 14 .This situation, as well as the decision of the Central Committee of thePMR and the decision of the Council of Ministers of October 28 1958, thatreduced the payments for the producers that made contracts with the state andthe HCM 3007 of September 10 1953 15 that granted exemption from taxation forall the individual agricultural farms, were due to the pressure of the peasantrythat did not want to give up its rights to own land and refuse to work a piece ofland belonging to the state that took most of the benefits, due to the growing lakeof agricultural goods from the urban markets, and last but not least due to the fatthat the communist intended to give the peasants who owned land a false feelingof security.The Official Bulletin no. 1 of March 2, 1949 issued the decree 83,sanctioned on March 1, 1949 that completed the dispositions of the law187/1954 in order to “stop the boycotting of the sowing plan and the agriculturalproduction on the whole”. According to this decree the landowners’ farms thatwere subject to expropriation according to the law 1871/1945, together with themodel farms that were set up as a consequence of the same law, with their wholeinventory of livestock and buildings, as well as the agricultural and semiindustrialmachinery and the agricultural products destined to be marketed, and,finally, all the debits, titles and rights owned as a consequence of the activity ofall these farms became state property, as “public goods”.As a consequence of the putting into practice of this decree, Oltenia’sfive counties were expropriated 16 .Before the decree was issued, the authorities prepared detailed chartswith all the landowners who were about to be expropriated, and on the night of2-3 March, special teams began executing the decree 83/1949. The decree wasfollowed by the Order no. 353/1949 from the Ministry of Agriculture, whichtogether with the order of the prefectures and that of prices formed the legal actthat was the basis of expropriation.In the meeting of the PMR county board of March 27, 1949, theauthorities decided that “the landowners – the enemy of the state, of the workersand peasants –, should be expropriated with all their belongings, to the last13 Buletinul Oficial, no. 52 of October 28 1953.14 Calculat. Arh. St. Dolj, Sf. Pop. Reg. Craiova, Birou Secret, dos. 73/1954.15 The collection of decision and decrees issued by the Council of Ministers of RPR, no.57 of September 10 1953.16 Calculat. Arh. St. Dolj, Pref. Jud. Dolj, Administrative Service, dos. 22/1949, f. 47,51/63; dos. 205/1949, f. 31/264 ; Sec ţia Agricolă, dos. 197/1949, f. 1/63 ; 74/1952, f. 15-89, 94-108, dos. 81/1952, f. 7-219.