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Romania The New Social Order
The Peasantry
The share of the labor force employed in agriculture
decreased
to less than 30 percent by 1981, and this decline was
accompanied
by the destruction of many aspects of the peasant way of
life. By
1963 more than 95 percent of all arable land was
controlled by the
state, either through collective or state farms. As a
result,
small-scale agriculture was no longer available to support
the
traditional peasant way of life, and the family was no
longer the
basic unit of production and consumption. The peasants who
remained
on the land were forced to participate in large-scale,
statemanaged agriculture that paralleled other socialist
enterprises.
The peasants were permitted to till small "private" plots,
which in
1963 accounted for about 8 percent of all arable land. But
even
cultivation of these plots was subject to state
interference
(see Farm Organization
, ch. 3). Initially some violent protests
against
collectivization occurred, but on the whole, protest took
the form
of plummeting yields. This process not only adversely
affected
living standards for town and country alike, but increased
party
penetration of the countryside, further reducing peasant
autonomy.
Several other factors contributed to the rural exodus
and the
decline of the peasant class, among them substantial wage
differentials between agricultural and nonagricultural
sectors. In
1965 peasant incomes were only half the national average.
Although
the state tried to remedy the situation by establishing
minimum
incomes in the 1970s, remuneration for agricultural
laborers
remained well below that for industrial workers. In 1979
the
average agricultural worker's income was still only 66
percent of
the industrial worker's, and during the 1980s it rose to
only 73
percent. A persistent and wide disparity also existed
between rural
and urban standards of living. In the mid-1970s, the
majority of
rural households were without gas, not even half had
electricity,
and more than one-third were without running water. Even
in the
1980s, washing machines, refrigerators, and televisions
were still
luxury items, and peasant expenditures for them and other
nonbasic
items and for cultural activities remained conspicuously
below
those of industrial workers. In addition, rural citizens
received
lower pensions and child allowances and had much more
limited
educational opportunity.
Despite Ceausescu's nationalistic glorification of
peasant
folklore and values, in the mid-1980s the Romanian peasant
remained
very much a second-class citizen. Adults perceived their
lowly
status and encouraged their children to leave the land.
Young
people were inclined to do so and showed a decided
preference for
occupations that would take them out of the village. The
regime was
unable to prevent this development because it lacked the
investment
capital to both provide amenities to the countryside and
to
continue its industrialization program. Consequently the
quality of
the agricultural work force deteriorated to the point of
inadequacy. As the young, educated, and ambitious
abandoned the
fields for the factories, the laborers left behind were
older and,
increasingly, female. Although they constituted only 14
percent of
the national labor force in 1979, women made up 63 percent
of
agricultural labor. The average age of adult male farmers
rose to
43.2 years in 1977. Furthermore, the men who remained on
the land
were generally the least capable and were unable to meet
even the
minimum requirements of industrial work.
Many of these peasants were apathetic and, according to
Ceausescu, willing to spend their time drinking and
gambling in
local pubs instead of working on the cooperative farms. A
1981
survey showed that some 34 percent of all agricultural
cooperative
members had avoided doing any work whatsoever for the
cooperative
during that entire year. Consequently the regime had to
mobilize
soldiers, urban workers, college, high-school, and even
elementaryschool students to work in the fields at planting and
harvest time.
Ironically the systematization program, which placed
plants and
factories throughout the countryside to equalize living
standards,
actually made the situation worse. Even as demands were
made for
the peasantry to increase agricultural output, commuting
from
village to factory became a fairly widespread practice,
drawing the
best labor from an already deteriorated supply. As a
result, many
peasant families were transformed into extended households
whose
members participated in both farming and industrial work.
In such
families, at least one member commuted to a factory and
worked for
wages, whereas others worked on the cooperative farm to
secure the
privilege of cultivating a private plot. The factory wage
raised
the family's standard of living, and the plot provided
fruits,
vegetables, meat, and dairy products that the family could
consume
or sell for extra cash. Even when members of the family
had
permanently migrated to nearby cities, these mutually
advantageous
economic ties were maintained, somewhat ameliorating
economic
conditions in the countryside.
Some observers argued that this rural-urban nexus
boosted
support for the regime in the countryside and contributed
to
political stability throughout the 1970s, when commuting
workers
constituted some 30 percent of the urban work force (50
percent in
some cities). Although commuters provided labor without
aggravating
the urban housing shortage, having a large number of
peasants in
the factories had certain disadvantages. The poorly
educated and
relatively unskilled peasant workers could not be fully
integrated
into urban industrial society. Most were deeply religious,
and
their lives centered not on work but on Orthodox rituals
and
family. Commuters were often absent because of village
celebrations
or the need to tend the household plot.
Peasant commuting also brought an increased awareness
of the
differences between rural and urban living
conditions--particularly
during the 1980s, when the overall standard of living sank
to
nearly unbearable levels. Rural areas were the most
harshly
affected, and despite the regime's efforts to restrict
migration to
cities, the process continued, albeit at a slower rate. In
the late
1980s, the disappearance of the peasantry as a distinct
class
appeared virtually inevitable.
Data as of July 1989
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