(De)formation of Rural Areas in the Collectivisation Process

The prevalence of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in February 1948 brought great changes to the entire Czechoslovak society. The state's subordination of a major portion of the population – farmers – was affected with the violent implementation of the Soviet collectivization model in domestic economic conditions. With its implementation, the communist regime managed to reconstruct the whole of rural society within few years in a manner that was unprecedented in national history. The process of agricultural socialization in Czechoslovakia was carried out in several phases in the years 1949 – 1960. The accompanying phenomenon of this process was intensive persecution of those farmers and their families that resisted in order to break their resistance and to convince the population that the only possible method of agricultural production would be provided by collective production organizations – collective farming facilities. At the beginning of the 1960s, at the cost of property, as well as social and cultural losses, the state managed to complete the transformation of the Czechoslovak farmer to a common agricultural employee who lost his relationship with the soil. At the same time, collectivization brought a rapid and dramatic transformation of the whole society of farmers, including its value system, everyday life and the country they used to live in.