Izvorni znanstveni članak
The Basic Characteristics and Conditions of the Process of Socialization of Land in Yugoslavia
Stipe Šuvar
Sažetak
At the beginning the author points out that the increase of the cultivable area in
social ownership and exploitation is the precondition and an expression of the socialization
of the whole agricultural production in Yugoslavia. Todate social agricultural
organizations own somewhat more than 13% of the total cultivable area in
Yugoslavia. Social sector of agriculture can not gain the dominant share in the total
agricultural production even with the application of the most advanced technology,
neither can liquidate the deficiency of the total agricultural production caused by
the low productive abilities of 2.600 thousands of small private holdings whose
average size amounts to not more than 3.6 ha. Therefore the enlargement of the
socially owned fund of cultivable land will remain the actual goal of the Yugoslav
agricultural policy untill the land fund in social ownership and use increases to such
a size that production on it will enable to meet and even exceed the aggregate
demands for agricultural products.
The Yugoslav socialistic practice, relying on the starting fund of cultivable land
which was formed in 1945. by the expropriation of expropriators and by the limitation
of the size of an individual holding to 10 ha, has built so far such a path of the
development of agriculture which on the one hand leads to the centralization and
concentration of the means of production in social ownership, and on the other hand
creates the economical and the social conditions for small individual holdings to
include themselves into the socialistic division of labour or to disappear and decrease
their land capacities by the so called »voluntary expropriation«, which means transfer
of peasant population in nonagricultural occupations and urban centers. The socialistic
society happen to find millions of small peasant holdings and small producers
in primitive and miserable working and living conditions, and it soon has learned
through its own experience that this state can not be overcome by any kind of decree,
measures of nationalization, forcible socialization or similar. The Yugoslav experiences
have proved that the basic thing is development of productive forces in agriculture,
which will by their immanent expansion gradually socialize the land as a natural
precondition of production. The process of socialization of cultivable land in Yugoslavia
is, in fact, determined by the whole development of the productive forces of
the society, particularly by the level and intensity of socioeconomical changes in agriculture
and village. A task of the concrete agrarian policy is to utilize, adequately
and opportunely, the possibilities for socialization of land, which are resulting from
the objective socioeconomical processes, such as industrialization, urbanization, cultural
progress of villages, sociodemographic changes, etc.
The author undertakes an analysis of the so far achieved results and experiences
in the process of socialization of land, states the factors which determined these
results, and points out the productive and economical importance of the enlargement
of the social land-fund.
Three stages can be distinguished in the policy of socialization of land and the
enlargement of the social sector of agriculture. From 1945. to 1953. the social fund of
land had been increased predominantly by the forcible measures, and the socialization
had taken place in the same way. The increase of social fund of land by agromelioration
in this period was very inconsiderable. Purchase of land and other unforcible
ways of the transfer of land from private to social ownership have not been practised.
The period from 1954. till 1958. can be marked as the period of stagnation in the
enlargement of the social fund of land. The most number of peasants working cooperatives
disintegrated. Administrative ways of socialization of land were given up. The
society was not yet ready to invest money in buving land from private owners, though
the possibilities at the land market were very favourable. Buying land started rather
intensively after 1958. but many other forms of the transfer of private land into
social ownership started to be practised, such as: renting, the rounding off of large
plots, collecting land usurped by private owners, or offered gratis or for the unpayed
land tax, cultivation of fallow land, etc. For only six years (1958—1964) cultivable
land in social ownership increased for 65% (arrable land and gardens for 68.2%
orchards land for 77.5%, vineyards for 43.5% and meadows for 40.0%).
77
Within the whole period from 1945. till 1964. the cultivable area in the social
ownership and use increased for about 3.2 times (arrable land and gardens for about
3.5, orchards land for about 5, vineyards area for about 3.5 and meadow’s area for
about 3 times). The origin of the total land area owned by the social sector of agriculture
recorded on the May 31, 1964. was as follows: 30% obtained from the land
reform in 1945, 21.5% obtained by the reduction of the land maximum in private
ownerfhip to 10 ha on the base of the Law in 1953, 24.6% purchased from individual
land-owners and 23.9% obtained from other sources.
While in 1956. the commodity production per unit of land area in social sector
was only 25% higher than in the private sector, in 1964. it was higher for 201.7%, so
that social holdings in this year produced 2/3 of the whole market quantity of grains
and milk.
Social holdings purchased from peasants 400,000 ha of land. The supply of land
for sale from small holdings was high and exceeded the demand.
In the three last chapters of this article the author analyses the socioeconomic
processes in villages and agriculture which have created the new possibilities of
socialization of land, such as: employment of agriculturists in nonagricultural activities,
migrations, changes in social structure of the rural population, training and
education of rural youth for nonagricultural occupations, changes in the ownership
structure of the private sector of agricultui'e, various processes of differentiation of
peasants holdings-households (according to the productive, and technical characteristics,
available manpower and basic occupation of active persons, sources and forms
of income, characteristics of reproduction and market production, etc). The cooperation
between social and private holdings, as a process of socialization of production
of private holdings, has been separately analysed.
The author comes to the conclusion that all these processes have created relatively
large and favourable possibilities of socialization of land and even have imposed
tie necessity of undeniable and faster socialization.
On the base of the extensive research programme (questionnaires and interviews)
carried out by the Agrarian Institute in the course of the last three years the
author analyses, in particular, the possibilities of the increase of land in social
ownership on the account of the land held by part-time and aged households, and then interprets the interviews on exodus of youth from agriculture proving that in
near future many peasants holdings won’t have manpower for work on land.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
118513
URI
Datum izdavanja:
27.6.1966.
Posjeta: 3.372 *