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Economies of Scale in Relation to Agrarian Reforms in Czechoslovakia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Frank Meissner*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics, Cornell University

Extract

The Problem of land tenure has long been of topmost significance throughout the rural areas of Eastern and South Central Europe. From serfdom to very recent times the land ownership pattern was characterized by large estates intermingled with small peasant holdings. Land reforms were begun but thirty-five years ago under the stress of economic and political considerations. In most areas they had resulted in the concentration of the agricultural population on small low income farms.

Since the end of the last war the process of Sovietization has brought a reversal of the trend with the introduction of the collective farm. Yet, even with the vigorous support of the Russian masters this policy has been hard to carry through.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1955

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References

2 A description of economic tools appropriate to such an analysis is outside the scope of the subjects treated in the Review. The interested reader will find them in Heady, E. O., Economics of Agricultural Production and Resource Use (New York, 1952), p. 850 Google Scholar.

3 The revision process was called “revisitations” because the tax assessors came back to the farms, i.e. revisited, in order to see whether the original assessment was still applicable.

4 For more detailed information on the role of the Milanese Cadastre see: Blum, J., “Noble Landowners and Agriculture in Austria 1815-1848,” The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series LXV, No. 2 (1948), pp. 254-57Google Scholar.

5 Brousek, T., “A Study of the Size of the Agricultural Family Enterprise,” Agricultural Topics, edited by the Czechoslovak Academy of Agriculture (Prague, 1947). pp. 619 Google Scholar.

6 Blum, , op. cit., p. 254 Google Scholar.

7 The preparation of this section is to a great extent based on: Raleigh Barlowe, “Land Tenure in Czechoslovakia,” a typed manuscript prepared for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State College (December, 1947).

8 Classification I in Table 1 indicates that the larger farms have a larger percentage of the total acreage in forests and nonagricultural use. It must be pointed out that the “intensity” computations are unfortunately based on total farm acreage rather than total arable land. This probably underestimates the per hectare intensity of production on larger farms. Table 2 seems to emphasize this shortcoming.

9 Cf. International Institute of Agriculture, Farm Accountancy Statistics, 1935-36, 1936-37, 1937-38, and 1938-39. The statistics for the years before 1935-36 are not broken down by size of holdings. As reported, they show that farming in the western provinces is more efficient than in the eastern provinces (quoted in Barlowe, op. cit.).

10 It is unfortunate that the basis on which imputed costs were calculated is not given in the original data. Interest on investment seems to be figured at 4.5 percent, but varies slightly among categories. The value placed on family labor and home consumed food is not explicitly stated. Neither is it clearly explained whether total production costs include costs of family labor and interest on owned capital. Does the return to capital include or exclude family labor costs?

11 “Strategic retreats are no novelty to the Bolsheviks, who were taught by Lenin that the road to their goal is not straight but twists and turns like a mountain path.” Lazar Volin, “The Turn of the Screw in Soviet Agriculture,” Foreign Affairs, January, 1953, p. 287.

12 It is extremely interesting to note that the optimum farm size for land taxation purposes was in 1756 defined at an almost identical acreage. Had the production conditions changed so little since the inception of the Second Theresian Cadastre? Certainly not. We are apparently faced with an extremely rare coincidence.

13 Brousek, , op. cit., p. 34 Google Scholar.

14 Types I to IV with ascending degree of collectivization, from mild to severe, or, in Communist terminology, “from the standpoint of organization and production more mature co-operatives.” For a detailed discussion of the institutional setup of the four types of Unified Agricultural Co-operatives, see the present author's “The Socialization Process in Czechoslovak Agriculture,” Journal of Farm Economics, February, 1953, pp. 88-98.

15 This research is reported by Jan Krblich, “The Economic Effects of the Field Work in the Co-operative Large-Scale Production,” Annals of the Czechoslovak Academy of Agriculture, Nos. 3-4 (October, 1951), pp. 149-71.

16 50 Kcs were then equal to one U. S. dollar. Following the violent currency reform in June 1953 the ratio was decreased to 7.10 Kcs to one U. S. dollar. See: Ost-Probleme, June 25, 1953, p. 1063.

17 The investigations were reportedly made, according to the Czech text, “in 113 UAC's in Czech and Slovak regions” (p. 149). The English summary specifies 71 UAC's were in the Czech regions, including a total area of 8,063 hectares of arable land or about 261 acres per farm (p. 170).

18 Some of the “tricks of the statistical trade” practiced by the Communists were analyzed in: Feierabend, Ladislav, Agricultural Production in Czechoslovakia in 1953 (New York, Mid-European Studies Center, Mimeographed Series No. 33, 1954), p. 36.Google Scholar

19 Krblich, , op. cit., p. 167 Google Scholar.

20 As to the hidden political objectives implied in the emphasis on the productivity angle of collectivization, a reviewer of an early draft of this paper stated: “I am convinced that the Communists are not exceedingly concerned with Czechoslovakia's agricultural production. Whatever they say is mostly propaganda. They want to transfer great numbers of [rural] people into industry, particularly armaments, in which Soviet Russia has a vital interest. They [Communists] intend to get rid of as many peasants as possible, who have always proven to be the most ardent enemies of Socialism. The Soviet Union will be glad to level out Czechoslovakia's food deficits. This is the cheapest way of paying for her imports of industrial commodities from Czechoslovakia. And besides that, this kind of an arrangement makes Czechoslovakia completely dependent on Russia.” Free translation of a Czech communication dated February 2, 1953, from Dr. L. Feierabend, former Czechoslovak Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of the Treasury, now a staff member of the Mid-European Studies Center in New York.

21 Krblich, , op. cit., p. 169 Google Scholar.

22 “True cooperatives cannot be tolerated by Communism—a philosophy of subservience rather than freedom, social class hate rather than understanding, aggression rather than tolerance, coercion rather than mutuality. There can only be a ‘cooperative svstem,’ created by acts of the government and dependent on it. If a member cannot freely decide whether to join or leave an association, then the organization to which he belongs is neither voluntary nor autonomous. It is not a cooperative in the sense of a Western definition of the term.” F. Meissner, book review of Agricultural Cooperatives in Czechoslovakia, by Dr. Ladislav Feierabend, Journal of Farm Economics, February, 1953.

Many attempts were made in Pre-Communist Czechoslovakia to establish farming co-operatives on a more or less voluntary basis. In fact the Land Reform Act of 1019 provided statutory inducement for establishment of this form of agricultural production. The results, however, were never satisfactory. For a detailed discussion of these developments see my “Farming Co-operatives in Pre-Communist Czechoslovakia,” Indian Co-operative Review, July-Sept., 1953, I p. 195-209.

23 See: Research Staff of Free Europe Committee, “Satellite Agriculture in Crisis —A Study of Land Policy in the Soviet Sphere” (New York, 1954), p. 130.

24 In this respect a precedent of some sort was already created in the partial “dekolchozation” attempted by the Germans in the Wehrmacht occupied parts of Ukraine in World War II. Perhaps some leaves from this experience might be useful. For a discussion of this topic see: 1) Professor Otto Schiller, “The Farming Co-operative—a New System of Farm Management,” Land Economics, February, 1951; (Originally published in the Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, August, 1950, pp. 5-22); 2) Karl Brandt, “Otto Schiller's ‘Farming Cooperative'—a Critical Appraisal,” Land Economics, May, 1951, pp. 102-7; 3) Dimitri Pronin, “The Farming Cooperative: A Reply,” Land Economics, May, 1951, pp. 178-80; 4) Dr. Schiller, “Rejoinder,” pp. 180-82; and 5) Professor Schiller, “Rejoinder to Professor Brandt's Critical Appraisal of O. Schiller's ‘Farming Cooperative,'” Land Economics, August, 1951, pp. 256-69.

For a comprehensive review of this, see also: “New Agrarian Order,” Karl Brandt and Associates, Management of Agriculture and Food in German- Occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe (Stanford, 1953), pp. 92-104.