MONOGRAPHS IN GERMAN HISTORY VOLUME 26 MONOGRAPHS IN GERMAN HISTORY After the ‘Socialist spring’ After After the ‘Socialist Spring’ VOLUME 26 COLLECTIVISATION AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IN THE GDR George Last Historical analysis of the German Democratic Republic has tended to adopt a top-down model of the transmission of authority. However, developments were more complicated than the standard state/society dichotomy that has dominat- ed the debate among GDR historians. Drawing on a broad range of archival material from state and SED party sources as well as Stasi files and individual farm records along with some oral history interviews, this book provides a thorough investigation of the transformation of the rural sector from a range of perspectives. Focusing on the region of Bezirk Erfurt, the author examines on the one hand how East Germans responded to the end of private farming by resisting, manipulating but also participating in the new system of rural organization. However, he also shows how the regime sought via its representatives to imple- ment its aims with a combination of compromise and material incentive as well as administrative pressure and other more draconian measures. The reader thus gains valuable insight into the processes by which the SED regime attained stability in the 1970s and yet was increasingly vulnerable to growing popular dissatisfaction and economic stagnation and decline in the 1980s, leading to its eventual collapse. George Last holds a BA from Oxford University and took his MA and Ph.D. George Last at University College London, where he has also taught. He now works on value-for-money research for the National Audit Office. AFTER THE Cover Image: Soviet agricultural machinery on the streets of the Berlstedt villages in Bezirk ‘SOCIALIST SPRING’ Erfurt in 1976. From Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (ADN) - Zentralbild, Bild 183 - U0202 - 404. Used with permission. COLLECTIVISATION AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IN THE GDR History/German Studies Berghahn Books GEORGE LAST NEW YORK . OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com Monographs in German History Volume 1 Volume 16 Osthandel and Ostpolitik: German Foreign Trade Policies Sex,Thugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll. Teenage Rebels in in Eastern Europe from Bismarck to Adenauer Cold-War East Germany Mark Spaulding Mark Fenemore Volume 2 Volume 17 A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reform and Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany Economic Recovery in Postwar Germany Cornelie Usborne Rebecca Boehling Volume 18 Volume 3 Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction From Recovery to Catastrophe: Municipal Stabilization and Politics In West Germany, 1949–1957 and Political Crisis in Weimar Germany Mark E. Spicka Ben Lieberman Volume 19 Volume 4 Between Tradition and Modernity: Aby Warburg and Nazism in Central Germany: The Brownshirts in ‘Red’ Art in Hamburg’s Public Realm 1896–1918 Saxony Mark A. Russell Christian W. 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Fitzpatrick Volume 9 Volume 24 The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/ Bringing Culture to the Masses CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 Control, Compromise and Participation in the GDR Ronald J. Granieri Esther von Richthofen Volume 10 Volume 25 The Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, and Banned in Berlin: Literary Censorship in Imperial the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 Germany, 1871–1918 E. Kurlander Gary D. Stark Volume 11 Volume 26 Recasting West German Elites: Higher Civil Servants, After the ‘Socialist Spring’: Collectivisation and Business Leaders, and Physicians in Hesse between Economic Transformation in the GDR Nazism and Democracy, 1945–1955 George Last Michael R. Hayse Volume 27 Volume 12 Learning Democracy: Education Reform in West The Creation of the Modern German Army: General Germany, 1945–1965 Walther Reinhardt and the Weimar Republic, 1914–1930 Brian M. Puaca William Mulligan Volume 28 Volume 13 Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between The Crisis of the German Left: The PDS, Stalinism and Authenticity and Performance the Global Economy Timothy S. Brown Peter Thompson Volume 29 Volume 14 The Political Economy of Germany under Chancellors “Conservative Revolutionaries”: Protestant and Catholic Köhl and Schröder: Decline of the German Model? Churches in Germany After Radical Political Change in Jeremy Leaman the 1990s Volume 30 Barbara Thériault The Surplus Woman Volume 15 Unmarried in Imperial Germany, 1871–1918 Modernizing Bavaria: The Politics of Franz Josef Strauss Catherine L. Dollard and the CSU, 1949–1969 Mark Milosch This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. AFTER THE ‘SOCIALIST SPRING’ Collectivisation and Economic Transformation in the GDR George Last Berghahn Books New York • Oxford This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. AFTER THE ‘SOCIALIST SPRING’ This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. First published in 2009 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2009, 2019 George Last Open access edition published in 2019 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pursuits of happiness : well-being in anthropological perspective / edited by Last, George. After the “socialist spring” : collectivism and economic transformation in the GDR / George Last. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Monographs in German history ; v. 26) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84545-552-1 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-78920-108-6 (open access ebook) 1. Collectivization of agriculture—Germany (East)—History. 2. Germany (East)—Economic conditions—20th century. 3. Agriculture and state— Germany (East). I. Title. HD1492.G2L37 2008 330.943’1087—dc22 2008032694 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84545-552-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78920-108-6 (open access ebook) An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the sup- port of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collabo- rative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access versioncan be found at knowledgeunlatched.org This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribu- tion Noncommercial No Derivatives 4.0 International license. The terms of the license can be found at https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. For uses beyond those covered in the license contact Berghahn Books. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. ? Contents List of Figures viii Acknowledgements ix List of Abbreviations x Glossary of Terms xiii Map of Settlement Pattern in Bezirk Erfurt xvi Introduction xvii Bezirk Erfurt xx Pre-1989 Studies of Agriculture and Rural Society in the GDR xxiii The Historiography of Agriculture and Rural Society in the GDR since the Wende xxvi Sources xxix Contribution xxxii PART I CONSOLIDATION AND CONTROL: COLLECTIVISATION AND ITS MALCONTENTS 1 Steps towards Full Collectivisation of Agriculture 3 The Campaign for Collectivisation 4 Popular Responses to Collectivisation 9 The Limits of Local Agitation 11 The Campaign Intensified 14 The ‘Socialist Spring’ 18 Conclusion 21 2 The Aftermath of Collectivisation 27 The Conditions of Collectivised Agriculture 28 The Roots of Conflict in the LPG 31 The Insufficiency of the SED State’s Apparatus in Rural Communities 35 Flight to the West 39 The Strength of Popular Dissent 44 The Seeds of Consolidation in the LPG 47 Conclusion 48 This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale. vi • Contents 3 Farming behind the Wall 54 The Limits of Dissent 55 Sources of Continued Instability 59 Confrontation and Control 63 Conclusion 68 PART II COMMUNICATING REFORM: THE LIMITS OF ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION 4 Steps towards Reform 77 Changing the Context for Communication of Authority 78 Supplying Loyal Cadres 83 New Departures in the Administration of Agriculture 85 Hostility to Change: the Limits of Reform 88 Conclusion