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nmL 'TEM B a r CODE REFERENCE ONLY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON THESIS DegreeP ^ ^ Year 2- O 0 6 Name of Author ^ PWv I i AW/TtfJ COPYRIGHT ' ^ This is a thesis accepted for a Higher Degree of the University of London. It is an unpublished typescript and the copyright is held by the author. All persons consulting the thesis must read and abide by the Copyright Declaration below. COPYRIGHT DECLARATION I recognise that the copyright of the above-described thesis rests with the author and that no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. LOAN Theses may not be lent to individuals, but the University Library may lend a copy to approved libraries within the United Kingdom, for consultation solely on the premises of those libraries. Application should be made to: The Theses Section, University of London Library, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. 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This thesis comes within category D. □ This copy has been deposited in the Library______________________ of This copy has been deposited in the University of London Library, Senate □ House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. 1 GEORGE PHILIP MURRAY LAST UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON AFTER THE 6SOCIALIST SPRING’ IN THE GDR A STUDY OF COLLECTIVISED AGRICULTURE IN BEZIRK ERFURT PhD April 2006 UMI Number: U592004 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U592004 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 2 DECLARATION I, George Philip Murray Last, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 3 ABSTRACT This thesis is an analysis of the role of low level political and economic functionaries in the organisation and management of the farming collectives, the implementation and development of agricultural policy and the parallel development of the East German village in the 1960s and 1970s. With the completion of the (forced) collectivisation of agriculture in the spring of 1960 began the next major step towards the socialist transformation of rural society in East Germany. The process by which over subsequent years the rural population came to terms with this new situation and by which the SED regime established new systems of economic and social organisation in the rural communities of the GDR was long and complex in comparison with the campaign for collectivisation. Using 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, I have made a thorough investigation of this process with respect to one of the GDR’s 15 regions (Bezirk Erfurt). This thesis 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 organisation and on the other how the regime sought via its representatives to implement its aims with a combination of compromise and material incentive as well as administrative pressure and other more draconian measures. In addressing the roles and responsibilities of the various levels of functionaries involved in the development of agriculture, my research has contributed to a more differentiated understanding of the nature of authority (.Herrschaft) at the grassroots in the SED dictatorship, which qualifies the simple top- down model of the transmission of authority and a starkly dichotomous view of the state and society. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations page 7 Glossary of Terms 8 Acknowledgements 11 Introduction 12 Bezirk Erfurt 15 Pre-1989 Studies o f Agriculture and Rural Society in the GDR 19 The Historiography of Agriculture and Rural Society in the GDR 22 since the Wende Sources 27 Contribution 30 SECTION 1: Consolidation and Control: Collectivisation and Its Malcontents Chapter 1: Steps toward Full Collectivisation of Agriculture 35 The Campaign for Collectivisation 36 Popular Responses to Collectivisation 41 The Limits o f Local Agitation 44 The Campaign Intensified 47 The “Socialist Spring” 51 Conclusion 55 Chapter 2: The Aftermath of Collectivisation 57 The Conditions o f Collectivised Agriculture 58 The Roots of Conflict in the LPG 6 1 The Insufficiency of the SED State’s Apparatus in 66 Rural Communities Flight to the West 1 1 The Strength o f Popular Dissent 76 The Seeds o f Consolidation 80 Conclusion 82 Chapter 3: Farming behind the Wall 83 The Limits o f Dissent 84 Sources o f Continued Instability 90 Confrontation and Control 95 Conclusion 100 5 SECTION 2: Communicating Reform: The Limits of Economic Transformation Chapter 4: Steps toward Reform 102 Changing the Context for Communication ofAuthority 103 Supplying Loyal Cadres 108 New Departures in the Administration o f Agriculture 112 Hostility to Change: the Limits o f Reform 115 Conclusion 123 Chapter 5: Resistance, Compromise and “Cooperation” 125 The Early Development o f Cooperation 125 Grounds for Continuing Hostility to Cooperation 129 Competing Interests and the Obstacles to Persuasion 137 The Ideological Deficit in the LPG 143 The DBD and Voices o f Conservatism 146 Uncertainty and the Limits o f Transformation 148 Conclusion 151 Chapter 6: Critical Transitions 155 Forced Evol ution 156 The Crisis Precipitated 162 Crisis and Confusion in Agricultural Administration 166 Administrative Gridlock 172 Conclusion 175 SECTION 3: Stable Instability: Economic Stagnation and the End of Transformation Chapter 7: Regaining the Initiative: From Ulbricht to Honecker 177 Rural Living and Working Conditions in the 1960s 178 Continuities 188 Reconstituting Cooperation 192 A New Structure for Agriculture - A New Context for SED Authority 196 Conclusion 198 Chapter 8: Stabilisation and Stagnation 200 Consolidation and Conflict 20 1 Inadequate Industrialisation 205 The End o f ‘Realistic Plans ’ 206 Problems o f Scale 211 The Failures o f Cooperation 216 Rural Development under Honecker 221 Conclusion 224 6 Chapter 9: Economic Crisis and Popular Dissatisfaction 226 Agricultural Reform 227 Misindustrialisation 231 Financial Reform 236 Popular Dissatisfaction: Pollution, Shortage and Neglect 240 Conclusion 245 Conclusion The Practice and Problems of Agricultural Transformation 247 in the GDR Bibliography 251 Map of Settlement Pattern in Bezirk Erfurt 269 (ThHStAW SED BPAIV/C/2/13-479 RdB Bezirksplankommission March 1976 p.303) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ABV Abschnittsbevollmachtigter (Local Police Officer) AIV Agrar-Industrie-Vereinigung (Agro-Industrial Union) BArch Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive) BDVP Bezirksbehdrde der Deutschen Volkspolizei (Regional Authority of the German People’s Police) BHG Bauerliche Handelsgenossenschaft (Farmers’ Trade Cooperative) BPA Bezirksparteiarchiv (Regional Party Archive) BGL Betriebsgewerkschaftsleitung (Factory trade union leadership) BLR Bezirkslandwirtschaftsrat (Regional Agricultural Council) BPKK Beziksparteikontrollkomission (Regional Party Control Commission) BPO Betriebsparteiorganisation (Factory/Farm Party Organisation) DBD Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands (Democratic Farmers’ Party of Germany) DBK Deutsches Bauernkongress (German Farmers’ Congress) DDR Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic) DFD Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands (Democratic German Women’s Association) DSF Gesellschaft jiir Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft (Society for German-Soviet Friendship) FDGB Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (Free German Trade Union) FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth) GAP Gemeinsame Abteilung Pflanzenproduktion (Common Unit for Crop Production) GDR German Democratic Republic GO Grundorganisation (Basic Party Organisation) LPG Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft (Agricultural Collective) LPG T LPG Tierproduktion (Agricultural Collective for Livestock Production) LPG P LPG Pflanzenproduktion (Agricultural Collective for Crop Production) JEA Jahresendabrechnung (End of Year Accounts) JEV Jahresendversammlung (End of Year Assembly) JHV Jahreshauptversammlung (Main Annual Assembly) KBK Kreisbauernkonferenz (District Farmer’s Conference) KAP Kooperative Abteilung Pflanzenproduktion (Cooperative Unit for Crop Production) KAS Kreisarchiv Sommerda (District Archive Sommerda) KLR