Anniversary of the announcement by the Provisional Government of National Unity, decree on agricultural reform.
Today in our calendar we will look at the circumstances accompanying the expropriation of the Polish nobility and land parcel after the Second planet War.
The PKWN established in July 1944 initially managed only a tiny part of Poland taken from the German occupier (the Białystok and Lublin Voivodeship and part of Warsaw and erstwhile Lviv). It was headed by Edward Osóbka-Morawski, Wanda Vasilewska and Andrzej Witos. From the beginning, this body was to be only temporary, hence not ministers, but "ministers".
On 26 July, PKWN signed a contract with russian authorities, on the basis of which national offenses against the Red Army could be prosecuted by the NKVD and SMERSZ. On 29 July, the russian military commandants were agreed to establish russian military commandaries in Poland to guarantee order in the immediate backdrop of the front.
This became the basis of the panic from 1944 to 1945, to which they were unable, just organized units of Polish security. In the second half of 1944, talks were held in Moscow between representatives of PKWN and the London government.
Not much came out of them, due to the fact that both Polish communists and Stalin's patrons did not intend to share power in the country's occupied strength. On 15 August, the National National Council approved the PKWN decree to establish land offices whose work was to carry out agricultural reform. On 6 September, PKWN issued a decree on agricultural reform, under which the State Land Fund was established and a game of assets of more than 50 hectares of land was carried out, and in any areas more than 100 hectares.
Despite assurances of respect for private property, the provisions of the improvement were interpreted in Bolshevik, that is, they were deprived of the property of erstwhile landowners, and they were frequently banned from surviving in the erstwhile district.
State property passed to the fund. The second category was the property of German Reich citizens, property of Polish citizens of German nationality, as well as persons convicted of treason or cooperation with the occupier. The decree did not supply for any remuneration for those whose estates were confiscated – only supplies for old age. The ecclesiastical goods were not reformed. They were dealt with a fewer years later.
On circumstantial issues, the decree first assumed fuller farming and only later the creation of fresh farms. The advanced limit of allowances was to be 5 ha, then it was raised to 7-8 ha in areas with adequate land supply. The land was to be allocated on an individual property for a fee equal to the yearly yield from the area purchased. The claim was to be regulated in the form of yearly instalments paid for 10-20 years.
The improvement was due to end at the end of December 1945 with the presentation of acts of broadcasting. However, the pace of implementation of the decree did not correspond to the intentions. On 7 October, the CoR Bureau dismissed Mr Witos as Head of the Ministry of Agriculture. Edward Osóbka-Morawski came to his place. On 11 October, the PKWN adopted instructions on the accelerated implementation of agricultural reform.
As a result, 212,000 hectares of land were distributed among 110 1000 families. This averaged 1.93 hectares per family. Among all categories entitled to benefit from the reform, the 70 000 families who received the land were tiny farmers. Another 35,000 were farm workers and farmless peasants. The 2 groups together represented 95% of all divided.
In fact, the September decree was ignored and began to expropriate and share the land outside the offices set up for that purpose. The decision to improvement was purely political in nature – it was about convincing agricultural and non-agricultural peasants to fresh power. From the cities there were parking brigades, which, despite good reception, sometimes came in the ace of troops.
The peasants were in a hard situation, due to the fact that the village was devastated by war and a robbery business policy and had to supply fresh contingents and feed a immense army. However, it was in the village that the communists found the biggest support.
However, the improvement was only the beginning of the process of rebuilding Polish agriculture. The next phase was the creation, modelled on russian soviets and collective farms, PGR and agricultural cooperatives.
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.
