ABSTRACT
In each of the former Warsaw Pact countries, the 'working through' the past coincided with sweeping economic and political reforms, some more planned than others. This thesis investigates the reform of land ownership in Romania and the ways in which collective property was privatised. It investigates the legal basis for such reform, and uses case studies from villages in Transylvania to illustrate the implementation process. For many peasants, the reform of the collective system had a clear moral dimension. The collapse of Communist power meant that the wrongs committed during collectivisation could be righted, even if this meant acting without lawful authority. At state level what was seen by peasants as a question of simple justice acquired political and economic dimensions. The division of the collective farm was as likely to enrich some villagers as it was to impoverish others. Some of the peasants who had worked for the collective farm abandoned farming altogether; others simply retreated into subsistence cultivation.
