ABSTRACT
Unlike the collectivisation campaign, the campaign to systematise the countryside was never completed. In the 1980s, whilst other countries were liberalising their economies, Romania reverted to a Stalinist system of massive public projects and 'sacrifices' on the part of the population. This chapter examines some of the key features of the modernisation of agriculture and of rural settlements from 1960 until the fall of Ceausescu in 1989. Whereas previously, control over what was planted and to whom it was sold was in the hands of the private producer, under socialism these decisions became the subject of scientific planning. The proportion of national income supplied by the agricultural sector declined steadily from its height in the 1930s. Under the first Five-Year Plan of 1960-65, 19.5% of the entire investment budget was allocated to the sector, primarily to shore up and strengthen the many new farms that had been created by the final phase of collectivisation.
