ABSTRACT
Formally organized on the basis of voluntary principles, during the war the collective farm system was finally transformed into an institution of forced, heavy, and virtually unpaid labor. In 1942, the government issued a special order increasing the obligatory minimum of individual workdays. Collective farmers who failed to fulfill the minimal norm without sufficient reason were subject to legal action and to punitive corrective-labor obligations in their own collective farm for a period of six months, while 25 percent of their usual earnings were diverted to the farm. First introduced during the war, these policies continued after the end of hostilities. In addition, by an order of 31 May 1947, the government prolonged the wartime practice of the increased minimum of workdays and the legal responsibility for fulfilling the obligation. The Russian village ravaged by the war was far from fertile ground for the spread of any kind of favorable recollection of the German occupation.
