Narodna omladina Hrvatske u kampanji kolektivizacije poljoprivrede 1949. godine
THE PEOPLE’S YOUTH OF CROATIA IN THE CAMPAIGN TO COLLECTIVIZE AGRICULTURE IN 1949

Summary/Abstract: The intensive collectivization of agriculture in Yugoslavia was initiated by the II plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in January 1949, though the process was slowed and pressure on the peasantry was relaxed already by the III plenum in December of that same year. The National Youth, as a mass organization within the framework of the National Front, played a significant role in the collectivization campaign. Thanks to its large membership and its broad organization among the villages, the People’s Youth of Croatia (NOH) acted as an organization of transmission. It communicated, carried out, and oversaw the fulfillment of the tasks laid out by the state and party leadership at the time. At the same time, the NOH itself was growing exponentially and was confronted with organizational problems and problems with its cadres. The mass involvement of the youth in the collectivization campaign required the mobilization of the work and propaganda potential as well as the revolutionary enthusiasm of the youth in carrying out the agrarian policy of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia at that time. On the basis of archival materials, select publications of the NOH and of the party, and published sources, this article follows the activity of the NOH in the villages during 1949. In accordance with its position within the hierarchy of the party and its mass organizations, the activity of the NOH supported the prevalent policy of the Party followed its changes. Alongside agitation for the creation and building up of all aspects of collectivized agriculture, the NOH invested strenuous effort directly at agricultural work as well as toward the construction of infrastructure and the organizational foundation of collectivization. Besides this, one of the most important tasks of the NOH was education, technical and ideological, in an effort to raise agricultural productivity and to ease the problems created by tension among cadres of the Communist Party of Croatia and of the NOH itself.

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