200 The Postwar Period
in dealing with the peasants, saying, “We should not unsettle them, because
who will fight tomorrow, in case of a war?”^261 But when Moša Pijade wrote an
article after the Bucharest resolution in 1948 in which he dared to tell the truth,
namely that the peasants had been the main supporters of the “revolution”
during the liberation struggle, he was heavily attacked and obliged to recant
this heresy.^262 Among the few who were against excessively radical measures
were Edvard Kardelj and Vladimir Bakarić, but their words had no effect, even
though the former cited Lenin in support of his argument and was not opposed
in principle to the “strengthening of socialism in the countryside.” On the
contrary, he favored it, but in a humane way, sure that the peasants themselves
would realize sooner or later where their interests lay.^263 In the end, the heavy-
handed method prevailed for reasons described by an Agitprop representative
meeting with peasants in Šumadija, deepest Serbia: “Cursed kulaks, because
of you Stalin attacked us!”^264 In short, the opinion prevailed that it was neces-
sary to “deny with deeds” the Boss’s accusations, firstly at the expense of the
peasants, who had to be destroyed as a social class. They accomplished this
with due speed. At the end of 1947 there were only 799 “collective coopera-
tives,” whereas in January 1949 they already numbered 1,318 and the following
December, 6,492.^265
By June 1950, the regime controlled 22 percent of all the arable land, but
the result of this policy was disastrous. From the very beginning, the peasants
opposed collectivization, more or less passively, butchering their animals or
hiding provisions, but also burning crops. The most dramatic event happened
in the Cazin region of eastern Bosnia, where during the winter of 1948 an up-
rising erupted among local Muslims, many of whom had participated in the
liberation struggle.^266 The authorities reacted to the opposition of the rural
masses by promising those who had joined the cooperatives that they could
leave after a three-year trial. But when this period expired, it was evident that
the optimistic predictions of the party ideologists, according to whom the peas-
ants would discover by themselves the “advantages” of the collective economy,
were wrong. During the 1951 harvest, the number of those who wanted to leave
grew steadily. And since the authorities reacted with propaganda against the
“class enemies,” and used all possible forms of pressure, the peasants let the
crops rot in the fields.^267 Tito himself recognized that the behavior of the local
authorities toward the rebel peasants was excessive: “We don’t have a Siberia,
but if we had, we would not hesitate to send people there.”^268
After such bitter experiences and because they feared a popular revolt, the
authorities finally renounced forced collectivization at the beginning of the fif-
ties, when Yugoslavia was on the brink of famine, due at least partly to drought.
However, they remained suspicious of the countryside, which seriously hindered