Competing paradigms: Peasant farming and collectivization in a Balaton community

Abstract

After the collectivization of agriculture Hungarian peasant households chose to disperse their labour resources in different sectors of production. The majority have engaged in intensive small‐scale farming and non‐agricultural employment, but they have also valued continuing links with large‐scale socialist cooperative farms. These different sectors relate to different models of existence, in which traditional peasant ways, modern urban lifestyles, and the socialist paradigm itself all have a pan to play. Skilful combination of these disparate elements has been the key to the prosperity of the Hungarian rural family. Cumulatively, these peasant strategies have helped to shape the course of reform in the whole society since the 1960s, and rural preferences are bound to effect the more radical changes in the offing as the socialist paradigm now comes under attack.