The Sovietisation of Rural Areas of Lithuania: A Case Study of the Lenin’s Way Kolkhoz in Deltuva (1948–1957)

Abstract

This article presents the story of the establishment of one kolkhoz, Lenin’s Way, located in the Deltuva district, as a typical attempt at the Sovietisation of rural Lithuania. The microhistorical approach is applied in the article, facilitating a more specific and detailed illustration of the processes that have been under way in postwar Lithuanian rural areas in historiography up till now. The author does not convey the Sovietisation of rural Lithuania through the prism of the partisan war or terror, but tries to understand the different expectations and ambitions of reform implementers and the ordinary people who suddenly found themselves as part of a kolkhoz. The study suggests looking at collectivisation not as consistent and finite postwar reform, but as a complex process that lasted considerably longer, quite unlike what was claimed by the Soviet regime, which declared that collectivisation had been achieved in Lithuania by 1951.