End of the line. The abolition of the agrarian parties in Central-Eastern Europe: 1944-1948

Abstract

Agrarian parties were particularly strong in the region conquered by the Red Army during the final stages of the Second World War. In the few years between the defeat of Germany and her allies and the imposition of regimes along Soviet lines, they became the main obstacle between the Communist parties and the conquer of power. Theirs was a deep-rooted antagonism, stretching back to the twenties and thirties when the so-called Green International of Prague opposed Communism as an ideology as well the efforts of the Moscow-sponsored Peasant International or Krestintern to gain support among the European rural population. Between 1944 and 1948 the agrarian parties in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria suffered an increasing pressure from the Communist parties and the Soviet occupation forces until they were defeated. Their organizational structures were disbanded or absorbed and their leaders forced to exile or integrate into the new system, or in many cases jailed or executed.