A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 46. (2007)

Rémiás Tibor: Miskolc mezőgazdasága (1918-1949) (Előtanulmány a Miskolc monográfia V. kötetéhez)

7250 plots were recorded and surveyed regarding intravillain land. The owners and the sizc of the remaining 5646 plots in the 69 fields of extravillain land were recorded according to land use and the crops produced. We prepared a tablc showing the percentage distribution of agricultural production in the town's intravillain and extravillain land according to the size of the plots, land use and the crops produced. The number of agricultural associations and societies grew visibly in the 1920s. A separate section of the study is devotcd to this phenomenon. Law XXXVI of 1920 ("The Appropriate Distribution of Land"), known as Nagyatádi's land reform (named after István Szabó Nagyatádi, then the Minister of Agricullure), was implemented in 1921. The basic aim was to the provide building plots and leased land to "deserving" and "diligent" landholders: those eligible, were peasants who had been awarded the gold or silver medál of the Order of the Valiant, war invalids, war widows and aduit war orphans. In 1935, the Statistical Office participated in making the National Agricultural Survey successful. After receiving the agricultural statistical questionnaires concerning each field of production, the agrarian population of Miskolc proved wholly cooperative. The memory of the 1924 cadastral survey supervised by local agrotechnicians was still fresh among landowners and stockbreeders, when a totál of 9282 cadastral holds and 495 square ö/s (

I square öl equal to roughly 3.59 m

2

) were recorded for Miskolc. The surveyors and officials of the Statistical Office registered 9199 cadastral holds of agricultural land (a difference of 83 cadastral holds and 495 square ö/s compared to the 1924 survey!). At the same time, there was only a minimai divergence in the proportion of crops cultivated. Prime Ministerial Decrec 600/1945, effective from March 18, 1945, was issued with two main goals in mind: the abolition of the large estates and the distribution of land among the peasant population. This dccree essentially reflected the political agenda of the Hungárián Communist Parly and the National Peasant Party. The viewpoint of the Smallholders' Party that "land should be givcn to those, who havc the means to cultivate it" was not given any publicity. The decree drew a difference between gentry and peasant holdings: "gentry" land over 100 cadastral holds and "peasant" land over 200 cadastral holds were redeemed (the wealthier peasants were for the greater part members of the Smallholders' Party, part of the coalition), while estates larger than 1000 cadastral holds were expropriatcd without compensation. A few agrarian co-opcratives engaged in various activities still existed in County Borsod and in Miskolc in 1945. Somé of these ceased after the war; the rest mérged with the newlyformed agricultural co-operatives following a decree issued by the Ministry of Agriculture. Ali those, who had received land as part of the land reform, were forced to bccome members of these co-operatives. We may say that the land-leasing groups and land-leasing co-opcratives, the groups which "were engaged in joint cultivation either partially or wholly" were the forerunners of the co-operative groups in Miskolc too. Tibor Rémiás 340