Communism among grain
Sharing in the golden wealth
With successful grain farming came wealth. But only for farmers with their own land. The workers remained poor. This huge gap between rich and poor proved a fertile breeding ground for communism in this region. A few statues recall the period when communism was particularly popular in Oldambt.
Feeding ground for communism
The palatial-looking farmhouses you see all over the fields here may already suggest it. It was the farmers themselves who got rich from growing grain. And that while the moderately paid workers did the hard work. Not surprisingly, more and more workers demanded equality and gladly listened to social anarchists like Domela Nieuwenhuis and Jan Poppes Hommes. In Beerta and Finsterwolde, the Communist Party became the largest. In the 1980s, Beerta was even the only Dutch municipality so far to have a Communist mayor.
Statues honour the past
In Frank Westerman's De Graanrepubliek, you will read how the grain fields of Oldambt and communism are linked. But you can also see communism in the landscape. For instance, there is a statue of the successful CPN politician Fré Meis near the Wedderklap in Oude Pekela. A tad more striking is a statue of Lenin that suddenly appeared in Tjuchem at the end of the last century. Entrepreneur Henk Koop had imported the 17,000-kilo bronze statue. Lenin spent some time in the gardens of spa Fontana Bad Nieuweschans, but has since been put into storage.
