Commentary
This scene depicts the deportation of the largest farmer in the village by the communist authorities, something which thousands of families in Czechoslovakia experienced in the early 1950s. The exemplary expulsion of the richest man in the village, who had previously intimidated other private farmers, was a demonstration of the new communist power. The seizure of assets also became the economic foundation for the Soviet model of emerging agricultural cooperatives.
The evictions were overseen by local communists. Their motives for enforcing collectivisation were varied. Some hoped to build a more fair society, while others took advantage of the new situation in order to enrich themselves.
The clip does not offer a celebration of the ideological project of communism, but criticises the real impact of collectivisation on specific individuals excluded from the communist project for the future. Such criticism was possible because the film All My Compatriots was made in 1968, during the temporary liberalisation of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia (The Prague Spring), but was banned afterwards and could only be screened publicly after 1989.
