Download or read book Luxury and the Ruling Elite in Socialist Hungary written by György Majtényi and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, a new community of elite emerged in Hungary, in spite of the communist principles espoused by the government. In Luxury and the Ruling Elite in Socialist Hungary, György Majtényi allows us a peek inside their affluence. Majtényi exposes the lavish standard of living that the higher echelon enjoyed, complete with pools, Persian rugs, extravagant furniture, servants, and groundskeepers. They shopped in private stores stocked with expensive meats and tropical fruits just for them. They benefited from access to everything from books, telephone lines, and international travel to hunting grounds, soccer games, and even the choicest cemetery plots. But Majtényi also reveals the underbelly of such society, particularly how these privileges were used as a way of maintaining power, initiating or denying entry to party members, and strengthening the very hierarchies that communism promised to abolish. Taking readers on a fascinating and often surprising look inside the manor homes and vacation villas of wealthy post–World War II Hungarians, Majtényi offers fresh insight into the realities of patriarchy, loyalty, gender, and class within the communist regime.
Download or read book Remains of Socialism written by Maya Nadkarni and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Remains of Socialism, Maya Nadkarni investigates the changing fates of the socialist past in postsocialist Hungary. She introduces the concept of "remains"—both physical objects and cultural remainders—to analyze all that Hungarians sought to leave behind after the end of state socialism. Spanning more than two decades of postsocialist transformation, Remains of Socialism follows Hungary from the optimism of the early years of transition to its recent right-wing turn toward illiberal democracy. Nadkarni analyzes remains that range from exiled statues of Lenin to the socialist-era "Bambi" soda, and from discredited official histories to the scandalous secrets of the communist regime's informers. She deftly demonstrates that these remains were far more than simply the leftovers of an unwanted past. Ultimately, the struggles to define remains of socialism and settle their fates would represent attempts to determine the future—and to mourn futures that never materialized.
Download or read book Agents of Moscow written by Martin Mevius and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 1945, state patriotism of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe was characterized by the widespread use of national symbols. In communist Hungary the party (MKP) widely celebrated national holidays, national heroes, erected national statues, and employed national street names. This 'socialist patriotism' had its origin in the 'national line' of the Comintern, established on Soviet instructions following the German invasion of the Soviet Union. At that time Stalin called the parties of the Comintern to oppose the Germans by issuing the call for national liberation. This policy continued after 1945 when, as an aid in the struggle for power, the MKP presented itself as both the 'heir to the traditions of the nations' and the 'only true representative of the interest of the Hungarian people'. Paradoxically however, the Soviet origins of the national line were also one of the main obstacles to its success as the MKP could not put forward national demands if these conflicted with Soviet interests. Martin Mevius' pioneering study reveals that what had started as a tactical measure in 1941 had become the self-image of party and state in 1953 and that the ultimate loyalty to the Soviet Union worked to the detriment of the national party - the MKP never rid itself of the label 'agents of Moscow'.
Download or read book The Workers State written by Mark Pittaway and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2012-10-28 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1956, Hungarian workers joined students on the streets to protest years of wage and benefit cuts enacted by the Communist regime. Although quickly suppressed by Soviet forces, the uprising led to changes in party leadership and conciliatory measures that would influence labor politics for the next thirty years. In The Workers' State, Mark Pittaway presents a groundbreaking study of the complexities of the Hungarian working class, its relationship to the Communist Party, and its major political role during the foundational period of socialism (1944-1958). Through case studies of three industrial centers--Újpest, Tatabánya, and Zala County--Pittaway analyzes the dynamics of gender, class, generation, skill level, and rural versus urban location, to reveal the embedded hierarchies within Hungarian labor. He further demonstrates how industries themselves, from oil and mining to armaments and textiles, possessed their own unique labor subcultures. From the outset, the socialist state won favor with many workers, as they had grown weary of the disparity and oppression of class systems under fascism. By the early 1950s, however, a gap between the aspirations of labor and the goals of the state began to widen. In the Stalinist drive toward industrialization, stepped up production measures, shortages of goods and housing, wage and benefit cuts, and suppression became widespread. Many histories of this period have focused on Communist terror tactics and the brutal suppression of a pliant population. In contrast, Pittaway's social chronicle sheds new light on working-class structures and the determination of labor to pursue its own interests and affect change in the face of oppression. It also offers new understandings of the role of labor and the importance of local histories in Eastern Europe under communism."--Project Muse.
Download or read book Hungary written by Nigel Swain and published by Verso. This book was released on 1992-06-17 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the period from the 1940s to the present.
Download or read book The Object of Labor written by Martha Lampland and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995-12 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did socialist policies leave the economies of Eastern Europe unprepared for current privatization efforts? Under communist rule, were rural villages truly left untouched by capitalism? In this historical ethnography of rural Hungary, Martha Lampland argues not only that the transition to capitalism was well under way by the 1930s, but that socialist policies themselves played a crucial role in the development of capitalism by transforming conceptions of time, money, and labor. Exploring the effects of social change thrust upon communities against their will, Lampland examines the history of agrarian labor in Hungary from World War I to the early 1980s. She shows that rural workers had long been subject to strict state policies similar to those imposed by collectivization. Since the values of privatization and individualism associated with capitalism characterized rural Hungarian life both prior to and throughout the socialist period, capitalist ideologies of work and morality survived unscathed in the private economic practices of rural society. Lampland also shows how labor practices under socialism prepared the workforce for capitalism. By drawing villagers into factories and collective farms, for example, the socialist state forced farmers to work within tightly controlled time limits and to calculate their efforts in monetary terms. Indeed, this control and commodification of rural labor under socialism was essential to the transformation to capitalism.
Download or read book Politics in Color and Concrete written by Krisztina Fehérváry and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-16 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical anthropology of material transformations of homes in Hungary from the 1950s o the 1990s. Material culture in Eastern Europe under state socialism is remembered as uniformly gray, shabby, and monotonous—the worst of postwar modernist architecture and design. Politics in Color and Concrete revisits this history by exploring domestic space in Hungary from the 1950s through the 1990s and reconstructs the multi-textured and politicized aesthetics of daily life through the objects, spaces, and colors that made up this lived environment. Krisztina Féherváry shows that contemporary standards of living and ideas about normalcy have roots in late socialist consumer culture and are not merely products of postsocialist transitions or neoliberalism. This engaging study decenters conventional perspectives on consumer capitalism, home ownership, and citizenship in the new Europe. “A major reinterpretation of Soviet-style socialism and an innovative model for analyzing consumption.” —Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York “Politics in Color and Concrete explains why the everyday is important, and shows why domestic aesthetics embody a crucially significant politics.” —Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago “The topic is extremely timely and relevant; the writing is lucid and thorough; the theory is complex and sophisticated without being overly dense, or daunting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.” —Brad Weiss, College of William and Mary
Download or read book Post Communist Mafia State written by B lint Magyar and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ
Download or read book For a Socialist Hungary written by János Kádár and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Post Communist Transition written by András Bozóki and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transition from communist dictatorship to multi-party democracy has proved a long and painful process for the countries of Eastern Europe, and has met with varying degrees of success. In Hungary, the radical opposition was uniquely successful in fighting off attempts by the old-guard communist elite to hijack reform programmes, by forcing free elections and creating a multi-party system. This volume focuses on the Hungarian experience, analysing in detail the process of transition from dictatorship to pluralist democracy. Some of Hungary's leading political scientists examine issues such as the legitimation crisis of communist rule, resulting struggles within the ruling elite and the forces behind transition. Constitutional reform, party formation and voting behaviour at the first free elections are also taken into account. The concluding section places the Hungarian experience in comparative perspective, within the context of other Central and Western European states.
Download or read book Technology and the Environment in State Socialist Hungary written by Viktor Pál and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how and why the state-socialist regime in Hungary used technology and propaganda to foster industrialization and the conservation of natural resources simultaneously. Further, this book explains why this process was ultimately a failure. By exploring the environmental pre-history of communist Hungary before analyzing the economic development of the Kádár regime, Pál investigates how economic and environmental policies and technology transfer were negotiated between the official communist ideology and the global economic reality of capitalist markets. Pál argues that the modernization project of the Kádár regime (1956–1990) facilitated ecological consciousness – at both an individual and societal level – which provoked great social unrest when positive environmental impact was not achieved. Today, global issues of climate change, urban pollution, resource depletion, and overpopulation transcend political systems, but economic and environmental discourses varied greatly in the twentieth century. This volume is important reading for all those interested in economic and environmental history, as well as political science.
Download or read book Unfinished Socialism written by Andr s Ger? and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book provides a snapshot of socialism throughout the Kadar regime in Hungary (1956-1989) and captures the essence of the world behind the 'iron curtain' in a stunning and often stark collection of photographs." "Unfinished Socialism is a study containing 450 photographs, many previously unpublished, which portray life in Hungary from every angle: from the May Day March to pop music and from the homeless to sport." "With an introduction that will help the reader understand and appreciate the true meaning of the photographs, this political, social and cultural study of the Kadan years transports the reader back to a time of great significance in Hungary's long and turbulent history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Agents of Moscow written by Martin Mevius and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 1945, state patriotism of communist regimes in Eastern Europe was characterized by the widespread use of national symbols. This study examines the origins of this socialist patriotism and how it had become the self image of party and state by 1953.
Download or read book A Short History of the Hungarian Communist Party written by Joseph J Molnar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of its small size, the Hungarian Communist party (HCP), founded in the fall of 1918, has played an important role both in Hungary's national history and in the international communist movement. Hungary, which was the only soviet republic other than the ephemeral Bavarian soviet republic to exist outside the USSR, lasted five months during the critical period of the Paris Peace Conference. The "veterans" of the Hungarian soviet republic, like Bela Kun, Georg Lukacs, and Eugen Varga, later held important posts in the Comintern and in the international Communist press. In the Stalinist era, the HCP distinguished itself by excessive zeal in the application of "integral Stalinism" in foreign policy (e.g., anti-Titoism), the economy, and political life (e.g., the Rajk and Kadar trials). However, the 1956 revolution was engineered by the revisionist communist intelligentsia and by such revisionist party leaders as Imre Nagy. Finally, in spite of its repressive role after the revolution, in the 1970s under Janos Kadar the HCP introduced a new system of "liberalism" and economic reform.
Download or read book Revolution from Within written by Patrick H. O'Neil and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe. The exceptional case of Hungary is used to support theoretical concepts regarding the transition. The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party and the Hungarian Communist Party are examined in decline, along with the system which replaced them.
Download or read book Hungary and the Victor Powers 1945 1950 written by NA NA and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eric Roman is the first scholar to be granted access to the vast, heretofore closed, archive of documents relating to the communist era in Hungary. This archive included the files of the Hungarian Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Hungarian Socialist Worker's Party, as well as minutes of political committee meetings, private correspondence, secret papers and confidential reports on special commissions within Hungary. Skilfully using all this material, Eric Roman weaves a fascinating portrait of Hungary in the post-war period. As the country began to reconstruct itself after the War, Roman shows the toll taken by poverty and racial discord. In what amounts to the only complete English-language account of Hungary's diplomatic policy, Hungary and the Victor Powers takes an in-depth look at Hungary's relationship with those countries nearest to it, especially the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Eric Roman's Hungary and the Victor Powers, 1945-1950 is a compelling work of history that is destined to be one of the most important books on the topic.
Download or read book Peasants in Socialist Transition written by Peter D. Bell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-05-27 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.
