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The Politics of Statistical Information and Economic Research in Communist Hungary, 1949–56

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

György Péteri
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Abstract

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Statistics, as all other sciences, used to be a class-science in the service of capitalists and that is what it should remain to be in the interests of socialism as well. (Szabad Nép, 21 July, 1949)

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1993 , pp. 149 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

References

1 Short biographies of the most important personalities figuring in this paper are included in the Biographical Appendix below. For the political history of the period covered here, even though we have since learned a great deal about the details, the best accessible work is still Fejtö, Ferenc, Histoire des démocraties populaires, I, L'Ère de Staline and II, Après Staline (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1969)Google Scholar, for which the latest corrected and enlarged edition in Hungarian is A népi demokráciák története, 2 vols (Budapest: Magvetö Kiadó/Paris: Magyar Füzetek, 1991).Google Scholar A long list could (but, to save space, will not) be presented of the Hungarian literature bringing to the public the latest results of the new massive research efforts invested since the mid-1980s in the political history of the 1950s. These works make a lot of new and very important details accessible but they make no attempt whatsoever to present a synthesis comparable, at least for the Hungarian developments, to the work of Fejtö. The only exception is Iván Petö and Sándor Szakács' economic history, A hazai gazdaság négy évtizedének története 1945–1985, 1, Az újjáépítés és a tervutasításos irányítás idöszaka (Four Decades of the Domestic Economy, I, The Period of Reconstruction and Command Planning) (Budapest: Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó, 1985).Google Scholar

2 The anecdote is from one of my informants whose identity cannot be disclosed.

3 Adatok és adalékok a népgazdaság fejlödésének tanulmányozásához, 1949–1955 (Data and Materials for the Study of the Development of the People's Economy), (Budapest: Statisztikai Kiado Vállalat, 1957).Google Scholar

4 This sort of programme definition characterised the pre-1956 era and can be found, e.g., in documents such as ‘A Statisztikai Hivatal információs szolgálata’ (‘Information Services of the Statistical Office’), undated typescript from 1950, Központi Statisztikai Hivatal Levéltára (Archives of Central Statistical Office, thereafter KSH LT), B-11, i.dob., 1950, or the ‘Tájékoztatási föosztály szervezeti felépítése’ (‘The Organisation Structure of the Department of Information’), undated typescript from 1955, KSH LT, B-11, I.dob., 1955.

5 The present usage of the term nomenklatura originates from the Soviet Communist Party jargon of the 1930s. To begin with it meant nothing else but the formal distribution of powers among party organs at various levels to appoint (or to control the appointments) to positions of significance in the state and society, and to award (or to control the granting of) prizes and decorations. The distribution of mandates was usually defined in a Politburo resolution (which itself was often called ‘Nomenklatura for the year …’) to be revised in accordance with the cyclical movements of political centralisation and decentralisation. The importance attached by the party to a certain position in the government, in the Academy of Sciences, or in artistic life, was clearly reflected in the hierarchical level at which appointments to the particular (or to that particular type of) position had to be made (or, at which level such decisions had to be cleared). Hence the more broadly known and used connotation of the term, meaning the overall élite (or ‘ruling class’) of state-socialist society. A book-long example for this latter usage is Voslensky's, Michael Nomenklatura: Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class (London: The Bodley Head, 1984).Google Scholar

6 ’Megkezdödött a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia 1954. évi nagygyülése’, Szabad Nép, 15 June 1954, 2. The whole text of Imre Nagy's speech was published as ‘A magyar tudomány elött álló feladatok’ (‘The Tasks of Hungarian Science: Lecture Delivered to the General Assembly of the Academy, 14 June 1954’), Társadalmi Szemle (1954/6), 21.

7 Béla Szalai, ‘Emeljük a népgazdasági tervezömunka színvonalát!’ (‘Let Us Raise the [Scientific] Niveau of Macro-economic Planning’), Társadalmi Szemle (1954/6), 31.

8 The document, classified ‘Confidential’, dated 20 Sept. 1954, and produced in twenty-five copies, was attached to deputy section chief Albert Kónya's letter to the president of the Academy, István Rusznyák, dated 20 Sept. 1954, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Levéltára (Archives of the Hungarian Academy of Science, thereafter MTA LT), Papers of the President, Registered files, 58/6.

9 Minutes of the University Council, 29 June 1954, Budapesti Közgazdaságtudományi Egyetem Levéltára (Archives of the Budapest [formerly Karl Marx] University of Economics, thereafter MKKE LT).

10 Péter Erdös was in charge of the Institute of Economics that worked under the Ministry of Education. His review reached Aladár Mód of the Agitation and Propaganda Section of the Central Committee as an enclosure to the letter of Klára Fejér (administrative secretary of the Second Section of the Academy of Science) to A. Mód, n.d. (Oct. 1951), Magyar Tudományos Akadémia II. Osztályának Levéltára (Archives of the Second [Social Science and Humanities] Section of the Hungarian Academy of Science, thereafter MTA LT. II.oszt.), 182/6. See also here the note of chief secretary of the Academy, Tibor Erdey-Grúz, to Klára Fejér, dated 25 Oct. 1951, asking the latter to send on Erdös' review to A. Mód.

11 ÁVH is the short for Államvédelmi Hivatal, Rákosi's much-dreaded Office for the Defence of the State.

12 Karl Marx University of Economics, Section of Study, summary of the scientific plans of the university's departments compiled and submitted to the Second Section of the Academy by József Nyilas, 12 Oct. 1953, MTA LT. II.oszt., 182/8.

13 Minutes and extract from the Minutes of the Standing Committee of Economics, 19 Oct. 1953, MTA LT. II.oszt., 182/8.

14 Materials of the meeting of the University Council [Karl Marx University of Economics], 3 June 1954. ‘Aspiránsképzés egyes kérdései’ (‘Selected Problems of Doctoral Education’), by Árpád Haász, MKKE LT, 2–3.

15 Indeed, all the council's meeting proved able to add to the matter was the contribution of one of the university's Soviet professors, L. I. Fominih, who ‘criticised’ the restrictive attitude of various authorities on the grounds that ‘It is, of course, unnecessary to have data pertaining to a whole industrial sector, or to the whole national economy for producing a dissertation. Dissertations can be written on the basis of data from five to ten companies (of a non-sensitive nature). But these data are absolutely necessary.’ Minutes of the meeting of the University Council, 3 June 1954, MKKE LT, 10.

16 ‘Javaslat Közgazdaságtudományi Intézet létesítésére’ (‘Proposal to Establish an Institute of Economics’), 5 Nov. 1954, MTA LT. II.oszt., 183/;1; also in MTA LT, President's Papers, 3/3.

17 A Magyar Szocialista Párt Politikatörténeti Intézetének Levéltára (Archives of the Institute of Political History, Hungarian Socialist Party, thereafter PIA), Minutes of the Politburo [of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' (Communist) Party], 10 Nov. 1954, item no. 6 of the agenda. The following members were present at the meeting: Mihály Farkas, Imre Nagy, András Hegedüs, István Hidas, Antal Apró, Lajos Acs, Béla Szalai, István Bata, József Mekis, Béla Vég, János Matolcsi. Since this research was done Hungary's new political regime has arranged through legislation for the transfer of all PIA documents originating from the period of communist rule (1948–89) to the Nemzeti Levéltár (National Archives of Hungary).

18 ‘Beszámoló a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Közgazdaságtudományi Intézete munkájáról’ (‘Report on the Activities of the Institute of Economics’), March 1956, attached to the Minutes of the Managing Board of the Second Section, 8 May 1956, MTA LT, II.oszt., 3/3.

19 ‘Jelentés’ (‘Report’), 3 Feb. 1958, 4, PIA 288.f., 33/1958/19. öe. It can be safely assumed that the report was written and sent to the Central Committee apparatus in connection with the party investigation carried out against the Institute between late 1957 and March 1958.

20 Minutes of the Managing Board of the Second Section, 8 May 1956, MTA LT, II.oszt., 3/3.

21 Minutes of the communist aktiva meeting of the Second Section of the Academy on lessons of the Twentieth Congress, 11 May 1956, MTA LT, II.oszt., 3/3.

22 ‘Feljegyzés Orbán elvtárs részére’ (‘Note for Comrade Orbán on the Mood Prevailing among Economists at the University and at the Institute in Connection with the XXth Congress’), dated 5 March 1956, PIA 276.f. 91/92.öe, copy, typescript, no signature. László Orbán was the deputy of the cultural and scientific of section the party's central committee.

23 From Friss' introduction, ‘Minutes of the discussion on the direction of the second five-year plan, attended to by the alumni and friends of the Karl Marx University of Economics, held at the university, on the 23rd May, 1956’, 5. Enclosed with the letter of the university's party secretary, József Káplán, to István Friss, 31 May 1956, PIA 861. f. 178. öe.