Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)

Documents

A number of these workers used to be members of the Hungarian Workers’ Party. For various reasons they are not party members now, but support the policy of the party and the government, though with insufficient political activity.

A fairly large group among the workers is represented by politically indifferent, or apparently indifferent people increasingly drawing closer to us as the forces of the proletarian dictatorship grow. This group usually consists of people who came to the working class from agriculture and make up the petty-bourgeoisie, especially those who have been working as industrial workers for several years. Among the indifferent we must include former members of the Hungarian Workers’ Party who played a lesser or greater part at the time of the counter-revolution, and could not be admitted to the party now.

Apart from the fact that they approve of a people’s democratic regime, the great majority of working women take no active part in political matters. There are a large number of working women and girls who were active in one way or another in the party or some mass organization before the counter-revolution, but who now stand aside and are only concerned with family or personal affairs.

A considerable change has taken place in the composition of the Budapest working class in the past ten years. This is partly due to the fact that a large number of workers left industry especially at the beginning of nationalization to undertake party and public work, and partly because industrialization on an extensive scale drew tens of thousands of the petty-bourgeois, the peasants and the declassé into factory work. All these factors have consequently produced a situation where the composition of the Budapest working class is characterized by the fact that only about thirty to forty per cent of the workers have been working in industry for more than ten years (i.e. before 1948). But there is a still greater difference of distribution in certain industrial branches, e.g. the textile industry. Only 4.3 per cent of the present manual workers of the Goldberger factory, for instance, were working there before the Liberation.

Those who have worked more than ten years in industry, i.e. the “old staff” of the Budapest factories, are for the most part to be found among the skilled workers. It is these workers who have the greatest sense of responsibility for the good reputation of their factory, for the fulfilment of the plan, for their collective as a whole. It is therefore striking that we usually see no attempt made in factories for plans for an expansion of the “old staff” system on a long-term basis. Sporadic efforts are made to encourage long-established employees to continue their studies by the provision of bursaries or other aid, or to take part in politics by granting them benefits, housing or in other ways. Apart from this, workers consider that the greatest failing in building up “old staff” or a body of long-term employees lies in the fact that newcomers are not given enough attention in the factory. As a consequence, and especially through lack of help from the technical staff, the new employees cannot reach a level of earning commensurate with their professional qualifications and leave their employment, thereby increasing the turnover and the problems of skilled workers of the factory employing them. This is particularly the case with the young workers who enjoyed considerable benefits as apprentices: their apprenticeships over these benefits are discontinued, the young men have acquired practically no professional experience as yet, and cannot meet their growing demands from their earnings, with the result that such young skilled workers turn to other jobs.

The picture that emerged from the talks in Budapest reveals that—compared to the

127