Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
From the Liberation to Greater Budapest (1945-1950)
districts. Their influence extended in every field as the capital began to revive and proceed on the path of democratic progress. In several respects the National Committee of Budapest also exercised the powers of the Provisional National Government stationed in Debrecen, and its importance was enhanced by the fact that the leaders of the different parties took part in its work in the first period of its activities. The national committees functioned politically on the principle of a broad anti-fascist coalition. Imbued by a deeply democratic and revolutionary spirit they worked vigorously to eliminate any remnants of Nazism and the counter-revolutionary era. In the national committees of Budapest the revolutionary forces were in the majority, and the most active workers’ parties also played a dominant role in the renewal of daily life. The organization of the parties based on the peasantry—the Independent Smallholders’ Party and the National Peasant Party—began at a slower tempo in the city and the bourgeois parties, somewhat weakened, were late in re-entering political life. At its first meetings the National Committee of Budapest appointed the mayor of the capital city, the High Commissioner of police and the Chairman of the Municipal Board of Public Works, which was an important factor in the work of reconstruction. The Committee concentrated on the organization of supplies, the reconstruction of the public administration and public utilities, and production in general; it appointed managers or heads in abandoned offices, institutions and enterprises, exerted itself to get the educational and health facilities of the city going again, and to stimulate the organs of intellectual life. On the national scale, the Committee initiated the establishment of people’s courts for the trial of war criminals, organized the process of denazification of public and private employees, and took part in the liquidation of organizations and associations of a fascist nature, etc. The first mayor of the liberated capital was János Csorba, a member of the Smallholders’ Party; the deputy mayors were representatives of the different workers’ parties. The new city leadership set up a fresh administration, under the direction of the National Committee of Budapest, with the assistance of the democratic parties, and—not least — the selfsacrificing labour of the population of Budapest. Since the bridges had been destroyed, and the two cities cut off from each other, for a certain time there were separate administrative bodies functioning in Buda and Pest. Between February and April the dead lying in the streets and squares were buried, and the epidemic and famine threatening the city averted. Rubble was cleared and roads repaired, the public transport and street traffic re-started. Pontoon-bridges built by the Soviet Army once again connected the two parts of the city. To overcome the shortage of food, which presented the gravest anxiety, the Hungarian Communist Party, together with the Provisional National Government, organized a nation-wide collection of food and the Soviet Army put transport on a considerable scale at the disposal of the starving capital. On the recommendation of the Hungarian Communist Party, the Provisional National Government appointed the Communist Zoltán Vas as Plenipotentiary Public Supply Commissioner of Budapest. On 4th April 1945 the last foot of Hungarian earth was liberated, and in mid-April the Provisional National Government and the National Assembly moved to Budapest. As reconstruction progressed throughout the capital and the country at large, transport communications and postal traffic were gradually restored and connections between the dif-59
