Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
From the Liberation to Greater Budapest (1945-1950)
on the one hand, and the politically very active workers, progressive intellectuals and pettybourgeoisie—who formed the great majority of the population of Budapest—and the civil servants that had remained in place on the other. In the first days of reconstruction and the struggle for daily existence these conflicts hardly appeared, but as domestic politics changed they came increasingly to the fore. Conflicts of the Coalition Period At the end of the summer and the beginning of the autumn of 1945, the class struggle, and with it the controversies within the coalition became more acute. In the period between May and September, when preparations for the autumn elections were going on, the most important parties of the coalition drew up their independent programmes at their various congresses and conferences, and decided on their attitudes over the many questions that had arisen after the Liberation. The first test of party strengths after the Liberation took place in the elections of 7th October for the Municipal Legislative Assembly of Budapest. At these elections the two workers’ parties presented a single list, under the name of United Workers’ Front, in the hope of winning a majority of the votes. This hope was not fulfilled, but a substantial 43 per cent of the votes were cast for their list. The Independent Smallholders’ Party, which took part in elections in the capital for the first time, received 50.2 per cent of the votes, an absolute majority. In the newly elected Municipal Legislative Assembly the Smallholders’ Party had 121 seats, the two workers’ parties 103, the Bourgeois Democratic Party 9, the National Peasant Party 5 and the Radical Party 2. The election reflected the increased political activity of the post-Liberation period. The electoral law passed in September 1945 was based on a very broad recognition of democratic rights. Under the new law, 72.8 per cent of Budapest’s population possessed the vote, and 91.2 per cent of them used it. (In 1935, at the last municipal elections of the counterrevolutionary era, only 27.9 per cent of the capitals’ population had the vote, and only 76.9 per cent of them used it.) The result of the municipal elections demonstrated that in spite of the twenty-five-year rule of the counter-revolutionary regime the workers’ parties enjoyed a considerable influence in the capital, including districts not inhabited by workers. It was also demonstrated at the same time that the Independent Smallholders—who called themselves emphatically the party of the Hungarian peasants—as far as the capital was concerned enjoyed the support of the great bourgeoisie, of the former middle classes, the professional class and state employees, as well as the mass of the petty-bourgeoisie. They were joined by all the antisocialist elements, from former supporters of the Arrow-Cross and the Christian Party, through the supporters of the pre-war Government parties to some sections of more liberal circles. The overtly bourgeois parties—the Bourgeois Democratic Party and the Radical Party—which had formerly enjoyed considerable influence in the capital, played a completely subordinate role as a characteristic result of the massive shift to the Smallholders’ Party. The results of the national elections to Parliament held at the beginning of November were very similar. Consequent on the elections, the position of mayor was taken over by a Smallholder 61
