Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
From the Liberation to Greater Budapest (1945-1950)
the capital in the course of the winter, but even so stocks of food were almost entirely exhausted by the spring of 1946, and organized supplies became increasingly unreliable. The first energy of reconstruction fell off, while at the same time speculation and the black market flourished. Finally, with 1st August 1946, one of the greatest successes of the People’s Democracy up to that date came into being, a stable currency, the forint. And stabilization of the currency made it possible for the capital to prepare its first stable budget. Stabilization improved the situation of the population considerably, but it was no magical solution to every difficulty. By the end of 1946 most industrial enterprises in Budapest were functioning again, and the number of those not yet producing was minimal, but the number of workers employed was twenty per cent lower than in 1938. As a result, there was still considerable unemployment in Budapest, and the wages of those in work were around 50 per cent of the 1938 level. All this time the population of the city was growing and in the summer of 1946 was over a million. The rebuilding and repair of houses failed to keep pace with the increase, not even the repair of the roofs had been completed. Although after the stabilization of the currency the city immediately pressed on with the construction of small dwellings that had begun earlier, the results were not of very great importance, and in housing private capital and speculation dominated the scene. The bourgeoisie, aware of power slipping from its grasp, tried to mount attacks against the forint in various ways occasioning rises of prices and shortages of goods in the city. Public safety was jeopardized, and fascist sympathizers resorted to every imaginable device against the people’s regime, from secret plotting to murder in the open street. By the end of 1946 these attempts were already condemned to failure. The sources of the currency stabilization made a turn in the direction of socialism possible. At its third congress in the autumn of 1946 the Hungarian Communist Party categorically advocated this change, and formulated it clearly in its demands. A sharp political battle developed around the implementation of these demands—which included control of production and credit, the banks and foreign trade, and the whole programme of nationalization outlined by the democratic parties, together with the introduction of economic planning—which ended finally in the defeat of the right-wing forces, the exclusion of the right-wing members of the Smallholders’ Party from the Municipal Assembly of Budapest, the formation of a new Committee of Municipal Policy, and a change of mayor. In the spring of 1947 József Bognár, who belonged to the left wing of the Smallholders’ Party, became the mayor of Budapest. His election coincided with the starting of the Three-Year Plan, the goal of which was economic reconstruction and improvement in the workers’ standard of living. The Three-Year Plan of Budapest was a more modest version of the same design. A great deal of rebuilding had still to be done, together with the provision of public utilities for the growing population, and improvements in city transport. The Turning Point In autumn 1947, elections took place in an atmosphere of bitter political conflict. Ten parties took part in the elections; the parties of the Independence Front (the Left-Wing Bloc) formed an electoral alliance against the right-wing parties. The elections ended in the victory of the democratic forces. The Hungarian Communist Party became the largest 64
