Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
From the Liberation to Greater Budapest (1945-1950)
party in the country and the capital, and the leading party in the newly-elected Parliament. The number of votes cast for the Social Democrats declined, the Independent Smallholders’ Party dwindled, and the National Peasant Party increased its number of seats. In the final result the four coalition parties obtained 60.8 per cent of the votes. The opposition parties, with the support of the capitalists, the clerical reaction and a variety of antagonistic elements carried approximately 30 per cent of the votes and the balance went to other small parties. The vote for former bourgeois parties, the Radicals and the Bourgeois Democrats, was insignificant. After the elections there was a regrouping of forces within the coalition. The right-wing forces suffered a further defeat in both Parliament and in the Municipal Assembly, and the coalition shifted to the left. In the winter of 1947-48 the pace of development of the people’s regime accelerated, and the merger of the two workers’ parties became increasingly desirable. Within the Social Democratic Party the electoral defeat sharpened internal controversies; the decision whether or not to continue the campaign for economic planning, the nationalization of the banks, and the victory of socialism could no longer be postponed. The struggle finally ended in the victory of the left, to which the municipal leadership of the Social Democratic Party greatly contributed. The unification of the two parties had an encouraging effect on socialist progress in Hungary. In 1948 factories employing more than one hundred workers were nationalized. Taken together with earlier measures of nationalization, this step gave the socialist sector a predominant position in the Hungarian economy. The nationalization of factories greatly stimulated the class consciousness and political activity of the Budapest workers. Managers coming from the working class were placed in control of half the nationalized enterprises, and considerable numbers of workers were given leading positions in other fields of the economy, in the administration and in various domains of cultural life. In the Municipal Assembly the coalition continued to function, but the representatives of the workers now took a dominating position in it, and overtly right-wing parties and their leaders were expelled from the Municipal Assembly. More and more Budapest became the genuinely socialist capital of socialist Hungary. In the course of the years 1948 and 1949 the achievements of the Three-Year Plan were begun to make themselves felt in an improved standard of living. The 1948 level of industrial productivity in Budapest caught up with the figures for 1938, and in 1949 surpassed them by 25 per cent; employment was 12 per cent higher than before the war. In Budapest water, gas and electricity supplies were normalized, and began to be extended to formerly neglected districts on the outskirts. The reconstruction of public transport was completed, in 1949 almost twice as many passengers as in 1941 were carried by the trams. The integration of Pest and Buda was further strengthened by the rebuilding of the Margaret Bridge, and in 1948 the Chain Bridge as well. The repair of war-damaged houses was completed in the city, and a modest programme of new housing begun, mainly in working-class districts. What amounted to a revolution in the health services was initiated. The success in reconstruction, an organized economy, and growing opportunities for employment sent the birthrate soaring.The number of marriages and live births increased considerably; the mortality rate in general and infant mortality in particular went down. In the summer of 1948 there were sharp conflicts with the clerical reaction, which ended successfully in the severance of the church from education. In Budapest, the municipality took over responsi65
