Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)

Room 20. The Rise and Fall of Communism (1945-1990). István Ihász

year by year strait-jacketed by its inability to renew itself. The attention of apolitical, inwardlyturning society was turned to an anti-imperialist solidarity with Cuba, Vietnam and the Third World in general. In Hungary a Khrushchevite model State was created; a Kádárite "product" of the 20

th Congress that, in denying degeneration into a personality cult and mass terror, announced a democracy that differed in its "socialist" adjective. A stability in domestic policy constructed upon national loyalty of the earlier threatened population as well as the international situation made it possible for direct political control to partly withdraw from the areas of the economy, culture and private life. In this way, from the mid-60s, Hungary was char- M acterised by a slow, but continual economic development and improvement in the standard of living that were in harmony with international tendencies. In order to eliminate the dearth of dwellings, in 1960 the first 15-year home development plan was announced that would oversee the construction of one-million homes. In reality 200,000 new state-(council-)owned apartments were The graphics artist Sándor Légrády was commissioned to design the new crest of the People's Republic, which work he carried out between December 1956 and March 1957 under strict house arrest: this is the version accepted by Parliament structed in the 1960s. From 1965 the building industry transformed into a préfabrication and fitting industry and the construction of prefabricated high-rise flats began, the burdens of which exceeded economic bounds. To offset this what was known as cooperative ownership was introduced, and so, by making use of the financial resources of those on the accommodation list and by guaranteeing them long-term loans, another 200,000 concrete prefab apartments were made over. A further 600,000 self-financed family homes were built, primarily in the provinces (the villages and small market towns), from building loans and through solidarity among friends and relatives. The first domestic television sets date from 1958: in 1960 the number of license-payers passed the 100,000 mark, and by 1973 had reached 2.2 million. Its mass spread fundamentally altered the habits of cultural consumerism: the amount of time spent upon reading, listening to the radio and cinema-going dropped steadily. From 1980 Hungary joined the ranks of colour-TV manu-