Századok – 2011

TANULMÁNYOK - Gyarmati György: Hadigazdasági túlterhelés, rejtőzködő transzformációs veszteség és a személyi kultusz. A magyarországi „új szakaszt" megelőző rendszerválság 1952/53 fordulóján I/75

116 GYARMATI GYÖRGY into an off-balance spiral, which went hand in hand with the deterioration of the general living conditions of the population. It was thus in the midst of a double transmission of the military industry, seriously overloaded by the trajectory forced upon the country by the Cold War, that all branches of the economy as well as all layers of the socio-cultural infrastructure were being transformed according to the model regarded as adequate by the new politico-ideological regime. The doubling of the war indemnities in the course of their payment, coupled with the twin („Yugoslav" and „Corean") pressure exerted by the Cold War on the resources of the country, exceeded in themselves the economic potential that could be required from Hungary under the prevailing conditions. To all this was added what can be termed as transformational deficit, itself containig several elements, which was not calculated at that time, but was certainly generated by the establishment of the regime. This term is introduced by the present study into the historiography of the period as a hitherto not used concept. The conclusion, therefore, is that it was the two parallel programs of a forced development of the military industry, carried out under the pressure of discharging the post-war indemnities, completed by the elements of the so-called transformational deficit, which had resulted by 1952/53 in an almost complete breakdown of the the country's politico-economic system. In this sense, the death of Stalin merely concealed the contemporaiy crisis of the Hungarian regime, and it was in the course of reassessing the state of affaire of the Soviet empire that the new leadership at Moscow, upon the basis of information that had been already available, realised the problem. They regarded it as so serious that they immediately initiated a direct „crisis management". The public verion of the latter was the proclamation of the „new phase" in Hungary, with the appointment of Imre Nagy as prime minister. All this, however, calls for a reassessment of the Hungarian version of what is generally referred to as personal cult in the countries of the Soviet block. This work has already been under way in the last two centuries, and the present study aims to develop on the themes discussed in the scholarly discourse.