The chronicle of Eger Tobacco Factory

The cigarette factory

The same thing was true of comrade Gulyás, who was “our best tobacco cutter, but who says that he won’t carry the placard unless the cyclists are also made to carry it”. The attention of the party was drawn to more things besides output and processions. As well as Korean shifts, the organising of workers’ competitions, adult education etc., they also turned their attention to the appraisal of peasants’ labour. We are illuminated on this subject by a document dating from 1950, the minutes of a members’ meeting, in which we are admonished that “As part of our important and urgent task of educating and enlightening the people, we should advise our peasant workers that wheat must be harvested when it reaches its waxy stage, rye just before it is fully ripe, and barley and oats when they turn yellow”. Small wonder that comrade Szkárosi, in other respects such a keen and eager comrade, once permitted himself to burst out that people are not “pairs of Guthmann trousers that can always be pulled up”.

It was during this period that Géza Vendrei was appointed head of the company. 1949 was his first full year in the new job. Vendrei was the son of that same József Vendt who had been the first foreman of the new factory back in the days of Román Boltizár. Géza Vendrei was born in Eger on June 15th 1908.