The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL ARCHIVES OF NATIONAL COLLECTION - Hungarian National Archives by Géza Érszegi and István G. Vass

conditions, elimination of civilian organizations and for examining related areas. The most investigated materials among the documents of the Ministry of Justice are the holdings signed by different ministers, and on the corpuses of the Department Preparing Laws, the Department of Penalty and Petition of Clemency, the Department of People's Tribunal and the Court Section. The Ministry of Public Welfare and its successor, the Ministry of Health dealt with the questions of social security, social politics and administration of health care. We also have to mention the fond of the Ministry of Labour. The supervision of public, higher education, scientific and arts politics were originally the task of the Ministry of Religion and Public Education. After its abolishment between 1949 - 51, a great quantity of documents came into being because of the successors that were born after reorganization of governing bodies and because of the many consolidation and separations. These documents reflect the strict supervision of the state and its instructions as much as the operation of certain institutions and the situations and efforts of professional groups. We have to mention here the fond of State Office for Church Affairs, which was established in 1950 then abolished in 1989. This fond reflects the ecclesiastical policy of the state at the time and how it controlled the ecclesiastical organizations, institutions and people. The National Central Planning Board, which existed between 1947 and 1990, was the most important controlling and executive organization of the economic politics of socialist era. Its written materials are among the most important sources of the history of a controlled economy organized on planned designs. It is also a source of the new system of economic incentives, and of the planned and realized great investments developed in 1960. The main tasks of the Ministry of Finance were the following: preparing the state budget and final accounts, registering and treating state possessions, determining taxation, performing central administrative tasks of duties, collecting returns and imposts and supervision of financial institutions, banks, insurance agencies, public funds and backings. It was also the Ministry of Finance that did the business in connection with financial and economic instructions of peace treaty and for the cases in which Hungarian public and private properties carried abroad. The power of foreign exchange authority was also delivered to it after 1949. Important elements of controlling the Hungarian economy, fulfilling the edicts of the Communist Party and government of this time, used to be the ministries instructing the different economic sections. Changing the plan for agricultural and industrial ownership and the performance of agriculture; these facts are reflected in the documents of National Council of Organizing Estates, National Land Registry and Ministry of Agriculture. Ministry of Agriculture and Food after 1967; Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Trade and Co-operation