Kónya Sándor: A Magyar Tudományos Tanács 1948–1949 (A MTAK közleményei 35. Budapest, 1998)

Összefoglaló — Summary

SUMMARY The Hungarian Science Council The Hungarian Science Council was founded in 1948 at the suggestion of the Hungarian Communist Party. The Council, a 30-member scientific body, was officially placed as a state institution under the auspicies of the prime minister. In practice it was a directly controlled institution of the party that came to power, used for the realisation of the party's policy. This monograph provides a survey of the circumstances at the time of the establishment of the Council, the development of its operative structure, which grew within the confines of the then developing Stalinist form of dictatorship. It highlights those activities which laid the foundation for the scientific policy of the first half of the 1950s. The Hungarian Worker's Party wished to place the science at the service of economic and social progress, and intended to achieve this with a scientific five-year plan, closely tied to the economic five year plan. The elaboration of this plan became the Council's main task. This required the restructuring of research institutions, which entailed the replacement of the old leaders with ones regarded as trustworthy by the new political regime. This volume describes the organisation of personal affairs, the principles and methods employed by that policy, the new direction in international relations, and the restructuring of scientific publishing. Finally it discusses the process which, forced to follow the Soviet model, led to the consolidation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the hungarian Science Council, and thereby to the restructuring of the Academy and abolition of the Council. The history of the Science Council is the preface to that of the Academy of Sciences in the 50's. Fledgling methods of research planning, the concept for developing the network of research institutes, personnel affairs, the principles and methods of international relations, policy on scientific publishing, conceptions for postgraduate research: these were all developed under the aegis of the Science Council. These are the policies that were utilised and further developed by restructured Academy. 194