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

Popularisation of the new currency, 1946 the administration and to reduce the number of administrative officials. The workplace "screening committees" set up after the war had already identified Arrow-Cross and German sympathisers. The 62,000 individuals with conservative inclinations who lost their jobs between May and October, 1946 proved to be enemies of the executive power that was being drawn ever leftward. B-listing was clamoured for by the Left Bloc parties (HCP, SDP, NPP) and the Trade Union advocates, while the Smallholders - fearing that their own party followers would be affected - called for proportion: a sharing out of leading jobs among the state organs, state administration and the police according to the results of the earlier Assembly election. In the summer of 1946, László Rajk, Minister of the Interior (HCP) dissolved some 1,500 social societies and youth organisations on the basis of the specifications laid down by the ACC, among them the National Council of the Catholic Boys' Association. This step signalled the beginning of a paralysis of voluntary civil activities and the liquidation of a colourful palette of social thought. At the same time the National Union of Popular Colleges (NÉKOSZ) was formed, which, following the noble traditions of the Györffy College organised during the war, set as its objective the provision of further educational assistance for poor young peasants and workers. By the time of its prohibition at the end of 1949, nearly 10,000 secondary school children and college and university students had gone through the college network, raising a new intelligentsia "out of the people" for a new democracy.