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

ÁVH Major's epaulette of the two "workers' parties" (the HCP and the weakened SDP) created the single Party, whose communist leaders took over the reins of power (the Hungarian Workers' Party). The aggressive fusion harried the best-known SDP leaders (Károly Peyer, Imre Szélig, Antal Bán) into exile. And with this Hungary openly joined the ranks of Soviet-type communist development and the model of the proletarian dictatorship. In the atmosphere of the approaching Cold War it did not take long to whittle away the remaining small parties, while social organisations were centralised, church schools placed under state supervision (1948), to dissolve the monastic orders (1950), completely nationalise industry and commerce and introduce a planned economy (1948). The still formally existing and appropriately intimidated parties were condensed into the Hungarian Independence Popular Front and at the national assembly elections on May 15, 1949 shared the same roll and political programme. In this the aim of Mátyás Rákosi, secretary-general of the Communist Party and "coalition" deputy prime minister, was the utter elimination of the "allied" parties and the liquidation of the multiparty system. The "election" brought a resounding success to the Popular Front and the Party and the same thing was occur in the following years. With the Popular Front elections of 1949 an all-embracing political will was formally achieved in an enforced one-party system, and official authority introduced a monolithic rule to a politicised economy, to culture and to civilian life in its entirety. The propaganda spread through every organ of Soviet standards commenced with the acceptance of the new Constitution (August 1949), together with the celebration of Stalin's 70

th birthday (December 21) and continued with the introduction of the new Soviet public administration (1950). Apart from the mandatory observation of our new public holidays, the so-called liberation of Spring 1945 (April 4) and the Bolshevik October coup d'état of 1917 (November 7), the August 20 Feast of St. Stephen was transformed into the celebration of the Constitution and new bread, while our major national celebration (the revolutionary tradition of March 15) was demoted to a simple working day. But then May 1 was declared to be Labour Day. The portrayal of a mass of workers marching amid the setting of a forest of flags invokes the megalomaniac representation of.a personality cult, the lack of scale and taste under the uncritical Soviet spell. The figures painted with photographic naturalism on the placards of the workers, peasantry, intelligentsia and soldiers, their faces turned to the light; the nationalised organs; the workers of the institutions of the Party state; the "free" elections; the Party and trade union congresses; the participants in the three-year and then five-year plans all had a talent for stress-