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

red star on the Soviet model. The first statute of 1950 concerned local councils. In contrast with the former autonomy of local authorities, the new councils (soviet = council) were operated as local organs of centralised state power. Public life and the workplace were pervaded with a kind of artificial competitive spirit. This was more genuine in the feverish, enthusiastic period of reconstruction after 1945, which was followed by the centenary competitiveness and then the soviet Stahanov movement: for the most part, physical workers were compelled to offer competitions that would improve their productivity. The most successful, champion workers were popularised on workplace notice boards, their excess productivity manipulated from 100% to 1,000%. A disproportionate development took place in Hungarian heavy industry and militarization in the name of the Soviet Union's vision of a Third World War. The resources required for this were primarily created by forcing the population to undertake burdens beyond their means (compulsory Peace-Loan bonds) and at the expense of agriculture (system of delivery obligations). The social model for industrialisation was supplied by the Soviet Union, which in the 1930s had withdrawn into itself in order to establish an independent heavy industry base as well as the mining and metallurgy to service it. Hungary, poor in raw materials, was made only more economically dependent by the investments demanded by metallurgy and heavy industry, unable to recover from this one-sidedness - that it would become the "country of iron and steel" - even after 50 years. The largest and most symbolic investment of the first five-year