Class Struggle and Socialist Construction: The Hungarian Paradox

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the semantics of ideology and political practice under the pressure of socio-economic change in Hungary of the early 1960s, especially 1962-63. The events of 1956 forced the Communist Party elite to recognize the imperative need for internal social change and for control over its dynamics. Manipulation of social forces and ideological currents became a day-to-day concern as soon as it was realized that the political system must rely to an increasing extent upon the introduction of policies which induced support for the system itself—a need undoubtedly arising out of the social transformation that accompanies a developing and modernizing industrial society.

Modernity and the embedding of economic expansion

“…These revolutions were initiated by elements within Eastern Europe's increasingly de-proletarianized Communist Partiesthose elements that were best positioned to take advantage of marketization and capitalist forms of ownership and who therefore sought to accelerate the conversion of Eastern European economies to market systems (see, e.g. Taborsky, 1961: 32-7;von Lazar, 1966, Tismeneanu, 1989: 31, and Lipski, 1989-1990. The revolutions produced a further decline in living standards and societies became much more visibly stratified.…”