Author: B lint Magyar
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155513546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ
Post-Communist Mafia State
Author: B lint Magyar
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155513546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155513546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ
Luxury and the Ruling Elite in Socialist Hungary
Author: György Majtényi
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253055954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
After World War II, a new community of elite emerged in Hungary, in spite of the communist principles espoused by the government. In Luxury and the Ruling Elite in Socialist Hungary, György Majtényi allows us a peek inside their affluence. Majtényi exposes the lavish standard of living that the higher echelon enjoyed, complete with pools, Persian rugs, extravagant furniture, servants, and groundskeepers. They shopped in private stores stocked with expensive meats and tropical fruits just for them. They benefited from access to everything from books, telephone lines, and international travel to hunting grounds, soccer games, and even the choicest cemetery plots. But Majtényi also reveals the underbelly of such society, particularly how these privileges were used as a way of maintaining power, initiating or denying entry to party members, and strengthening the very hierarchies that communism promised to abolish. Taking readers on a fascinating and often surprising look inside the manor homes and vacation villas of wealthy post–World War II Hungarians, Majtényi offers fresh insight into the realities of patriarchy, loyalty, gender, and class within the communist regime.
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253055954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
After World War II, a new community of elite emerged in Hungary, in spite of the communist principles espoused by the government. In Luxury and the Ruling Elite in Socialist Hungary, György Majtényi allows us a peek inside their affluence. Majtényi exposes the lavish standard of living that the higher echelon enjoyed, complete with pools, Persian rugs, extravagant furniture, servants, and groundskeepers. They shopped in private stores stocked with expensive meats and tropical fruits just for them. They benefited from access to everything from books, telephone lines, and international travel to hunting grounds, soccer games, and even the choicest cemetery plots. But Majtényi also reveals the underbelly of such society, particularly how these privileges were used as a way of maintaining power, initiating or denying entry to party members, and strengthening the very hierarchies that communism promised to abolish. Taking readers on a fascinating and often surprising look inside the manor homes and vacation villas of wealthy post–World War II Hungarians, Majtényi offers fresh insight into the realities of patriarchy, loyalty, gender, and class within the communist regime.
Everyday Life under Communism and After
Author: Tibor Valuch
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508
Book Description
By providing a survey of consumption and lifestyle in Hungary during the second half of the twentieth century, this book shows how common people lived during and after tumultuous regime changes. After an introduction covering the late 1930s, the study centers on the communist era, and goes on to describe changes in the post-communist period with its legacy of state socialism. Tibor Valuch poses a series of questions. Who could be called rich or poor and how did they live in the various periods? How did living, furnishings, clothing, income, and consumption mirror the structure of the society and its transformations? How could people accommodate their lifestyles to the political and social system? How specific to the regime was consumption after the communist takeover, and how did consumption habits change after the demise of state socialism? The answers, based on micro-histories, statistical data, population censuses and surveys help to understand the complexities of daily life, not only in Hungary, but also in other communist regimes in east-central Europe, with insights on their antecedents and afterlives.
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508
Book Description
By providing a survey of consumption and lifestyle in Hungary during the second half of the twentieth century, this book shows how common people lived during and after tumultuous regime changes. After an introduction covering the late 1930s, the study centers on the communist era, and goes on to describe changes in the post-communist period with its legacy of state socialism. Tibor Valuch poses a series of questions. Who could be called rich or poor and how did they live in the various periods? How did living, furnishings, clothing, income, and consumption mirror the structure of the society and its transformations? How could people accommodate their lifestyles to the political and social system? How specific to the regime was consumption after the communist takeover, and how did consumption habits change after the demise of state socialism? The answers, based on micro-histories, statistical data, population censuses and surveys help to understand the complexities of daily life, not only in Hungary, but also in other communist regimes in east-central Europe, with insights on their antecedents and afterlives.
Hungarian Communism Today
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
Hungarian Communism Today
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Subcommittee on European Affairs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
Revolution from Within
Author: Patrick H. O'Neil
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Hungary
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
An analysis of the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe. The exceptional case of Hungary is used to support theoretical concepts regarding the transition. The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party and the Hungarian Communist Party are examined in decline, along with the system which replaced them.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Hungary
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
An analysis of the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe. The exceptional case of Hungary is used to support theoretical concepts regarding the transition. The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party and the Hungarian Communist Party are examined in decline, along with the system which replaced them.
Children of Communism
Author: Sándor Horváth
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253059704
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
As the sun set on June 8, 1969, a group of teenagers gathered near a massive tree in a main square of Budapest to mourn the untimely death of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. By the end of the evening, sirens blared, teens were interrogated, and the myth of the most notorious juvenile gang in Budapest was born. The origin of the Great Tree Gang became an elaborately cultivated morality tale of the dangers posed by allegedly rebellious youths to the conformity of communist communities. In time, governments across Cold War Europe manufactured similar stories about the threats posed by groups of unruly adolescents. In Children of Communism, Sándor Horváth explores this youth counterculture in the Eastern Bloc, how young people there imagined the West, and why this generation proved so crucial to communist identity politics. He not only reveals how communism shaped youth culture, but also how young people shaped official policy. A fascinating read on the power of youth protest, Children of Communism shows what life was like for the first generation to have been born under communism and how one evening spent grieving rock and roll under a tree forever changed lives.
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253059704
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
As the sun set on June 8, 1969, a group of teenagers gathered near a massive tree in a main square of Budapest to mourn the untimely death of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. By the end of the evening, sirens blared, teens were interrogated, and the myth of the most notorious juvenile gang in Budapest was born. The origin of the Great Tree Gang became an elaborately cultivated morality tale of the dangers posed by allegedly rebellious youths to the conformity of communist communities. In time, governments across Cold War Europe manufactured similar stories about the threats posed by groups of unruly adolescents. In Children of Communism, Sándor Horváth explores this youth counterculture in the Eastern Bloc, how young people there imagined the West, and why this generation proved so crucial to communist identity politics. He not only reveals how communism shaped youth culture, but also how young people shaped official policy. A fascinating read on the power of youth protest, Children of Communism shows what life was like for the first generation to have been born under communism and how one evening spent grieving rock and roll under a tree forever changed lives.
Goulash and Solidarity
Author: Zsuzsanna Clark
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781839450709
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
'When people ask me what it was like growing up in Hungary in the 1970s and 80s, most people expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state. They are invariably disappointed when I tell them that the reality was quite different and that communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact rather a good place to live'. From my 'Goulash and Solidarity' article, The Guardian, 2nd November 2002. My book presents a detailed, nuanced account of what everyday life was really like behind the 'Iron Curtain', written from a working-class perspective. How we lived, worked, loved, played and laughed (and at times suffered too). After my original Guardian article, (which was featured on the front cover of The Week magazine as one of the 'Best British Articles') was published I received a large number of emails and letters from readers from all over the world who had given up hope that such an honest, balanced account would ever be published. The dominant view we have of countries behind the 'Iron Curtain' is a very negative one, because the accounts tend to be written by those fiercely hostile to communism. But there is another side to the story, at least in relation to my country, Hungary. Thirty years on from the seismic political changes of the autumn of 1989, which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in eastern Europe, my book, based on first-hand experience, provides a refreshing, alternative view to the one we have read or heard so many times before. My aim in writing 'Goulash and Solidarity' is to inform you, to entertain you, and I hope, surprise you.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781839450709
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
'When people ask me what it was like growing up in Hungary in the 1970s and 80s, most people expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state. They are invariably disappointed when I tell them that the reality was quite different and that communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact rather a good place to live'. From my 'Goulash and Solidarity' article, The Guardian, 2nd November 2002. My book presents a detailed, nuanced account of what everyday life was really like behind the 'Iron Curtain', written from a working-class perspective. How we lived, worked, loved, played and laughed (and at times suffered too). After my original Guardian article, (which was featured on the front cover of The Week magazine as one of the 'Best British Articles') was published I received a large number of emails and letters from readers from all over the world who had given up hope that such an honest, balanced account would ever be published. The dominant view we have of countries behind the 'Iron Curtain' is a very negative one, because the accounts tend to be written by those fiercely hostile to communism. But there is another side to the story, at least in relation to my country, Hungary. Thirty years on from the seismic political changes of the autumn of 1989, which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in eastern Europe, my book, based on first-hand experience, provides a refreshing, alternative view to the one we have read or heard so many times before. My aim in writing 'Goulash and Solidarity' is to inform you, to entertain you, and I hope, surprise you.
Agents of Moscow
Author: Martin Mevius
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199274614
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
After 1945, state patriotism of communist regimes in Eastern Europe was characterized by the widespread use of national symbols. This study examines the origins of this socialist patriotism and how it had become the self image of party and state by 1953.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199274614
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
After 1945, state patriotism of communist regimes in Eastern Europe was characterized by the widespread use of national symbols. This study examines the origins of this socialist patriotism and how it had become the self image of party and state by 1953.
A Good Comrade
Author: Roger Gough
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
"Traitor and reformer, persecutor and victim - Janos Kadar, Hungary's Communist leader from 1956 to 1988, had one of the most dramatic and influential political careers of the twentieth century. From poverty to power and then from prison back to power, Kadar played a leading role in both the rise and the ultimate collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe." "In the first English biography of Kadar since his death, Roger Gough analyses the scope and limits of reform in Kadar's Hungary, showing how the failure of his policies contributed to the collapse of European Communism. Gough leads the reader through the world of underground political activism, Stalinist Hungary and the turbulent days of revolution, deftly illuminating the man at the centre of the storm." "After siding with the Soviet Union and overseeing the brutal suppression of his country's revolution, Kadar transformed his position to win domestic and international respect through political concessions, attempts at economic reform and a gradual opening to the West. But when the prosperity of 'goulash communism' proved illusory and foreign debt mounted, Kadar was ousted - ending his political career haunted by the long-suppressed crimes of his past." "Half a century after Kadar's betrayal of the 1956 revolution captured the world's attention, Gough paints a vivid portrait of the withdrawn, austere and tenacious man who dominated Hungarian political life for three decades. This is the dramatic story of an ambiguous yet powerful personality who left his mark not just on Hungary but also on Europe and international history of Communism."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
"Traitor and reformer, persecutor and victim - Janos Kadar, Hungary's Communist leader from 1956 to 1988, had one of the most dramatic and influential political careers of the twentieth century. From poverty to power and then from prison back to power, Kadar played a leading role in both the rise and the ultimate collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe." "In the first English biography of Kadar since his death, Roger Gough analyses the scope and limits of reform in Kadar's Hungary, showing how the failure of his policies contributed to the collapse of European Communism. Gough leads the reader through the world of underground political activism, Stalinist Hungary and the turbulent days of revolution, deftly illuminating the man at the centre of the storm." "After siding with the Soviet Union and overseeing the brutal suppression of his country's revolution, Kadar transformed his position to win domestic and international respect through political concessions, attempts at economic reform and a gradual opening to the West. But when the prosperity of 'goulash communism' proved illusory and foreign debt mounted, Kadar was ousted - ending his political career haunted by the long-suppressed crimes of his past." "Half a century after Kadar's betrayal of the 1956 revolution captured the world's attention, Gough paints a vivid portrait of the withdrawn, austere and tenacious man who dominated Hungarian political life for three decades. This is the dramatic story of an ambiguous yet powerful personality who left his mark not just on Hungary but also on Europe and international history of Communism."--BOOK JACKET.