Political Instructors and the Decline of Communism in Hungary: Apparatus, Nomenclatura and the Issue of Legacy

Árpád Szakolczaia and Ágnes Horváth

British Journal of Political Science, 1991, vol. 21, issue 4, 469-488

Abstract: This article, based on empirical research conducted in Hungary, interprets and assesses some aspects of the revolutionary changes that happened in Eastern Europe in 1990. The lack of distinction made between the apparatus and the nomenclatura represented a serious impediment to the understanding of both the nature and the dissolution of communist power. Some results of a survey conducted among the party apparatus in Budapest in the autumn of 1988 are presented, including an analysis of the professional and family background of political ‘instructors’ and their value preferences, the reconstruction of the type of career path that joining the apparatus represented for an individual, including the function of privileges and constraints; and the stages in the career of the apparatus itself, including its final dissolution. Finally, a distinction is made between two different ‘legacies’ of communism: the salvaging of the nomenclatura and the lasting impact of the earlier activity of the apparatus on all segments of the population. The widespread image of the thaw after a deep freeze is contrasted with that of a vacuum and its dangers.

Date: 1991
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