Goulash Communism
These reforms fostered a sense of well-being and relative cultural freedom in Hungary, giving it the reputation of being "the happiest barracks"[2] of the Eastern Bloc during the 1960s to the 1970s.
With elements of regulated market economics as well as an improved human rights record, it represented a quiet reform and deviation from the Stalinist principles applied to Hungary in the previous decade.
Goulash is made with an assortment of dissimilar ingredients; here, it represents how Hungarian communism became a mixed ideology, no longer strictly adhering to the Marxist–Leninist interpretations of the prior decade.
While the quick change to industry brought an initial surge of the economy, it ultimately left many people with worse living conditions.
[8] After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union supported a change in leadership in Hungary and recommended Imre Nagy for the position of Prime Minister.
[10] The Soviet Union reacted with military force and extinguished the uprising, while also changing the command of the state to János Kádár as general secretary in 1956.
A decade later he rejoined the party in 1941 but went into hiding until the end of World War II, when Hungary was turned communist after the occupation of the Soviet Red Army, by the "blue-ballot" elections.
He started openly practicing communism and worked throughout Hungary's new communist government until he was arrested for the third time for allegedly being a "secret agent"[11] against the party.
[11] Goulash Communism showed a far greater concern for public opinion and an increased focus on the present well-being of the citizens than had been the case in the period preceding 1956.
"[12] Successive Soviet leaderships rejected this interpretation, Nikita Khrushchev's response to Hungary in 1956 and Leonid Brezhnev's to Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the resulting Brezhnev Doctrine stating that though "each socialist country had the right to determine the concrete form of its development along the path of socialism by taking account of the specific nature of their national conditions... the Soviet Union would not tolerate deviation from the principles of socialism and the restoration of capitalism".
Under Kádár, the party gradually curbed some of the excesses of the secret police (the Ministry of Internal Affairs III replaced the State Protection Authority, for example) and repealed most of the restrictions on expression and movement enacted under Rákosi.
[14] In 1966, the Central Committee approved the "New Economic Mechanism" which eased foreign trade restrictions, gave limited freedom to the workings of the market, and allowed a few small businesses to operate in the services sector.
[14] Additionally, rather than enforcing the system of compulsory crop deliveries and of workdays credit the collectivizers used monthly cash wages.
[20] In the aftermath, Kádár made clear his break from the Rákosi government and sought to improve living conditions through reform.
This oil crisis led to price increases of basic commodities across Hungary, and in turn, by 1985, the standard of living started decreasing for the first time since the introduction of Goulash Communism.
Their demand was not easily met, and the phrase "Kicsi vagy kocsi" was used to express frustration (it means "[the choice between] a baby and a car").
As a result of being a comparatively well-off country in the Eastern bloc, Hungary was the destination for tourists from other communist nations for whom visits to the West were much more difficult.
