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Psychology and Management of the Workforce in Post-Stalinist Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2019

Tuomas Laine-Frigren
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Abstract

Over recent years, there has been a growing academic interest in the history of psychological disciplines and mental health in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. This article explores psychological sciences and social planning in post-Stalinist Hungary after 1956. The focus is on the psychology of work as a socially- and historically-situated discourse. The article demonstrates how psychologists started to promote their expertise to reform the practices of management and to “humanize” the conditions of work. They suggested practical remedies for everyday problems of worker motivation and social adjustment and introduced concepts from social psychology to improve the state of interpersonal relations at the workplace. The study argues that the workplace was a particular context in which a post-Stalinist reassessment of the government's ideology was acted out. To elaborate this more fully, both published texts and archival materials are analyzed in the framework of the governmentality thesis, as developed by Nikolas Rose. In this context, the concept of the “human factor” crystallized different but reconcilable interests between psychology experts and party politicians.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , Spring 2019 , pp. 103 - 125
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2019 

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64. HU-MNL MK-S 288 f., MSZMP Központi Bizottsága Agitációs és Propaganda Bizottságának (APB) iratai. Jegyzőkönyv 1966. augusztus 3-i üléséről, 1.

65. HU-MNL MK-S 288 f., MSZMP Központi Bizottsága Agitációs és Propaganda Bizottságának (APB) iratai. Jegyzőkönyv 1966. augusztus 3-i üléséről. Javaslat a KB Agitációs és Propaganda Bizottság részére a gazdasági vezetők továbbképzésének alapjául szolgáló tematikára, 8.

66. HU-MNL M-KS 228 f. 904/2 állag/39 ő.e /1967/Társadalomtudományi intézet. Feljegyzés Lakos Elvtárs részére. Megjegyzések a “Vezetési, szervezési ismeretek” c. előadássorozat programjához.

67. For example, in 1967 a Hungarian delegation returning from the GDR reported on the introduction of a “human factor” in the way work was now being planned there. The delegation was convinced that East German achievements in the field of management education were promising, and they suggested that Hungarians should also take heed. See HU-MNL MK-S 288 f., MSZMP Központi Bizottsága Agitációs és Propaganda Osztályának (APO) iratai. 1967, 20. őe. Jelentés az NDK-ban járt pártküldöttség útjáról.

68. “The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Tasks of Soviet Psychology, Soviet Psychology 10, vol.4 (summer 1972), 324–25.”

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70. These exports probably had an ideological and political subtext of promoting western methods in order to undermine socialist institutions. However, this article is not the place for that discussion. See Kott, “The Social Engineering Project,” 137.

71. Czechowicz, “Training of Management Cadres in Poland,” 14.

72. ILO had also been instrumental in getting six-month scholarships for 43 Polish experts, which permitted them to study the art of modern management in the west.

73. Bálint, István & Murányi, Mihály, Munkalélektan műszaki és gazdasági vezetők részére (Budapest, 1973), 1–20Google Scholar. Indeed, there was a real need for management books in Hungarian. As noted by Sandrine Kott, between 1969 and 1971, 1,454 individuals in Hungary attended the courses offered by the Management Centre in Budapest, see Kott, “The Social Engineering Project,” 136.

74. HU-MNL-MK-S 288 f. 904, 2 cs./56 ő.e, 26, 33. According to the report, there were 500 large state enterprises in the country. At the turn of the ’70s, there were psychological laboratories in only 30 of them.

75. Ibid, 3–4, 27, 33. Testifying to the “atomized” nature of work, in 25 of these laboratories psychologists worked alone.

76. Zsille, Zoltán, “Pszichológia az iparban (Riport és tanmese)” Valóság 14, no. 7 (1971), 45Google Scholar.

77. HU-MNL-MK-S 288 f. 904, 2 cs./56 ő.e, 2–4.

78. Ibid., 3.

79. Ibid., 6–8. Only the cases of silicosis and lead poisoning had really decreased in number.

80. Hunyady, György, Pataki, Ferenc & Szilágyi, Ibolya Váriné, eds., Szociálpszichológiai kutatások Magyarországon (Budapest, 1976)Google Scholar.

81. Social psychologist Ferenc Mérei was a pioneer of social psychology and socially oriented (társas) child psychology, but his professional activities extended also to clinical psychology, psychodrama and the psychology of art. He also had a background in communist politics and infighting after the war, culminating in a prison sentence and academic marginalization in 1959.

82. Ferenc Pataki, personal interview, Budapest, September 27, 2013.

83. Sándor Erdősi, “A vezetés néhány szociálpszichológiai feltételének vizsgálati módszere egy vidéki nagyvállalatnál,” in Szociálpszichológiai kutatások Magyarországon, 147–156.

84. Ferenc Mérei, Közösségek rejtett hálózata: a szociometriai értelmezés (Budapest, 1971), 5.

85. István Fehér, “A demokratikus vezetés pszichológiai elemei,” in Szociálpszichológiai kutatások Magyarországon, 218–28.

86. See, for example, “Fourth Congress of the Psychological Society of the USSR,” Soviet Psychology 10, no. 4 (1972), 398–99Google Scholar.

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88. Miklós Kun was oriented towards social psychiatry at the Lipotmező Hospital in Budapest. The “marathon session” was first tested out by a “methodological committee” at the Iron and Steel Workers’ Sports Club in the Angyalföld workers’ district. In this therapy session, group members included a sports school director, teachers, coaches, and assistant coaches.

89. Fehér, “A demokratikus vezetés,” 218.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid., 221.

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid., 223.

95. Reference group referred to the group of people by which the individuals measured and evaluated their own behavior and thinking; and Fehér noted that the participants were actually starting to think “what would I do, if I were they?”

96. Fehér, “A demokratikus vezetés,” 223.

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid., 225.

99. Ibid., 227.

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102. Ibid., 183.

103. Ibid., 178.

104. Tóth, Eszter Zsófia “‘Mindenki . . . úgy ment oda, hogy ez a világcsúcs’ (Munkásnő ország-gyűlési képviselők megéléstörténetei a szocialista időszakról),” Aetas 22, no. 2 (2007), 59Google Scholar. For a sharply critical analysis of “piece-work” in Hungarian factories, see Haraszti, Miklós, A Worker in a Workers’ State (New York, 1977)Google Scholar.

105. Mérei, Közösségek rejtett hálózata, 5. Mérei's book is also remembered for its symbolic value to his followers at the time. Indeed, using the word “hidden” in the title implied the legitimacy of small social circles, which were presumably not being controlled by the regime.

106. Ibid., 204.

107. Rose, Inventing Our Selves, 136–40.

108. See also the psychological guidebook for the managers by Bálint & Murányi, 296–97. The authors enumerate over two dozen personality features suitable for a leader, such as enthusiasm, entrepreneurship, ambition, originality, ability to overcome obstacles, and self-control, but also friendliness, politeness, sense of humor, knowledge of human nature, and “phlegmatic blood temperature” (cool-headedness).

109. See Laine-Frigren, Searching for the Human Factor, 254–94.

110. See also Pléh, Csaba, History and Theories of the Mind (Budapest, 2008), 190Google Scholar.

111. Lindenberger, Thomas, “Creating State Socialist Governance: The Case of the Deutsche Volkspolizei,” in Jarausch, Konrad H., ed., Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (New York, 1999), 139Google Scholar.

112. Ferenc Erős, “Élmény és hálózat. Mérei Ferenc a Magyar szociálpszichológia történetében,” in Mérei Élet-mű, 146–47.