ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: A Tale of Two Towers: the Karl Marx University of Economics and the Institute of Economics of the Academy in Hungary during the 1950-60’s
Author: Madarasz Aladar
After the radical sovietization of economic science and education following the communist takeover in 1947-48, the newly established Karl Marx University of Economics became a stronghold of Marxist political economy with newly recruited staff, often lacking any proper academic qualifications. In one respect the Hungarian communist leadership „deviated” from the Soviet pattern, while a network af academic research institutes was founded in Hungary around 1950, the Party leaders did not want to establish any economic research organisation. This happened only after Stalin’s death as a part of Imre Nagy’s reform programme. Shortly after its foundation the Institute of Economics started to play a central role in criticising the Soviet-type centralised economic mechanism, culminating in the work of Kornai describing the overcentralization of economic administration in socialism. Kornai defended his thesis in September 1956 just before the outbreak of Hungarian revolution in October 1956. After the supression of the revolution the Institute became a target of ideological witch-hunting with the active participation of some professors of the Karl Marx University, who demanded harsh measures against „revisionist tendencies” and their protagonists. The repression was relatively mild but the relations between the two institutions remained bitter until the collapse of the communist system.
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