Table Of ContentViktor Pál
TECHNOLOGY AND
THE ENVIRONMENT
IN STATE-SOCIALIST
HUNGARY
An Economic History
(cid:3)
Technology and the Environment
in State-Socialist Hungary
Viktor Pál
Technology and
the Environment
in State-Socialist
Hungary
An Economic History
Viktor Pál
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
ISBN 978-3-319-63831-7 ISBN 978-3-319-63832-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63832-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017948702
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Photo: FORTEPAN/MORVAY KINGA
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Patrícia and Szilvia
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the many people and institutions who have helped
me to carry on and complete this work. Without my supervisors
this work could not have been finished. Dr. Petri Juuti, Prof. Pertti
Haapala at the University of Tampere and external adviser Prof. Ivan
T. Berend at UCLA supported me with constructive criticism and
kind generosity. My colleagues at the University of Tampere, UCLA,
University of Tallinn, University of Antwerp, WU Vienna University
of Economics and Business, New Europe College in Bucharest, and in
the Network for the Environmental History of Dictatorships and later
in the Interdisciplinary Hub for the Study of the Environment and
Authoritarian Regimes supported me with comments and encourage-
ment.
I also wish to thank various institutions and individuals for their
moral and financial support. My parents and grandparents. The
University of Miskolc and the University of Tampere were outstanding
alma maters. The City of Miskolc, the State of Finland, the Center for
International Mobility in Finland, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish
Academy of Sciences, the Niilo Helander Foundation, the Maa- ja
Vesitekniikan Tuki ry, the Department of History at the University of
vii
viii Acknowledgements
California Los Angeles, the Rector of the University of Tampere, the
Open Society Archives in Budapest and the Visegrad Fund, the City
of Helsinki, the Flemish Community of Belgium and the Center for
Urban History at the University of Antwerp, the Eesti Institute, the
Estonian Institute for the Environment at the University of Tallinn
(KAJAK), Professor Ulrike Plath, the staff and students of the Social
Anthropology program at the Comenius University in Bratislava, the
Republic of Slovakia and its scholarship program, the Scholarship of the
Republic of Austria and the New Europe College in Romania all con-
tributed to my dissertation project on which this booked is based. Most
importantly I thank my family, Szilvia Szatmári and Patrícia Pál for sup-
porting me while I worked on this book.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Notes 11
2 Economy, Technology and the Environment in Europe
and in Hungary, 1800–1945 15
2.1 Industrialization, Urbanization and the Environment
in Western Europe, 1800–1945 15
2.2 Industry, Technology and the Environment in
East-Central Europe, 1800–1914 22
2.3 Industry, Technology and the Environment in
Hungary, 1920–1945 29
Notes 32
3 Economy, Technology and the Environment in Europe
After World War II 37
3.1 Economic Growth in Europe After World War II 37
3.2 Postwar Reconstruction in Western and Central Europe
and Its Environmental Consequences. The Case of
Water Pollution 41
ix
x Contents
3.3 Environmental Problems and Environmental Laws in
Western Europe and the United States After World
War II 45
3.4 Environmental Laws and Environmental Quality in
Germany in the 1960s–1970s 51
Notes 54
4 Stalinist Vision for Economy and Environment in
Hungary in the 1950s 59
4.1 Postwar Reconstruction and Communist Takeovers in
East-Central Europe 59
4.2 Stalinist Economic Policies in East-Central Europe in
the Early 1950s 62
4.3 Stalinist Economic Policies in Hungary in the Early
1950s 69
4.4 The First Five Year Plan and Its Economic and
Environmental Impact in the Valley of the Sajó River 75
Notes 86
5 Economic Reforms and Environmental Protection in
Hungary the 1960s 93
5.1 Economic Reform Ideas in Hungary in the 1950s 93
5.2 Extensive Development and Environmental Pollution
in Hungary in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s 97
Notes 117
6 Technological Reform and Environmental Performance
in Hungary in the 1960s 127
6.1 The Rise of Environmentalism in West Germany in
the 1960s–1970s 127
6.2 The Economical Shift in Hungary in the 1960s–1970s 134
6.3 The Economical Shift and the Energy Shift in the
Borsod Basin in the 1960s–1970s 141
6.4 The Environmental Impact of the Economical Shift
and the Energy Shift in Hungary in the 1960s–1970s 151
Notes 156
Contents xi
7 Capacity Building in Environmental Services and the
Environmental Shift in Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s 165
7.1 Reform of the Pollution Tax System in Hungary After
1969 165
7.2 The Environmental Shift in Hungary in the 1970s 169
7.3 The Technological Impact of the Environmental Shift 173
Notes 177
8 Economic Stagnation and Failed Environmental Reform
in the 1970s 181
8.1 Limits of the Environmental Shift During the
Economic Stagnation of the 1970s 181
8.2 Limits of the Environmental Shift During the
Economic Stagnation of the Early 1980s 193
Notes 200
9 The Environmental Movement and Political Opposition
in the 1980s 207
9.1 From the Environmental Shift to the Ecological Turn 207
9.2 The Ecological Turn 213
9.3 Mass Environmentalism and the End of Communism 221
Notes 225
10 Epilogue 229
Notes 232
Bibliography 233
Index 247
