Język Polski
English
Русский
Italiano
Français (France)
Deutsch
Українська
Čeština
Reform in Exchange for Credit? Hungary and the International Financial Institutions in the 1980s. Reformy w zamian za pożyczkę? Węgry i międzynarodowe instytucje finansowe w latach osiemdziesiątych XX w.
Pál Germuska
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0097-5778
Office of the Committee of National Remembrance, Budapest, Hungary
BioPÁL GERMUSKA – Historian and museologist, Dr. habil. History, academic advisor at the Office of the Committee of National Remembrance in Budapest, Hungary. He holds his Doctor of Science (DSc) degree from Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is a historian with interest in history of military industry, East-West economic relations, and the industrial and economic policy of the postwar period. Author of 7 books and over seventy scientific articles, including: Unified Military Industries of the Soviet Bloc: Hungary and the Division of Labor in Military Production. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books, 2015; “Attraction and Repulsion: Hungary and European Integration,” in: European Socialist Regimes’ Fateful Engagement with the West. National Strategies in the Long 1970s., ed. A. Romano and F. Romero, New York, NY: Routledge, 2021; “Balancing between the COMECON and the EEC: Hungarian elite debates on European integration during the long 1970s,” Cold War History 19 (3) (2019); “What Can We Learn from the Business History of Communist Enterprises?,” Enterprise and Society 19 (3) (2018); “Failed Eastern Integration and a Partly Successful Opening up to the West: The Economic Re-orientation of Hungary during the 1970s,” European Review off History 21 (2) (2014); “Socialist Miracle? Hungarian Industrial Development Policy and Economic Growth, 1950–1975,” The Journal of European Economic History 42 (2013); “Military Industry versus Military-related Firms in Socialist Hungary: Disintegration and Integration of Military Production during the 1950s and Early 1960s,” Enterprise and Society 11 (2010); “„Uszy” Kadafiego. Produkcja radiowych urządzeń wywiadowczych na Węgrzech w latach 1965–1985,” Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 1 (14) 2009. Member of editorial board of the journal Hadtörténelmi Közlemények [Review of Military History]. Recipient of distinctions: the President’s Medallion of the Hungarian Republic (2010), Géza Perjés-Award of the Foundation for the Support of Hungarian Military History Research (2011).
Komunizm: system-ludzie-dokumentacja, No. 14 (2025), pages: 15-44
Publication date: 2025-12-31
https://doi.org/10.48261/2299.890X.14.2025.02
PDF
Abstract
Between January 1984 and May 1988, Hungary did not apply for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, but continued to cooperate with the World Bank, which financed industrial restructuring and infrastructure development projects. In 1985–1986, with the assistance of the World Bank, a plan of measures (the so called “Matrix”) covering eleven areas was drawn up, which in many respects served as a guide to the economic reforms of the following years. The bankruptcy law, personal income tax, the reorganisation of the banking system, and the increase in working capital attraction were increasingly pointing outwards from the socialist system. This article shows the role of international financial institutions in shaping these reforms, and the tailoring of the proposed measures to Hungary and their impact on the Hungarian economy.
References
National Archives of Hungary (MNL OL), XIX-A-2-af, József Marjai, Deputy Prime Minister, papers, box no.178, 179, 182, 184, 198; XIX-A-83-b, Proposals and decisions of the Council of Ministers, Minutes No. 967; XXIX-L-1-e, Records of the Secretariat of the National Bank of Hungary, box no. 321; XXIX-L-1-bbb, Records of the Deputy Presidents and Managing Director of the National Bank of Hungary, box no. 2; XXIX-L-1-ccc, Records of the International Development Institutions of the National Bank of Hungary, box 60; P 2379 – Former Ambassador István Horváth to Bonn private papers, box no. 2.
Az 1985. évi június hó 28-ára összehívott Országgyűlés naplója. Hiteles kiadás. V. kötet. 65-83. ülés. (1989.XI.21.–1990.III.14.). Budapest, 1998.
Dokumentumok a Magyar Demokrata Fórum korai történetéből, 1987–1989. Válogatás a lakiteleki Rendszerváltó Archívumból. Ed. András László Riba and Nóra Szekér. Lakitelek: Antológia Kiadó, 2017.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988. Vol. 10: Eastern Europe. Ed. Melissa Jane Taylor. Washington D.C.: US Department of State, 2023. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1981-88v10.
Nagy Ferenc első kormányának minisztertanácsi jegyzőkönyvei A. kötet 1946. Február 5. – 1946. július 19. Ed. László Szűcs. Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 2003.
Antal, Attila. Chicago a Dimitrov téren. Neoliberalizmus és a Kádár-rendszer. Budapest: Napvilág, 2021.
Antalóczy, Katalin, Kinczer, Éva. “Magyarország és a Világbank kapcsolatai.” Európa Fórum 4 (1995).
Baárné, Nyitrai Ilona, et. al, Külső eladósodás és adósságkezelés Magyarországon. Budapest: MNB Inf. Főoszt., 1993.
Bartel, Fritz. “The power of omission: The IMF and the Democratic Transitions in Poland and Hungary.” In New Perspectives on the End of the Cold War: Unexpected Transformations? Ed. Bernhard Blumenau, Jussi M. Hanhimäki, and Barbara Zanchetta. London, New York: Routledge, 2018.
Bartel, Fritz. The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism. Cambridge (Ma): Harvard University Press, 2022.
Benczes, István. “A washingtoni konszenzus és a nemzetközi pénzügyi szervezetek.” Köz-Gazdaság 3 (2016).
Blanton, Thomas S. “U.S. Policy and the Revolutions of 1989.” In Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989. Ed. Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas S. Blanton, and Vladislav M. Zubok. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010.
Bockman, Johanna. Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism. Stanford, Ca: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Borhi, László. Dealing with Dictators: The United States, Hungary, and East Central Europe, 1942–1989. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016.
Botos, János, Botos, Katalin. A Magyar Nemzeti Bank története III. A jegybank útja rendszerváltozástól rendszerváltozásig. Budapest: Presscon Publishing, 2004.
Boughton, James M. Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979–1989. Washington D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 2001.
Csaba, László. “Hungary and the IMF: the Experience of a Cordial Discord.” In Die Rolle der Internationalen Finanzorganistionen in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Ed. Robert Schönfeld. München: Peter Lang, 1996.
Csaba, László. Válság, gazdaság, világ. Adalék Közép-Európa három évtizedes gazdaságtörténetéhez, 1988–2018. Budapest: Central European University, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 2018.
Csaba, László. “Was Market Socialism Ever a Viable Alternative Development Model?” In The Oxford Handbook of Post-Socialist Economies. Ed. Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxford-hb/9780197621509.013.6.
Éber, Márk Áron. “A centrum hitele: A magyar állam külső eladósodásának történetéről.” Fordulat 21 (2014).
Fabry, Adam. “The origins of neoliberalism in late ‘socialist’ Hungary: The case of the Financial Research Institute and ‘Turnabout and Reform.’” Capital & Class 42 (1) (2017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816817692125.
Forestier-Peyrat, Étienne, Ironside, Kristy. “The Communist World of Public Debt (1917–1991): The Failure of a Countermodel?” In A World of Public Debts: Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Ed. Nicolas Barreyre and Nicolas Delalande. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48794-2_13.
Germuska, Pál. “Failed Eastern integration and a partly successful opening up to the West: the economic re-orientation of Hungary during the 1970s.” European Review of History. Revue Européenne d’histoire 21 (2) (2014). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2014.888703.
Gerőcs, Tamás, Pinkasz, András. “The Interdependence of Socialist Hungary’s External and Internal Balances: The Bridge Model and the Consolidation of the Kádár Era.” In State Socialism in Eastern Europe: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Ed. Eszter Bartha, Tamás Krausz, and Bálint Mezei. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22504-8_2.
Honvári, János. “Magyarország IMF-csatlakozásának előtörténete.” Valóság 48 (10) (2005).
Horváth, István, Heltai, András. A magyar–német játszma. Emlékezés és dokumentumok. Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 2015.
Huszár, Tibor. “Kádár János az 1980-as években.” Múltunk 1 (2003).
Kávássy, János Előd. Nyugati szélben: Adalékok a magyar-amerikai kapcsolatok 1989-es történetéhez; gondolatok a kelet-európai és a magyar rendszerváltáshoz. Lakitelek: Antológia Kiadó, 2015.
Kuczynski, Pedro-Pablo. “Setting the Stage.” In After the Washington Consensus. Restarting Growth and Reform in Latin America. Ed. Pedro-Pablo Kuczynski and John Williamson. Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics Press, Columbia University Press, 2003. https://www.piie.com/publications/chapters_preview/350/1iie3470.pdf.
Lorentzen, Jochen. Opening up Hungary to the World Market External Constraints and Opportunities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
Mong, Attila. Kádár hitele. A magyar államadósság története 1956–1990. Budapest: Libri könyvkiadó, 2012.
Oplatka, András. Németh Miklós – “Mert ez az ország érdeke.” Budapest: Helikon, 2014.
Pulai Miklós – A reformer, az érdekképviselő, az ember. Ed. Támas Halm. Budapest: Magyar Közgazdasági Társaság, 2021.
Rainer, János M. Újratervezés. Szocializmus Magyarországon a 20. században. Budapest: Osiris, 2023.
Romero, Federico. “Socialism Between Détente and Globalisation.” In European Socialist Regimes’ Fateful Engagement with the West: National Strategies in the Long 1970s. Ed. Angela Romano and Federico Romero. London: Routledge, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429340703.
Schmidt-Schweizer, Andreas, Dömötörfi, Tibor. “A magyar-nyugatnémet kapcsolatok dinamikus időszaka: a diplomáciai kapcsolatok felvételétől a határnyitásig, 1973–1989.” Külügyi Szemle 13 (4) (2014.
Szakolczai, Györgi. “A washingtoni konszenzus és ami utána következik.” Külgazdaság 49 (10) (2005).
Tomka, Béla. Austerities and Aspirations: A Comparative History of Growth, Consumption, and Quality of Life in East Central Europe since 1945. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctv16f6cv5.
Tömpe, István. Az elitek árulása. Budapest: Noran Libro Kiadó, 2015.
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Komunizm: system-ludzie-dokumentacja
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
