Milán Pap | University of Public Service (original) (raw)

Books by Milán Pap

Papers by Milán Pap

A párttag élete. Személyes életvitel mint propagandaforrás a Pártélet 1956-os számaiban, 2023

The launch of the largest-circulation party magazine of the Kádár era, Pártélet (Party Life), can... more The launch of the largest-circulation party magazine of the Kádár era, Pártélet (Party Life), can be traced back to the end of 1955. The Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers’ Party (MDP), established the journal by merging Pártépítés (Party Building) and Propagandista, upon the joint proposal from the Agitation and Propaganda Department and the Party and Mass Organizations Department. The editorial board of Pártélet began its operation at the beginning of 1956, placing significant emphasis on the theoretical and practical aspects of propaganda. Primarily, it served to prepare party members for propaganda work both within the party and in various segments of society. The archives of the editorial board from 1956 preserve letters in which party members and non-affiliated private individuals requested solutions to their problems from the editors. Many of these letters were reactions to published articles that truly delved into issues related to party life, such as the morality of party members, communist lifestyle, or the coherence of Marxist–Leninist ideas. Some of these letters were used in Pártélet to provide guidance about communist conduct and values. For example: Can a party member have a church wedding if the future mother-in law insists? Can a party member participate in a funeral celebrated by a religious figure? Should delegates at party meetings stand or sit during the Internationale? Party propaganda sought to answer these questions during a period when the process of destalinization challenged the direction and the future of the party. The study aims to reconstruct the procedures of party propaganda, including those letters that were not published but the editorial board felt the need to respond to the senders.

My study analyzes the cult and propaganda of the Soviet 'liberation' of Hungary, focusing on poli... more My study analyzes the cult and propaganda of the Soviet 'liberation' of Hungary, focusing on political commemoration in Budapest. Official commemoration and memory politics in Budapest were a crucial part of the post-war communist identification project. I analyze the evolution of the "liberation" memory in Budapest in relation to three distinct historical-developmental phases of Hungarian socialism, commemorating three anniversaries (1950, 1970, and 1985): the establishment of a public space of remembrance, the formation of a local memory of the siege, and the local mobilization of the masses to commemorate the Soviet "liberation." Although the celebration of April 4 was a tradition, at least at the official level, the memory of the "liberation" was saturated with overlapping contents in the different historical phases of Hungarian socialism. The ideological content of April 4 increasingly changed from a celebration of the Soviet military victory to an evocation of the social development of Hungarian socialism.

In the late 1950s, the concept of socialist patriotism in Hungary was reformulated as a basic pol... more In the late 1950s, the concept of socialist patriotism in Hungary was reformulated as a basic political concept in the ideology and propaganda of state socialism. The definite appropriation of Leninist contraposition of socialist patriotism and bourgeois nationalism became paramount in the second half of the 1950s because of the nationalist sentiments of the 1956 revolution. I trace the history of the concept of socialist patriotism in the 1960s and 1970s in socialist Hungary. During this period, socialist patriotism served as a slightly undetermined, yet didactic counterconcept to set against ‘bourgeois nationalism’ which was characterised as a xenophobic sense of nation. From the late 1960s, the doctrine of socialist patriotism confronted a new ideological enemy: supra-nationalism or cosmopolitanism. In the mid-1970s, a new ideological equilibrium was elaborated in Hungary between socialist patriotism and proletarian internationalism, which served the economic and political integration of the Eastern bloc countries. In this sense, socialist patriotism was meant to express a link with socialist political order, its achievements and its institutions, in contrast to the ethnic character and revanchist tendencies of nationalism.

Socialist democracy appeared in the theory of democracy as an eminently non-western form of democ... more Socialist democracy appeared in the theory of democracy as an eminently non-western form of democracy in the period of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The concept of socialist democracy based on the theses that can differentiate socialist democracy from liberal or parliamentarian democracy: (1) the unity of the power of the proletariat, led by its vanguard political force of the communists, and (2) the setting of the framework of democratic decision-making in the field of labor. Socialist democracy was indeed a form of directed democracy beyond that it had systemic aspirations to create an alternative socioeconomic model. This article aims to trace the historical-semantic formation of socialist democracy and discuss its main institutions in the years of post-totalitarian socialist Hungary between 1956 and 1989. What is remarkable in the case of Hungary is that the development of socialist democracy was accompanied by economic reforms to the planned economy from the first half of the 1960s. Thus, socialist democracy focused on the democratization and institutional system of the workplace, mainly as factory democracy and cooperative democracy. With the liberalization and capitalization of socialist economy in the eighties, however, these forms failed to manage the problems of economic incentives and social atomization.

In: 1971- Egy tipikus kádári év? Szerk.: Papp István. ÁBTL-Kronosz, 2022.

In: Klasszikus és modern republikanizmusok. Eszmetörténeti tanulmányok. Szerk.: Nagy Ágoston - Pa... more In: Klasszikus és modern republikanizmusok. Eszmetörténeti tanulmányok. Szerk.: Nagy Ágoston - Pap Milán. Ráció, Budapest, 2021

In: A népi gondolat a XX. században. Szerk.: Novák Attila-Pap Milán. Századvég, Budapest, 2022.

In: A fogalomtörténet Koselleck után. A politikai nyelv kutatásának kortárs módszertana és gyakor... more In: A fogalomtörténet Koselleck után. A politikai nyelv kutatásának kortárs módszertana és gyakorlata. NKE, Budapest, 2016.

In: Barna Attila (szerk.)Trianon 100. Tanulmányok a békeszerződés centenáriumára. Ludovika Egyet... more In: Barna Attila (szerk.)Trianon 100. Tanulmányok a békeszerződés centenáriumára. Ludovika Egyetemi Kiadó, Bp.

The New Economic Mechanism, launched in 1968, was a unique enterprise of state-socialism in the K... more The New Economic Mechanism, launched in 1968, was a unique enterprise of state-socialism in the Kádár era. The
introduction of the economic reform required years of preparation not only in the economy but also in communist
propaganda. In this propaganda work, guided by the leaders of the communist state-party, radio, television and the
press played a crucial role besides the higher and local organs of the communist party. Népszabadság as a state-owned
high circulation newspaper served as a primary forum for this propaganda work: it not only informed about economic
changes, but also tried to bring the attitudes and thinking of workers to the changing conditions of production in
line with expectations. This paper examines the propaganda activities and thematic articles of Népszabadság aimed
at enlightening and influencing the public in 1968.

In the second half of the Cold War era, the East/West relationship was more often characterised b... more In the second half of the Cold War era, the East/West relationship was more often characterised by the political doctrine
of peaceful coexistence and the practice of aware cooperation than by martial ideological rhetoric and the politics of
closeness. The success of the former partly depended on the mutual recognition of the citizens of the two superpowers’
blocs. National Geographic Magazine played a leading role in presenting the countries and the peoples of the world
to the American middle and upper-middle classes. The number of reports covering East European countries reached
its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. These reports had three recurring narrative patterns on state-socialist Eastern Europe,
including 1) surviving national traditions and peculiarities versus the official dogma of communist internationalism,
2) a certain way of social modernisation differing from the Western one, and 3) the local practices of capitalism versus
the dominance of the planned economy. This paper attempts to describe these narrative patterns based on National
Geographic articles from the abovementioned two decades. It follows the theoretical frames and analytical methods
of critical discourse analysis, focusing on the differentiation of the societies of the Soviet bloc and explanations of
socialist modernisation from the perspective of the dominant discourse of Western modernisation.

A párttag élete. Személyes életvitel mint propagandaforrás a Pártélet 1956-os számaiban, 2023

In: 1971- Egy tipikus kádári év? Szerk.: Papp István. ÁBTL-Kronosz, 2022.

In: A népi gondolat a XX. században. Szerk.: Novák Attila-Pap Milán. Századvég, Budapest, 2022.

In my paper, I discuss the different layers of the meaning of the concept of socialist worker and... more In my paper, I discuss the different layers of the meaning of the concept of socialist worker and socialist company, as they emerged in ideological and scientific discourses in the seventies of Hungary. Doing this, I will cite ideological resolutions of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP), academic papers, monographs and research records, and ideological discussions of the main party periodical. The concept of worker, as one of the main sociopolitical concepts of "existing socialism", had carried a multifaceted meaning in the ideology of the socialist Kádár regime. The worker was the general owner of the means of production, as well as the agent of this production. Indeed, the worker of the socialist system had ideologically appeared as self-governing and self-consciouss participant in the life of the company, and the member of the ruling class of socialist society. The overdetermination of the concept of this ideal social actor had involved the multiplication of the tasks of the socialist company. Thus, besides of being the place of production process, socialist company emreged ideologically as the field of workplace democracy, a spehere of workers’ self-determination and communal life. This image of the socialist company fit into the macroideological system of Soviet "developed socialism", the last long-range ideological experiment of state socialisms.

After the financial crisis of 2008, the question of the relation of markets and morals has come i... more After the financial crisis of 2008, the question of the relation of markets and morals has come into the lime-light of socials philosophy and economic thinking. One of the main dilemmas is about the role of market logic in the domain of non-market values (families, local communities, and democratic citizenship) and, thus, the ascension of market society. The spill-over of market norms has been criticized by neo-republican theorists, mainly in the US and Southern Europe recently. Neo- republicanism, as the continuation of the republican tradition and a secular form of the critique of current global capitalism, has its foundation of pre-dominant political values as freedom as non-domination, equality of citizens, self-government and the rule of law. Based on these values, I make an attempt to reconstruct the political economy of neo-republicanism. Civic economy, as it is called by neo-republican authors, contains the regulation of financial and managerial elites by the means of workplace democracy, and progressive modes of inheritance tax and consumption tax; the fundamentals of citizens’ economic self-government by basic income or basic-capital grant; and the idea of public and deliberative democracy of property-owner citizens.

Parliamentary history between public law and politics (book review)

Politikatudományi Szemle, 2018

Betekintő, 2019

By now, a great corpus of the historical literature is available on the political and local histo... more By now, a great corpus of the historical literature is available on the political and local history of the persecution of German minority in the post-war Hungary. Expulsion by Hungarian authorities, as well as deportation, confiscation of property, secret police surveillance and anti-German propaganda were some of the plenty forms
of the persecution of Danube Swabians. The book of Katalin Gajdos-Frank discusses this persecution from the perspective of and the materials on Hungarian state
security ruled by the Communist party in this period (1945–1956). Doing this, the
author integrates the description of methods and cases of surveillance with the story
of her own family and main-stream political history of local and international politics. Reading the unraveled cases conducted by secret police officers and tribunals, a
pattern of political discrimination can be discovered: the tactics of linking undesirable social groups with each other, as in the case of German minority (Swabians)
and propertied peasantry (kulaks), and making political accusation against them.
There is no question about the scapegoat role of Hungarian Germans in the wartorn country and these kind of accusations proved to be practicable for the Communist party even in the later times of high Stalinism in Hungary (1949-1953). From
the second third of the 1950s the repression eased on the German minorities and direct persecutions were replaced by indirect practices.

In: Politológia. Betekintés a politika világába. Szerk. Pál Gábor. Dialóg Campus, Budapest.

In: Politológia. A politika világa a politikatudomány szemével. Szerk. Pál Gábor. Dialóg Campus, ... more In: Politológia. A politika világa a politikatudomány szemével. Szerk. Pál Gábor. Dialóg Campus, Budapest.

After WWII, countries of Central Eastern Europe (CEE) experienced numerous changes of their poli... more After WWII, countries of Central Eastern Europe (CEE) experienced numerous changes of their political regimes. The ideologies of these political regimes, aiming the modernization of the societies in the region, were eager to integrate the idea of democracy in its own way. In my paper, I discuss the ideological and semantic changes of the concept of democracy in the era of state socialism and the transition to constitutional liberalism. I analyze the changes of the concept of democracy in its semantic relation to the key concepts of the post-war politics, as socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat, reform, dissidence, liberalization, constitutionalism, capitalism, and liberalism. In the diachronic analysis of these ideological constellations, I will refer the semantic patterns of the concept of democracy: representation of an ideal social order, and the coming of “real” democracy in the future. These features still dominate the idea of democracy in the region, eclipsing the meaning of participation in political decision-making.

In the following pages, I will analyse the works of the Hungarian democratic (liberal) opposition... more In the following pages, I will analyse the works of the Hungarian democratic (liberal) opposition of the socialist system published in the 1980s from the point of view of (anti)politics. The two authors are the novelist György Konrád and the philosopher János Kis. György Konrád's 'Antipolitics', written in spring 1982, was published first in English and German. János Kis's philosophical work 'Do We Have Human Rights?' had as its aim the clarification of the ideological basis of liberal political practice. These texts proposed a reconstruction of politics, rejecting the quasi-utilitarian logic of state socialism and the arguments of great power realism. Nevertheless, it also goes back to another Hungarian author, István Bibó, whose work, especially after his death, has become a guiding light for intellectual critics. Bibó's last work, which he left to posterity on tape at the turn of 1971 and 1972, gently rejects the basic tenets of the post-1968 state socialist policy, while at the same time courageously and optimistically proclaiming the primacy of freedom and civility in a desirable political system. ‘The Meaning of European Social Development’, a text on the need for moral limits to politics, is the essence of Bibó's intellectual development.