|
Hungary HUNGARIAN SOCIALIST WORKERS' PARTY
Unavailable
Figure 9. Structure of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, 1988
The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP) formed
the
"revolutionary vanguard of the working class" that
"organizes and
guides the people in their struggle to construct a
Socialist
society." The ideology, method of decision making, and
structure
of the HSWP all derived from the Communist Party of the
Soviet
Union (CPSU). The method of decision making--democratic
centralism--stifled intraparty dissent and secured the
control of
central party organs over the personnel appointments and
the
activities of lower party organs.
In the late 1980s, the HSWP was a top-down, centralized
organization. In theory, representative party bodies such
as the
party congress held supreme decision-making authority. In
practice, bodies such as the party congress and the
Central
Committee on the national level and the conference on the
county
and district levels were too large and met too
infrequently to
exercise decision-making power
(see
fig. 9). The Politburo
and
Secretariat centralized power on the national level, and
the
party bureaus did so on the county and district rungs of
the
hierarchy. The Basic Organization, the lowest level on the
hierarchy, supervised the activities of rank-and-file
members in
factories, collective farms, and the armed forces.
The party, aiming to be a monolithic organization,
enforced
strict discipline on the membership for violating the
Party Rules (see Glossary)
and for infringing on the norms of
democratic
centralism. The party also attempted to preserve its elite
status
within society. Therefore, it was very selective in its
recruitment policies. Although originally the
self-proclaimed
party of the working class, in the late 1980s the
intelligentsia
predominated in its ranks.
The PPF, a mass organization working under the
direction of
the party, acted as a "transmission belt" for party
policies. As
of the late 1980s, it had not yet carved out an
independent role
for itself in Hungarian politics.
Data as of September 1989
|
