Alienating Labour - Workers on Road From Socialism to Capitalism in East Germany Hungary

The Communist Party dictatorships in Hungary and East Germany sought to win over the "masses" with promises of providing for ever-increasing levels of consumption. This policy-successful at the outset-in the long-term proved to be detrimental for the regimes because it shifted working class political consciousness to the right while it effectively excluded leftist alternatives from the public sphere. This book argues that this policy can provide the key to understanding of the collapse of the regimes. It examines the case studies of two large factories, Carl Zeiss Jena (East Germany) and Rába in Gy¿r (Hungary), and demonstrates how the study of the formation of the relationship between the workers' state and the industrial working class can offer illuminating insights into the important issue of the legitimacy (and its eventual loss) of Communist regimes.

About the author

Eszter Bartha is a habilitated Assistant Professor in the Department of Eastern European History at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. She received a PhD in History from the Central European University in Budapest in 2007 and another in Sociology from Eötvös Loránd University in 2012. Her current work examines the relationship between the party and the working class in the declining phase of Communism.

Product details

• Authors: Eszter Bartha, Bartha Eszter
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.10.2023
• EAN: 9781805391241
• ISBN: 978-1-80539-124-1
• No. of pages: 372
• Series: International Studies in Socia; International Studies in Social History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > 20th century (up to 1945); Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; HISTORY / Europe / Germany, European History, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, 20th Century, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / European, HISTORY / Europe / Austria & Hungary, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Economic history, Hungary, Far-left political ideologies and movements, Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies, Left-of-centre democratic ideologies, Marxism & Communism, East Germany, Ddr