The Communist Taboo Against Unemployment: Ideology, Soft Budget Constraints, or the Politics of De-Stalinization?
The Communist Taboo Against Unemployment: Ideology, Soft Budget Constraints, or the Politics of De-Stalinization?
Author(s): Phineas BaxandallSubject(s): Political history, Labor relations, Government/Political systems, Political economy, Economic development, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: SAGE Publications Ltd
Keywords: Socialism; unemployment; Communism; Stalinism; softening the regime; communist economics; labor market;
Summary/Abstract: State socialism and the eradication of unemployment are strongly associated with one another. But how did the eradication of unemployment become a central pillar of legitimacy in the first place? At least in Hungary, the absolute elimination of unemployment was not a constant feature of state-socialist regimes. The Communists' inter-war focus on the ills of unemployment gave way once they seized power in 1947. Pockets of involuntary joblessness persisted and were openly admitted, but despite this period's being the "classical" era of hard-line Stalinism, unemployment received little political attention. The eradication of unemployment assumed greater political importance only with the softening of the regime and the failed uprising in 1956. [...]
Journal: East European Politics and Societies
- Issue Year: 14/2000
- Issue No: 03
- Page Range: 597-635
- Page Count: 39
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF