Viktor Pál TECHNOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN STATE-SOCIALIST HUNGARY AnEconomic History Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary Viktor Pál Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary An Economic History Viktor Pál University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland ISBN 978-3-319-63831-7 ISBN 978-3-319-63832-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63832-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017948702 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Cover credit: Photo: FORTEPAN/MORVAY KINGA Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Patrícia and Szilvia Acknowledgements I am grateful for the many people and institutions who have helped me to carry on and complete this work Without my supervisors this work could not have been finished Dr Petri Juuti, Prof Pertti Haapala at the University of Tampere and external adviser Prof Ivan T Berend at UCLA supported me with constructive criticism and kind generosity My colleagues at the University of Tampere, UCLA, University of Tallinn, University of Antwerp, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, New Europe College in Bucharest, and in the Network for the Environmental History of Dictatorships and later in the Interdisciplinary Hub for the Study of the Environment and Authoritarian Regimes supported me with comments and encouragement I also wish to thank various institutions and individuals for their moral and financial support My parents and grandparents The University of Miskolc and the University of Tampere were outstanding alma maters The City of Miskolc, the State of Finland, the Center for International Mobility in Finland, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Academy of Sciences, the Niilo Helander Foundation, the Maa- ja Vesitekniikan Tuki ry, the Department of History at the University of vii viii Acknowledgements California Los Angeles, the Rector of the University of Tampere, the Open Society Archives in Budapest and the Visegrad Fund, the City of Helsinki, the Flemish Community of Belgium and the Center for Urban History at the University of Antwerp, the Eesti Institute, the Estonian Institute for the Environment at the University of Tallinn (KAJAK), Professor Ulrike Plath, the staff and students of the Social Anthropology program at the Comenius University in Bratislava, the Republic of Slovakia and its scholarship program, the Scholarship of the Republic of Austria and the New Europe College in Romania all contributed to my dissertation project on which this booked is based Most importantly I thank my family, Szilvia Szatmári and Patrícia Pál for supporting me while I worked on this book Contents 1 Introduction Notes 11 Economy, Technology and the Environment in Europe and in Hungary, 1800–1945 15 2.1 Industrialization, Urbanization and the Environment in Western Europe, 1800–1945 15 2.2 Industry, Technology and the Environment in East-Central Europe, 1800–1914 22 2.3 Industry, Technology and the Environment in Hungary, 1920–1945 29 Notes 32 Economy, Technology and the Environment in Europe After World War II 37 3.1 Economic Growth in Europe After World War II 37 3.2 Postwar Reconstruction in Western and Central Europe and Its Environmental Consequences The Case of Water Pollution 41 ix x Contents 3.3 Environmental Problems and Environmental Laws in Western Europe and the United States After World War II 45 3.4 Environmental Laws and Environmental Quality in Germany in the 1960s–1970s 51 Notes 54 Stalinist Vision for Economy and Environment in Hungary in the 1950s 59 4.1 Postwar Reconstruction and Communist Takeovers in East-Central Europe 59 4.2 Stalinist Economic Policies in East-Central Europe in the Early 1950s 62 4.3 Stalinist Economic Policies in Hungary in the Early 1950s 69 4.4 The First Five Year Plan and Its Economic and Environmental Impact in the Valley of the Sajó River 75 Notes 86 Economic Reforms and Environmental Protection in Hungary the 1960s 93 5.1 Economic Reform Ideas in Hungary in the 1950s 93 5.2 Extensive Development and Environmental Pollution in Hungary in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s 97 Notes 117 Technological Reform and Environmental Performance in Hungary in the 1960s 127 6.1 The Rise of Environmentalism in West Germany in the 1960s–1970s 127 6.2 The Economical Shift in Hungary in the 1960s–1970s 134 6.3 The Economical Shift and the Energy Shift in the Borsod Basin in the 1960s–1970s 141 6.4 The Environmental Impact of the Economical Shift and the Energy Shift in Hungary in the 1960s–1970s 151 Notes 156 Contents xi Capacity Building in Environmental Services and the Environmental Shift in Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s 165 7.1 Reform of the Pollution Tax System in Hungary After 1969 165 7.2 The Environmental Shift in Hungary in the 1970s 169 7.3 The Technological Impact of the Environmental Shift 173 Notes 177 Economic Stagnation and Failed Environmental Reform in the 1970s 181 8.1 Limits of the Environmental Shift During the Economic Stagnation of the 1970s 181 8.2 Limits of the Environmental Shift During the Economic Stagnation of the Early 1980s 193 Notes 200 The Environmental Movement and Political Opposition in the 1980s 207 9.1 From the Environmental Shift to the Ecological Turn 207 9.2 The Ecological Turn 213 9.3 Mass Environmentalism and the End of Communism 221 Notes 225 10 Epilogue 229 Notes 232 Bibliography 233 Index 247 Index 249 Borsod Power Plant (Borsod Hőerőmű) 83, 197 Borsod Regional Waterworks 107 Borsod Szemle 106 Borsodszirák 108 Borsod Water Supply System (Borsod Vízellátási Rendszer, BVR) 109 Bosch Company (West Germany) 136 Bower, Blair T 20 Brain, Stephen 3, 10 Brandt introduced an Immediate Program (Sofortprogramm),1970 131 Brandt, Willy 131 Braunkohlebenzin AG (Brown Coal Gasoline Corp.) 30 Britain 16 British economic growth 16 British rivers 17 Brotherhood (Testvériség) Pipeline 147 Brown coal 24 Budapest 23, 27, 69, 97 Budapest University of Technology (Budapesti Műszaki Egyetem, BME) 169 Bükk Mountains 23, 76, 78, 115 Buna Works (Buna Werke) in Schkopau in the GDR 172 BVK 152, 154, 166, 194, 210 Department of Environment 195, 196 PVC’s Hydrochloric Acid Plant 198 new Department of Environment was 173 sludge lagoons 175 Technological Library (Műszaki Könyvtár) 171 C California 47 California State Water Resources Control Board,The (1967) 47 Capitalism Caprolactam Plant 170 Caprolactam production 149 Caprolactam Unit was erected in 1966 149 Carson’s, RachelSilent Spring 127 Waldsterben Forests damage ; air pollution 131; Car traffic 131 Catholic church CDU backed pro-industry policies 132 Cement vaporization ponds (Sóstavak) 198 Central Committee of the HSWP 140 Central European lakes 44 Central Planning Office (Centralny Urząd Planowania) 66 Central wastewater treatment was constructed between 1975 and 1978 174 Chemical Age International 172 Chemical industry 16, 141 250 Index Chemical industry and its massive load of new pollutants 143 Chemical oxygen demand (dikromátos oxigén fogyasztás, COD) 183 Chemical Planning Company (Vegyterv) 170 Chemical treatment 174 Chemical Works Investment Company (Vegyiművek Beruházási Vállalat) 84 Chemiplan (Vegyterv) 198 Chernobyl Chief bookkeeper József Vinárcsik 187 Chisso Company mercury 171 Chloride 21 Christian Democratic movement 59 City Park (Városliget or Liget) 229 Clean Rivers Act, The (1960) 46 Clear-cutting Climate change 231 Clyde Valley 42 Coal and iron ore deposits 16 Coal deposits in Transylvania and the Hungarian Uplands 29 Coal economy natural gas-based economy 145 oil-based economy 145 Coal mining, iron, and steel manufacturing 19 Coal use 17 Cold or Hot Rolling Units 100 Cold War Cold War propaganda Comecon countries 94, 135, 143 Communism Communist central plans 62 Communist Party 59 Compromise of 1867 23 Congressman Lee Hamilton in 1971 48 Coregonidae, or freshwater white fish species 44 Council of Europe, The 8, 44 Council of Europe’s 1966 report 45 Council of Ministers, (Minisztertanács) 84 Covema Company (Italy) 148 Cow Green area 43 Craig ZumBrunnen Crown-Ikarus 286s came from TriMet, Portland, Oregon (87 buses), Houston (50 buses), and Milwaukee (40 buses) 136 Crude oil and natural gas 5, 145 Cseres Valley, close to the village of Ziliz 195 Cyfarthfa Iron Works 16 Czechoslovak FFYP (1949–53) 63 Czechoslovakia 29, 39, 62 Czechoslovakia, the communist party 60 D Danube Bend and Visegrád 224 Danube Circle (Duna Kör) 3, 224 Danube Ironworks (Dunai Vasmű, 1956–) 96 Darányi-Imrédy administrations 31 Decades of the Golden Age 41 Deep Pressing Unit, The 101 Delaware River Basin Compact 47 Index 251 Demands for environmental resources 42 Department of Environment 171, 198 Department of Hydrography 28 Der Spiegel 52, 129 Deterioration of air quality 218 Devnya Chemical Plant in Bulgaria 172 Die Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung 50 Die Frankfurter Rundschau 50 Die Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger 50 Die Rheinische Merkur 50 Die Welt 128 Die Zeit 128 Diósgyőr 24, 25, 27, 78 Baths 79 Iron and Steelworks 31 Steel Mills 98 Director of Energy Supply (Energiaellátási Igazgató) Ottó Tóth 173 Discharged into the Sajó River 154 District 78 7, 224 District 78 (A 78-as körzet) District Chief Medical Officers 112 Dobossy’s and Kulcsár’s 231 Dominick, Raymond Donaldson Company (US) 136 “Dorr-type” sedimentation tanks 101 Dortmund 53 Dowlais Ironworks 17 Drill heads 25 Dry weather conditions 116 Duisburg 42 Dune Water Company, the(1885) 20 Dutch cities 20 Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Agriculture 21 E East-Central Europe 2, 4, 7, 11 East-Central European East-Central European environmental discourses 10 Eastern European GDP 41 Eastern Peak Waterworks (Keleti Csúcsvízmű, KCS) 104, 113, 189 East Germany 9, 39, 62, 66 Ecocide Ecological degradation 216 Ecological problems rose to main federal level political topics in 131 Ecological responses measurement 216 Ecological turn 7, 207 Economical-efficiency measures 11 Economical measures Economical shift 5, Economical Shift and the Energy Shift 151 Economical Shift in Hungary 134 Economic growth Economic Review (Közgazdasági Szemle) 94 Economic system Economic-technological measures Effectiveness and environmental friendliness 209 Efficiency campaigns 145 EKM Bergmann-Borsig 84 Elbe 45 252 Index Electricite de France and Gaz de France 38 Electro-engineering 16 Elemér Teleki Member of BVK (Fukashiba United Wastewater Treatment Plant, Ibarak Prefecture) 173 Elex AG in Switzerland 99 Employers associations 38 Employment trends 40 Emscher Association (1899) 20 Emscher Association’s phenol remover plants 52 Emscher river 19 Energeticist (energetikus) 191 Energy costs 138 Energy shift Energy shift unfolded 144 Engineer Service (Kultúrmérnöki Szolgálat) 28 Enhance productivity 115 Environmental activism 3, 132 authorities 187 awareness 2, 211 budget 141 changes in Europe consciousness 231 consciousness levels costs 142 crisis degradation 21 destruction factors 218 discussion were present in state socialism 133 education activities by KISZ 214 experiences in the society 218 history 8, 10 inspectors 182 issues 1, 4, 128 matters in West Germany 131 movements in West Germany 133 performance policy 7, 10 policy instruments 221 pollution problems 4, 113 problems of Britain 17 quality risks 197 shift 7, 165, 193, 200, 207, 215, 223 An Environmental History of Russia Environmentalism Environmentally-conscious state socialist economic planning 210 Environmentally-friendly attitudes 143 Environmental Pollution Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee 48 Environmental protection 1, 6, 207 activities 221 Division 51 was intertwined with Hungary’s economic performance 185 investments 141 technology 221 Enyedi, György ÉRV (Észak-Magyarorzági Regionális Vízművek, Northern Index 253 Hungarian Regional Waterworks) 188 Establishment of the Green Party in 1981 131 Észak-Magyarország 81, 208 Észak-Magyarország and Déli Hírlap 81, 208 Észak-Magyarország, a local daily 77 Ethylene 150 Europe European Chemical News 172 European Union 38 ÉVÍZIG 152, 168, 184 ÉVÍZIG wastewater treatment plant ; ruinous state of 182 F Factory workers 23 Farbwerke Hoechst AG 172 Fazola, Henrik 22 Fazola Forge 24 Federal Emissions Control Act in 1974 52 Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) of 1972 48 Fejér Counties 97 “Felsőforrás” spring 78 Felsővölgy 105 Fertilizer project planning team 195 FFYP in Hungary 69 Fifth Five-Year Plan period (1976–1980) 142 Filtration of pollutants into groundwater 197 First Five Year Plan (FFYP) 30, 42, 94 First Five-Year Plan (1951–55) 66 First Six-Year Plan (FSYP) 64, 66 First Two-Year Plan (1949–50) 66 Fontana dam 223 Fossil energy sources 16 Fossil fuels 3, Fourth Five-Year Plan (1971–-1975) 141 Four-Year Plan 30 1936 Four-Year Plan 30 France 44, 49 Frankfurt 42 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) 52, 128 Fred Singleton French Act (December 16, 1964) Prevention of Pollution 50 Improvement of Water Resources 50 French Ecopol environmental association 171 French Krebs Company 147 G Gabčikovo-Nagymaros 225, 231 Gabčikovo-Nagymaros barrage system 3, 221 Galya spring 78 Ganz 23 Garadna 22 Garden and Landscape (Garten und Landschaft) 133 Garé Gas pipeline 82 254 Index Gazda movement 80 Gemer (Gömör) 27 Gender equality General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 135 German industries 18 German industry’s wastewater caused more devastation 129 German residential water usage 129 German type of industrialization 18 Germany 18, 49 Germs in Rhine 44 Gezi Park 230 Goldman, Marshall I Dr György Gonda Secretary of the government and Director of the National Environmental Protection Agency (Országos Kưrnyezet és Természetvédelmi Hatóság, OKTH, October 1977) 212 Gorbachev Görögszőlő-hegyi water tank 78 Gottwald, Klement 61 Governmental Order 32/1964 154 Governmental Order 40/1969 165, 194 Government organizations, factories, and municipalities 231 Grain mills 23 Gravel basin of the Sajó 111 Great Britain 38 Great Depression 21 Great Plains, The (Alfưld) 72 “Great Smelters” (Nagy olvasztók) 99 Groundwater wells 75 Growing water challenge in Western Europe 44 Gngsoroszi Ore-Dressing Plant (Gngsoroszi Ércelőkészítőmű), Czechoslovakia 198 Győr 97 Győr Program 31 H Habsburg lands 22 Hamburger Abendblatt 128 Hámor dam 105 Harencsár, Gyula, a representative of BVK 153 Health issues 17 Heavy industrial economy Heavy industry’s 38 Hennecke, Adolf 66 Hernádnémeti gravel basin 104 Highly mechanized open-pit lignite mines 145 Highly politicizsed environmental discourse 221 Highly polluted wastewater 187 Hitler, Adolf 21, 30 Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF 19 Hoechst-Hde’s (West Germany) 147 Houses of the Parliament 43 Human negligence for ecological problems 216 Hungarian Chemical Industry Union (Magyar Vegyipari Egyesülés, MVE) 142, 150 Hungarian Muscovites 61 Hungarian Revolution of 1956 68 ... Hungary and Poland maintained living standards by the help of foreign loans and failed behind in innovation Both nations joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to access new financial.. .Technology and the Environment in State- Socialist Hungary Viktor Pál Technology and the Environment in State- Socialist Hungary An Economic History Viktor Pál University of Helsinki Helsinki,... moral and financial support My parents and grandparents The University of Miskolc and the University of Tampere were outstanding alma maters The City of Miskolc, the State of Finland, the Center