The reprisals that accompanied Chile’s military takeover in September 1973, as well as the rising number of murders and disappearances, provoked global out- rage. Eastern Bloc countries also offered their assistance, particularly by accepting Chilean communist and socialist immigrants. The Chilean immigrants, who arrived in Hungary in waves, adopted different life strategies: some viewed Budapest as a stopover on their way to Western Europe, while others appreciated the furnished apartment and work opportunity offered. Drawing on the self-narrative of a Chilean émigré and contemporaneous party documents, this study recounts the procedure and facets of the Chileans’ admittance, as well as their subsequent experiences in socialist and post-socialist Hungary.

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.

The paper discusses the different layers of the meaning of the concept of socialist worker and socialist company, as they emerged in ideological and scientific discourses in 1970s Hungary, citing ideological resolutions of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, academic papers, monographs and research records, as well as ideological discussions of the main party periodical. The concept of worker, as one of the main socio-political concepts of “existing socialism”, 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. Ideologically speaking, the worker of the socialist system appeared as a self-governing and self-conscious participant in the life of the company, and a member of the ruling class of socialist society. The over-determination of the concept of this ideal social actor involved the multiplication of the functions of the socialist company. Thus, besides being the place of production process, the socialist company ideologically emerged as the field of workplace democracy as well as the sphere of the workers’ self-determination and communal life. This image of the socialist company fits into the macro-ideological system of Soviet “developed socialism”, the last long-range ideological experiment of state socialisms.