Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary: An Economic History by Viktor Pál (review)

Since environmental histories are currently en vogue, it was only a matter of time before studies dealing with the former Eastern Bloc emerged. Pál’s monograph belongs to a handful of new studies that analyze the environmental policies of state socialist governments, without telling stories of mere neglect or even intentional “ecocide”—a term coined by Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly Jr. in Ecocide in the USSR: Health and Nature Under Siege (1992). From the outset, the author rejects any hint at state-socialist exceptionalism on how the Hungarian government dealt with environmental issues. Instead, Pál investigates the often intricate and sometimes mutually beneficial relationship between technology and environmental protection in a command economy.

While the book focuses on state-socialist Hungary, it goes back chronologically to the nineteenth century and ventures spatially into other areas inside and outside the Eastern Bloc. I assume that the purpose of these digressions is to prove that Hungary struggled with similar dilemmas in the pre-communist era as other, more industrialized countries. However, the author could have stated more explicitly why he made these detours, such as to what extent pre-socialist legacies influenced communist development strategies or how Hungary’s environmental policies compared with for instance West Germany.

At the core of the book lies the Borsod Basin, a region in northeast Hungary. It had not only a long industrial tradition but was also at the forefront of the Stalinist industrialization and urbanization drive. These shared a key element enabling fast growth, namely increased water usage that inadvertently led to more waste and pollution. The fascinating outcome is that the region, besides being a site of social and economic transformation, also became a place where engineers and managers developed new technical methods to protect the environment.

Chapters five to seven, by far the most dense and interesting, dive right into the conundrums of water consumption that made urban and industrial actors compete for the same resources and facilities. In the 1950s, residential areas in the main industrial city of Miskolc and adjacent industrial plants discharged their wastewater into this city’s sewer system. Also, industrial use reduced the amount of water available for private users. To increase urban users’ access to fresh water and treat the wastewater, the city planned new waterworks in the early 1960s. A lively social and scientific debate ensued on the best way forward. The contentious issue was whether to use the potentially polluted water from nearby rivers, or tap into underground springs, technically a more challenging alternative. The decision favored spring water; however, insufficient resources postponed the completion of the project until the mid-1970s. Subsequently, the 1980s economic recession halted further improvements. Increasing amounts of wastewater clogged the industrial cleaning facilities. A fining system introduced in the 1960s put pressure on polluting plants to acquire central funding for installing proper wastewater treatment facilities.

The case of the Borsod Chemical Plants demonstrates that raising awareness of industrial pollution could be effective. After a change in management in the early1970s, young engineers embarked on a long journey of research and exploratory visits to facilities abroad. They acquired Western technologies to build several facilities that prevented polluted water from entering the natural habitat. What is missing from this detailed historical narration, however, is the position of the central government, that in part financed and supported the project. The remaining chapters only cursorily trace widespread environmental awareness in the 1980s, fueling civil activism. The author argues that environmental policies begun in the 1960s already, had ignited this popular movement. As the protest movement gained momentum, it started questioning the state’s ability to protect nature. Unfortunately, due to brevity, it remains unclear how environmental awareness turned into government-critical activism.

This work achieves its goal of reassessing our understanding of authoritarian regimes, showing that state-socialist Hungary actively pursued environmental programs. The regional emphasis is a great choice, because it...