Primitive accumulation and womens oppression: An analysis of early-socialist Hungary (1948-56)

LUPARELLO, VELIA SABRINA; FABRY, ADAM

Amsterdam

Congreso; Towards a Global History of Primitive Accumulation; 2019

International Institute of Social History

In line with the conferences objective of providing historically grounded analysis of the concept of primitive accumulation, this paper explores the outcomes of the construction of a Soviet-style socialist economy in Hungary in the period between 1948 and 1956 focusing on womens social and political conditions. Drawing on the work of Marxist and non-Marxist scholars, such as Silvia Federici (2004), Martha Lampland (1995, 2016) and Susan Zimmermann (2010), we uncover three key mechanisms that contributed to the feminization of labour in Hungary: violence, dispossession, and state-led industrialisation. The paper contributes to the literature on the history of socialism in the 20th century, as well as theoretical debates on primitive accumulation and its relation to womens oppression, by exploring and identifying the mechanisms through which primitive accumulation operated within the specific context of early-socialist Hungary and needed women´s labor to be fulfilled.