Social Inequality and Party Membership: Patterns of Recruitment into the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party

This paper presents a causal model of membership recruitment into the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, using unit record data from non-Party sources. The findings qualify both the official view and new class theory by showing two roads to Party membership. The first runs through the occupational structure, where workers, professionals, and technocrats are advantaged over individuals outside socialized production. The runs through educational institutions, providing an educated few with extra opportunities to enter the Party. Results corroborate earlier conclusions that patriarchal allocation of political privileges continues in Hungary. Despite formal guarantees to the contrary, women are significantly underrepresented in the Party. Intercohort changes in membership recruitment show that older cohorts monopolize key Party positions, suggesting that a gerontocracy has emerged in Hungarian political life. Overall, results lend further evidence to the contention that some crystallization in inequalities has taken place in Hungary in the second stage of socialist development.