SHORT HISTORY OF THE CSEPEL INDUSTRIAL AREA

 



Pipes that go around corners in the air

This industrial area, which was shaped by modernisation, history and trauma, was founded by Baron Manfred Weiss, a rich Jewish industrialist at the beginning of the 20^th Century. The factory’s production was mainly army supplies, and become the most important industry of the Habsburg-Hungarian Monarchy. After Hungary was defeated in the World War I the founder Weiss committed suicide when he saw how his life’s achievement had been destroyed. Between the two wars the Csepel industries again flourished for production for army goods with the guidance of the Manfréd Weiss family relatives. During the World War II the Weiss family escaped from deportation to the concentration camps with the help of the authorities, and settled in Portugal, with some relatives still living in different part of the World.

 

After the World War II the new Stalinist leftish government nationalised the Csepel factories, the communist party lead government forced planned production as in the Stalinist Soviet union. As a consequence the workers were forced to work extremely long hours, to show an artificial propaganda proletarian paradise, that is why the name of the Island became: „Red Csepel“. But the reality was that the workers living standard was sinking deeper and deeper into poverty. That is why even before the 56 revolution, strikes were organized by the workers and during the 56 revolution here the strongest workers group organized the Revolutionary Workers Council. Their plan was to keep ownership of the factories in the workers’ hand, rejecting Stalinism, but also capitalism as well.

 

After long resistance and armed fight with the Russian troops, and Hungarian conter-revolutionary forces,  the revolutionary workers gave up.  Some of them where executed or taken for long term imprisonment. From 1956 to 1989 the Csepel industrial area played a crucial part of the new totalitarian government propaganda, as symbol of the proletarian power. The government and communist party officials organized political supervision to atomise the workers attempt to participate in the decision making. During this time Hungary was called the state of „Goulash communism“, because compared with other communist countries, the regime left the individual’s private life relatively free from political supervision, if the individual did not question the 56 revolution and other traumatic events, which shaped the regime.

 

In 1989, after the political change the factories of Csepel industrial area where privatised, the spectacular industrial dynamism and workers communities disappeared, leaving small businesses, store places mainly as the property of foreign capital.

 

Although the factories are disorientating, the bomb shelters, built in early 40‘s are still quite original. There is one, the central officer bunker, which is amazingly untouched, full with objects originating from the World War II period, through the 56’s 60‘, 70‘ up to the late 80’s. The design (objects, graphic, posters, hand drawn maps) are side by side with each other in a strange harmony.