“Socialist corporations” seem to have been among the most salient and typical features of socialist states and societies. In some respects, one could venture the contention that they were large, centralized representations of the rationale of economic planning and tools with which the regimes maintained a (not insignificant) degree of control over the labor force. In others respects, however, they seem to have been rigid, ineffective, over-bureaucratized structures which were designed in response to political exigencies but which were hardly suited to meet economic needs. Whatever the case, socialist companies were representations and embodiments of the socialist vision of modernity, both its ideals and its failings. Hungarian Historical Review seeks to revisit these categories. First, how “socialist” were socialist companies from a longer-term historical perspective? Second, how socialist were the socialist companies in terms of their organizational structures?

The geographical focus of the journal is on Central and Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union. We do not confine ourselves to the strict geographical borders of the region, however, and we welcome proposals which touch on the international or global operations of Central and Eastern European socialist companies or, alternatively, focus on corporations in socialist states outside of Europe.

We encourage submissions addressing the following subjects:

- the pre-socialist company histories, economic structures, trade relations, and economic networks and their legacies under socialism;
- the roles and impacts of pre-socialist managers and their economic traditions and personal networks in the socialist era;
- the career histories, educational backgrounds, and economic cultures of new socialist company leaders;
- the periodization of the history of socialist enterprises;
- “national” or regional profiles of socialism from the perspective of the histories of enterprises;
- categories, e. g. planning, innovation, social welfare, and justice, with which directors, managers, economic policy makers, and workers defined companies as socialist;
- relationships among central economic administrations, company management, and workers;
- production and trade in a socialist enterprise;
- opening towards international markets;
- introduction of market reforms and their impacts on companies;
- levels of autonomy and the effects of autonomy on the roles and mentalities of managers;
- terminologies of effectivity, productivity, and profit and their uses within and by companies;
- identities of the labor force and the influence of local managers and workers on the operations and characters of companies.

We invite abstracts on the questions and topics raised above.

Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short biographical sketch with a selected list of the author’s five most important publications (we do not accept full CVs) no later than December 10, 2020.

Proposals should be submitted to the organizers by email:
klement.judit@btk.mta.hu and hunghist@btk.mta.hu

The editors will ask the authors of selected papers to submit their final articles (max. 10,000 words) no later than April 30, 2021. The articles will be published after a double-blind peer-review process. We provide proofreading for contributors who are not native speakers of English. All articles must conform to our submission guidelines http://hunghist.org/index.php/forauthors

The Hungarian Historical Review is a peer-reviewed international journal of the social sciences and humanities the geographical focus of which is Hungary and East Central Europe.
For additional information, including submission guidelines, please visit the journal’s website: http://www.hunghist.org