Interlocking Directorates of Banks and Industrial Companies in Hungary at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
The article uses new archival research on the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest and industrial companies to examine the validity of existing interpretations of interlocking directorates in Hungarian bank-industry relations at the beginning of the twentieth century. The results show that interlocking hardly depended on capital relations, which suggests that board membership had not only a control or monitoring function. The lack of regular capital relations made bank hegemony, or even a significant bank influence, not concomitant with interlocking. The Hungarian Commercial Bank was not always able to represent its own interests effectively, not even in those cases when beside the interlocks the bank was a significant owner or creditor of industrial companies. The article concludes that a more complex interpretation of interlocking directorships in Hungary is essential.
The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750-1914. By David F. Good. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1984. xvi, 309 pp. Figures. Maps. Tables. $32.00.
synthesis of official views on the origins, vicissitudes, and eventual triumph of the socialistlabor movement that is predominant in the regions now included within Czechoslovakia. The book seems to be aimed at party members, trade union activists, and university students. According to Chief Editor Jaroslav Tehle, its objectives are to update the early chapters—on the labor movement under Austria-Hungary and the first Czechoslovak republic up to 1938—in light of recent scholarship and according to the Leninist position of the party toward the trade unions; to describe the role of labor, organized in the Revolucni odborove hnutf (ROH) since 1944-1945, in the building of a socialist society. As befitting a broad survey, the strikes, congresses of the Social Democratic party, and mass struggles of the formative decades under Habsburg rule are presented in concise, general terms, but discussions of these events offer nothing new. The beginnings of trade unionism in Slovakia, however, are helpfully discussed alongside those in the Czech lands. Initially much weaker, the Slovak militant wing merged with the Czech movement at the founding of the Communist party and the setting up of the red trade unions in the 1920s. These events are embellished by many details about internal party and union activities set against the background of Czechoslovak economic development. The last half of the book covers the years 1939 to 1982. These later chapters interweave the resolutions of ROH congresses with accomplishments of workers cited for outstanding achievements and the changing line of the party on economic planning and the allocation of labor. Much of this narrative features a formulaic handling of complex phenomena. The name and policies of Stalin are mentioned once and then only with the posthumous denunciation of his cult of personality. The ROH is indicted for failing to respond to the needs of the workers in the 1960s and to grasp the significance of the emerging scientific-technological revolution; hence, in 1968 it succumbed to illusions of "socialist partnership" and "deformations of socialism." Fortunately, the country was rescued from its errors by the "necessary act of international solidarity" of the Warsaw Pact states in August 1968. From this historical record the editors conclude that the labor movement should leave politics to the Communist party and concentrate on its economic function of organizing and controlling the working masses so as to raise the productivity of labor and fulfill the goals of the national economic plan. Despite its impressive list of participants, this book will be of modest value to serious students of Czechoslovak labor history.
KÖLNER BANKEN UND DIE ENTWICKLUNG DES RUHRGEBIETS
am Main mit kurzen Unterbrechungen bedeutendster deutscher Bankplatz. Die Stadt Koln hatte im spaten 18. Jahrhundert an wirtschaftlicher Bedeutung verloren, gehorte aber auch im 19. Jahrhundert noch zu den bedeutenderen deutschen Bankplatzen, da sich in der Zeit der franzosischen Besatzung der Stadt ein eigenstandiges Bankwesen hatte ausbilden konnen.1 Der nach 1815 zunachst langsam, infolge der gunstigen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in der ersten preusischen Zeit immer deutlicher zutage tretende Kapitalbedarf der Wirtschaft gab den Kolner Banken neue Moglichkeiten, die zentrale wirtschaftliche Stellung der Stadt auszunutzen. Als um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts die verkehrsmasige und industrielle Erschliesung des Ruhrgebiets einsetzte, richtete sich die Kapitalnachfrage an die in groserer Zahl und mit teilweise betrachtlichen Mitteln arbeitenden Kolner Banken, da im Ruhrrevier selbst kaum Banken bestanden. Fur mehrere Jahrzehnte blieb Koln infolge der Regionalisierung des deutschen Kapitalmarkts der wichtigste Bankplatz fur das Ruhrgebiet.2 Im folgenden soll untersucht werden, ob und wie sich im Zeitraum von etwa 1830 bis zum Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkriegs die Bedeutung Kolns als Bankplatz allgemein und als Bankverbindung der Industrie des Ruhrgebiets anderte. Koln als Finanzierungszentrum des Ruhrgebiets soll dabei auch im groseren Zusammenhang des Beitrags der deutschen Banken zur Industrialisierung sowie der Beziehungen zwischen Banken und Grosunternehmen wahrend des take-off und der Hochindustrialisierung betrachtet werden. Diese Untersuchung basiert dabei auf ungedruckten Materialien in Archiven der