National Economic Council (Hungary, 1919)
국민경제평의회 (헝가리, 1919)
The supreme economic body of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. It was set up from 25 May 1919 by absorbing the five economic commissariats of agriculture, social production, supply, transport and finance, and the constitution of 23 June made it the first of the commissariats, charged with the unified direction of production and distribution and with issuing economic decrees. It is distinct from the body of the same name in the Hungarian People's Republic of 1949–1952.
In depth
The creation of the National Economic Council reorganised the Revolutionary Governing Council again. The five economic commissariats merged into it, transport affairs passed to it from the Commissariat of the Interior, Railways and Shipping, whose name became simply "Interior" again, and labour affairs moved under it, so that the Commissariat of Labour and Welfare was renamed Welfare and Public Health. The reorganisation was probably never carried through: documents issued in June by individual economic commissars survive, and the rules on the Council's organisation and the remit and names of its departments were inconsistent and often contradictory.
The constitution adopted by the National Assembly of Federal Councils on 23 June listed the National Economic Council first among the nine commissariats. Its competence was the unified direction of production and distribution of goods, the issuing and execution of decrees on the economy, and technical and economic supervision of the organs of production and distribution (§ 34). It had nine departments, for the general direction of production, materials and foreign trade; agriculture and stockbreeding; technical direction of industry; finance; public supply; transport; economic organisation and inspection; public works; and labour (§ 35), and the power of decision lay with a presidium of its commissars together with the German and Ruthenian commissars.
It could issue decrees within its competence, but had to obtain the Governing Council's consent before decrees of principle, and the Governing Council could alter them (§ 33). Of its board of at most 80 members, 40 were elected by the board of the Trade Union Council and sat at the same time in the National Assembly (§ 36). Villages, towns, districts and counties ran their finances within the framework set by its decrees (§ 54). The commissars of the presidium formed on 24 June were Jenő Varga, György Nyisztor, Gyula Lengyel and Ferenc Bajáki.
Hungary had a different supreme economic body of the same name, Népgazdasági Tanács, from June 1949 to November 1952, which coordinated the economic ministries and succeeded the Supreme Economic Council (Gazdasági Főtanács) of 1945–1949.