„Nem az a döntő, hogy a dolgozók egy pohár sört kapnak”

In the Rákosi era the ruling party, Hungarian Working People's Party (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja, MDP) introduced new national days with new socialist ways of celebration. On the new feasts the presence of great masses of the workers was expected, and the celebrating people had to behave in a specified manner. Although the socialist ways of celebration were defined as something new, the social practices of the celebrating people show an interesting mixture of the former festive entertainmanet habits, religious practices and the centrally organised new forms of festivities. This study focuses on the so-called 'mood reports' of the MDP in the early years of the Rákosi era in Hungary and based on these sources tries to extrapolate the different attitudes of the celebrating society towards the socialist festivities, especially the 1st May. With a lot of examples from the early fifties it specifies various ways of conformist, entertaining, resistant and opposing social practices and shows how the Hungarian society was adapting the new socialist holidays in the early fifties.