|
|
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Transition to Democracy
and the Market Economy
THE END OF
ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENT, 1988-89
On 23 June 1987 the
Central Committee announced the new government line-up which was given
parliamentary approval two days later. Under the new arrangements the
chairman of the Presidium, Pál Losonczi, took 'voluntary' retirement and the
acting General Secretary of the MSzMP, Károly Németh, became the de facto head of state. His
position was filled by the long-serving prime minister, György Lázár, who in
turn was replaced by the powerful Budapest
party boss, Károly Grósz. The young economist, Miklós Németh, took over from
the Central Committee economics minister, Ferenc Havasi. When the Politburo
voted out Losonczi and István Sarlós, their places were taken by the deputy
prime minister, Judit Csehák, and the Central Committee Secretary for
Agitation and Propaganda, Jáinos Berecz -- a move which increased his chances
of succeeding Kádár. It was significant that Imre Pozsgay, the author of the exciting
discussion document, 'Reform and Change', which argued for different social
groups to share in decision-making and for a gradual move towards pluralism,
held on to his relative influential position as General Secretary of the
Patriotic Popular Front. These personnel changes demonstrated a desire to
shift the economic decision-making process away from the party to the
government. At the same time, the MSzMP's monopoly of power was retained in
order to avoid arousing the misgivings of other members of the Socialist
Bloc. Kádár, who was now ill and proving increasingly incompetent, not to say
out of his depth, in economic affairs, had to watch helplessly as more of his
closest supporters were forced out of the government to make way for new
blood.
The new team acted swiftly. On 2 July 1987
the Central Committee announced a new 'programme for social and economic
development' which introduced drastic government spending cuts. At the same
time, the government removed state controls over the economy and gave more
freedom to former collectives to make their own commercial decisions, thus
enabling them to respond more flexibly to market forces. State subsidies were
awarded to private businesses and joint ventures. It was hoped that the
introduction of income tax and VAT on I January 1988 for Hungary's 4.8 million employees
(of whom at least 1.6 million were engaged in the black economy) would
significantly reduce the budget deficit. Other measures designed with the
same goal in mind included drastic cuts in welfare spending, cutting state
subsidies to industry, closing down unprofitable firms, compulsory
redundancies and a new export drive. Price rises of between 10 and 14 per
cent were seen as necessary to create the investment capital required to
modernise the neglected sectors of the economy such as electronics, light
industry, machine-tools and foodstuffs. But it was doubtful whether the
increasingly anxious and insecure population, which was rapidly losing
confidence in the government, would be able to tolerate a policy of such
strict austerity unless it were accompanied by political concessions.
On 16 September 1987 Grósz presented
parliament with details of his economic recovery plan. With capital and
interest repayments on the 16 billion dollar national debt now claiming
two-thirds of all foreign exchange revenue and a predicted budget deficit of
35 billion forints, he proposed a future increase from 15 to 25 per cent in
VAT on 'luxury items' and an increase in the rate of income tax from 20 to 60
per cent. It was hoped that these measures would help balance the budget by
1990. But when Kádár insisted in the ensuing debate that the humane
principles of Socialism now rested on a more solid economic foundation and
would remain firmly in place, as would the planned economy and state
ownership combined with a degree of private enterprise, many party members
felt disappointment and concern for the future. The Central Council of Trade
Unions representing almost the whole of the workforce (4.5 million members)
took the view that the government's economic measures were acceptable and
drew attention to the fact that over 27 billion forints were being allocated
to support large families and the elderly.
On 16 December 1987 the government published
its annual report on the economy. Although the GDP had grown by almost 2 per
cent, losses sustained in the agricultural sector and a rise in the volume of
imports beyond planning levels had caused further increases in the balance of
trade deficit and the foreign loans debt. The gloomy forecast for 1988 was
that private consumption would fall by a further 2.5 per cent and per capita
income by an average of 3 per cent. This was because price increases as high
as 15 per cent would far outstrip any wage increases which were to be kept
below 5 per cent. After a period of panic buying had emptied shop shelves,
the national economic plan published on 27 December 1987 envisaged a further
rise in prices and a fall in consumer spending in line with government
policy. The attempt was also undertaken to improve efficiency and cut
administrative costs by restructuring the machinery of government. This was
achieved by merging and restaffing ministries, while also shedding a large
number of civil service jobs. The powers of the Presidium, which up until now
had exercised a legislative function, were substantially curtailed and
parliament's participation in decision-making increased. Under the new
arrangements parliamentary approval would have to be sought before the
government could implement its programme and parliament was also to be given
powers to approve the budget, pass new legislation and confirm ministerial
appointments. At the same time the new government strengthened the
constitutional right to freedom of worship in the belief that the responsible
citizen should be allowed to make his or her own ideological choices.
Restrictions on the activities of the churches were removed and religious
groups given access to the media. Prior to this, however, Grósz placed radio,
television and the state news agency, MTI, directly under official government
control.
Many Hungarians were deeply upset and
depressed at the effects of the strict economies in what some nicknamed the
'happiest barracks in the eastern bloc'. The many new economic and
administrative measures which had been introduced caused unimaginable chaos.
Cautious estimates put 35 per cent of Hungarians on or below the poverty
line. On an average monthly income of 7,000 forints or a pension of 3,600
forints, people could only maintain their standard of living by eating into
their savings. Thus few Hungarians were impressed when the Soviet head of
state, Andrei Gromyko, praised their country as a 'liberal marketorientated
partner' pursuing an economic policy which contained important lessons for the
USSR.
Nor were they impressed when, during a visit in mid-April, the Soviet prime
minister, Ryshkov, delivered a speech criticising Comecon and praising the
Hungarian Communists for their courageous economic and political reforms.
Large numbers of disillusioned members began to leave the party. In the first
three months of 1988 over 45,000 handed in their party card. By the end of
May the Communist Youth League had lost over 100,000 members. When upwards of
10,000 demonstrators gathered on 15 March to commemorate the 1848 revolution
in the biggest unofficial demonstration since 1956, it was noticeable that
the security forces were kept at a discreet distance.
Serious differences of opinion on the causes
of Hungary's
economic problems and possible future strategies to deal with them led to
furious arguments breaking out between reformers and conservatives at a
meeting of the Central Committee held on 23-24 March 1988. The only points of
agreement were that the centralised political power structure and institutions
of the Stalin era were now outdated and that the party should relinquish its
monopoly of power so that people would be encouraged to show greater
self-reliance in organising and running their own affairs. The setting up of
voluntary associations and interest groups should also be actively promoted.
It was decided to leave the necessary reform of the party structure and its
implications for those in positions of power to the next party conference due
to be held in late May. But just how little room for manoeuvre remained could
be seen from the party's reaction to a new attack by Pozsgay, who blamed lack
of political and social reform for the country's economic problems and the
damage this was causing to Socialism. On 10 April 1988 moves were made to expel
four of Pozsgay's followers from the party for supporting his demands for a
new constitution, elections by secret ballot with a choice of several
candidates and more strictly defined and observed 'civil rights'.
Many members now began openly to discuss the
desirability, indeed necessity, of finding a replacement for Kádár who was
suffering ill-health and showing signs of age. But the General Secretary
indicated little desire to quit or change his views. He insisted that Hungary
would continue to follow its own 'Socialist path of development'. As far as
he was concerned, political pluralism was out of the question. When the
Central Committee re-convened on 10 May, no agreement was reached on who
should be elected to the important positions in the leadership. On 21 May
1988, Kádár made his opening speech at the first national party congress
since 1957 in which he called for the party to carry on with the process of
gradual democratisation and reform on the understanding that this would
strengthen its leadership role and allow it to continue building a Socialist
society and strengthen the power of the masses. This view, which was out of
step with the times, was rejected by the majority of speakers including Imre
Pozsgay. He, in contrast, pleaded for greater tolerance of conflicting views,
improving the rights of the citizen and ending the party's and the
bureaucracy's abuse of power. After much heated debate, the theoretical basis
and guidelines for reforming the party and social institutions along democratic
lines were spelled out in the document 'Change, Reform and Renewal'. It
proposed that reforms based on meritocratic principles should continue. At
the same time, parliament should be given more independence, the constitution
thoroughly revised and the public allowed a greater say in decision-making,
for example through referenda. The new Central Committee subsequently removed
Kádár from his post as General Secretary and ended his membership of the
Politburo, demoting him to the impotent position of honorary chairman. He was
succeeded by Károly Grósz, the 58-year-old technocrat who had risen rapidly
in the party since 1985 and whose forceful manner, though it had made him few
friends, had won him considerable respect.
Few politicians have had such a lasting
influence on Hungary's
fate as János Kádár who was forced involuntarily into retirement. In terms of
his significance in Hungarian history commentators have compared him with the
Renaissance ruler Matthias Corvinus or the Emperor Francis Joseph. Initially
seen as the 'betrayer' of the 1956 Uprising, he had successfully rid himself
of his odious reputation as 'the nation's hangman' and had persevered in
winning from the Kremlin Soviet recognition of Hungary's distinctive path to
Socialism. His maxim, 'He who is not against us, is with us', and his
'goulash-Communism' had succeeded in reconciling Hungarians to an unpopular
and inefficient economic and bureaucratic system. It was, above all, his
achievement that economic reforms had been introduced, albeit half-heartedly,
which had resulted in fundamental political and social change. But when
questioned about his part in 'violating socialist legality' and in the deaths
of László Rajk and Imre Nagy he had remained silent. The era over which he
presided had probably already come to an end when the second phase of reforms
began in 1986, or at the latest when Károly Grósz took over the government in
June 1987. Always proud of his proletarian origins, he had basically remained
a worker and had persistently avoided a personality cult and the accumulation
of privileges. His unpretentious manner and personal integrity won him the
deep admiration of his fellow countrymen. His tragedy lay in the fact that he
failed to leave the political stage at the right moment: he could neither
keep up with nor approve the pace of reform and its consequences for
Hungarian society.
Most of Kádár's closest supporters -- K.
Németh, G. Lázór, S. Gáspár, F. Havasi, M. Óvóri -- lost their places on the
new, smaller 11-man Politburo. The six new members, including Rezső
Nyers, Miklós Németh and Imre Pozsgay, were committed to reform, as was the
new six-man Central Committee Secretariat. The changes at the top soon
percolated down to the middle levels of government. The Soviet Communist leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev, forced to defend his own reform plans against growing
internal party criticism, greatly welcomed the triumph of the Hungarian
reformers. He sent a telegram congratulating the Hungarians on their
leadership changes and the infusion of new blood, praising Grósz as 'an
acknowledged leader who remains faithful to the principles of Communism'.
Károly Grósz, who had no wish to remain as
both party chief and prime minister in the long term, immediately announced
more 'major and radical reforms' to cut state subsidies which amounted to 35
per cent of government spending, balance the domestic budget and reduce the
country's growing foreign debt. A special parliamentary sitting on 29 June
1988 removed Kádár's protégé, Károly, Németh, 'at his own wish and in
recognition of his services' as chairman of the Presidium and chose as his
successor the biochemist, Bruno Straub, who was not a member of any party.
The election of the radical reformer, Pozsgay, to Secretary of State in the
prime minister's office, as well as numerous other changes at ministerial
level demonstrated the party's desire to press on with reforming the system.
This desire was also evident at the full
meeting of the Central Committee held on 13-14 July which was broadcast live
for the first time on television. After delivering a hard-hitting critique of
mismanaged economic development resulting from Stalinist centralisation and
acknowledging the inadequacy of the remedies -which tackled the symptoms
rather than the causes -- the Central Committee Secretary, Miklós Németh,
appealed to his countrymen to have the necessary courage to implement radical
change. He explained that it would take about seven years to develop a range
of products to compete in the international market, expand foreign trade,
improve efficiency to cope with the market economy and put an end to
subsidising loss-making companies. Since all this meant taking unknown risks
and might give rise to social tensions, he recommended that the government
should seek a social consensus. The public should be kept fully informed of
the true economic situation and the hardships caused by the changes. The
reasons for these should be properly explained. The Central Committee then
asked the government to draw up an economic plan which would bring about
'rapid structural changes and technical development' and effect 'the opening
up of foreign markets' by 1989. It also urged the government to cushion the
population against future hardships by creating a new social welfare system.
A subject of even greater interest to most
Hungarians was the idea of introducing a law on freedom of assembly and
association. In future 'peaceful combination, assembly and demonstrations'
would be allowed as long as the aims of the registered groups did not conflict
with the constitution, endanger public order, offend morals or harm the
rights of others. The fact that a whole variety of movements and social
groups had emerged which opposed the party's monopoly of power and control of
public opinion meant that it was also necessary to create an 'appropriate
framework for the open discussion of alternative views'. These groups wanted
political pluralism and the right to engage in political activity. On 3
September 1987 nationalist intellectuals in Lakitelek founded the 'Hungarian
Democratic Forum' ( Magyar
Demokrata Fórum -- MDF).
Appealing to the populist tradition of the inter-war period, its manifesto
advocated a multi-party system, privatisation of the economy and the
substantial restoration of ' Hungary's
damaged national consciousness'. At its first big public meeting on 15 May
1988, held in the Jurta theatre in Budapest,
the platform speakers, István Csurka, the playwright, and Sáindor Csoóri, the
writer, demanded that one of the government's main priorities should be to
rehabilitate Imre Nagy and his policies. In the previous March the more
left-wing organisation, 'Network of Independent Citizens' Initiatives', had
emerged as a rallying point for several underground organisations. Its
spokesmen issued a declaration of principles which demanded a multi-party
system, the observance of human and civil rights, independence for Hungary
within the Socialist Bloc and the creation of a 'mixed' market economy. Other
groups to emerge were a 'Trade Union of Democratic Scientists' independent of
state control and an 'Alliance of Young Democrats' (Fiatal Demokraták
Szövetsége -FIDESZ). The
latter rejected state interference in the economy and demanded recognition of
the right to private property and corporate ownership, but, above all, strict
observance of the rule of law and the immediate introduction of parliamentary
democracy.
Feminists, ecologists, animal rights groups,
traditionalists and even the Scout movement all announced their intention to
set up their own organisations. This, together with the fact that
representatives of the old parties banned in 1949 expressed the desire to
become politically active once more, meant that appropriate legislation could
no longer be delayed. The form this took was decided by a public debate
conducted by the Patriotic Popular Front. It was also the Front that accepted
responsibility for an opposition demonstration on 27 June 1988 when over
35,000 people gathered in the main square of Budapest to protest against
Ceauşescu's policies against ethnic minorities in Rumania and the
destruction of villages to make way for agrarian-industrial cooperatives.
Grósz and his foreign minister, Péter
Várkonyi, who had held on to his position after Kádár's departure, tried to
enlist sympathy, moral support and concrete help for their reforms not just
from Hungary's Socialist partners but from the industrialised West. While the
East German, Czech, Bulgarian and Rumanian governments warned the Hungarians
against taking incalculable risks and distanced themselves increasingly from Hungary's
reforms, the Kremlin gave its full backing. This was because Gorbachev saw
the Hungarian experiment as a possible alternative to the social and economic
pressures for change he was facing in the Soviet Union.
In contrast, Hungary's
relations with Rumania
deteriorated considerably when Ceauşescu began implementing his plan for
'systematising villages and towns'. This required the razing of over 13,000
villages to be replaced by 6,000 new settlements clustered round 558 'urban agrarian-industrial
complexes' by the year 2000. When the Hungarian government assured the
Hungarian minority in Transylvania that the 'mother nation' would support
them in their struggle against oppression, attacks on their culture and the
violation of their rights, Bucharest responded at the start of 1988 by
tightening up its border controls and resettling more Magyars in the region
of Tîrgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely). This resulted in an exodus of refugees
which grew considerably until well over 17,000 had crossed into Hungary by
the beginning of July. Protest declarations published by the Hungarian media
contributed to the climate of hostility inside both countries. Following a
mass demonstration officially approved by the Hungarian government and the
blockading of the Rumanian embassy by protestors in Budapest,
the Hungarian consul in Cluj-Napoca
was ordered to close his consulate on 1 July. The Hungarian Cultural
Institute in Bucharest
was also forced to close. At the same time, Rumanian border officials refused
to process the passports of Magyars trying to cross the border.
Ceauşescu complained in an intransigent speech that Socialist Hungary
was conducting a foreign policy reminiscent of the extreme nationalism and
chauvinism of the Horthy era. This accusation was rejected by the Hungarian
parliament in a sharply formulated resolution of 1 July which in turn
criticised Rumania's
resettlement procedures as a violation of human and minority rights. After
failed attempts at mediation by other countries in the Socialist Bloc there
seemed to be no prospect of a settlement of what the Soviet prime minister,
Ryshkov, described as an 'abnormal situation'. When Grósz and Ceauşescu
met at Arad
on 28 August -the first meeting between heads of state since 1977 -- they
failed to make any progress in overcoming the 'considerable differences of
opinion' which existed between them.
On their visits to western capitals Hungary's
politicians were encouraged to continue their reform programme. They
expressed their wish 'to be among the first countries to reduce their armed
forces and weapons on their territory'. This policy which was adopted mainly
for economic reasons resulted in constructive cooperation at the subsequent
arms limitations talks in Vienna.
After the German Federal President von Weizsäcker made a state visit to Hungary on October 1986, Budapest
placed great importance on developing closer relations with West Germany.
These were further strengthened when Hungary's
foreign minister, Várkonyi, signed an agreement in Bremen on 22 July 1987. The close
bilateral cooperation thus established also resulted in the West German
government providing Hungary
with a financial credit of over a billion marks when Grósz visited Bonn at the beginning
of October. It was also agreed to set up cultural exchange institutes in both
countries. On 10 March 1988 the West German foreign minister, Genscher, opened
a West German Cultural and Information Centre in Budapest,
only the second (after Bucharest)
that the Germans had established in a Communist country. And it was mainly
because of West Germany's
support that Hungary was
able to sign a wide-ranging economic agreement with the EC in Brussels on 26
September 1988. This extended 'most-favourednation' status to Hungary and greatly opened up trade relations
between Hungary
and EC members. The EC also agreed to scrap its quota restrictions on
Hungarian imports until 1994.
The Grósz government also paid particular
attention to re establishing normal diplomatic relations with Israel. These
had been broken off in 1967. After delegations had signed an initial trade
agreement on 14 September 1987 in Berne, closer relations were established
when the Israeli foreign minister, Peres, paid a surprise visit to Budapest on 8 May 1988.
This was followed by further visits from Prime Minister Shamir on 14
September and 17 April 1989. On 18 September 1989 it was finally announced
that normal diplomatic relations had been restored between the two countries.
But Hungarians were less interested in
foreign policy than turbulent events at home where the effects of the
government's reforms had resulted in the country's first wildcat strikes. The
realisation that Hungary's
lame-duck companies could only be saved by injections of foreign capital
prompted the autumn session of the Hungarian parliament to pass several new
laws between 5 and 7 October 1988 allowing the setting up of free enterprise
companies from 1 January onwards. In addition, foreigners were to be allowed
to hold shares in Hungarian companies, profits could be freely disposed of
and a stock exchange accessible to private citizens was to be established.
Despite growing public opposition, parliament voted for work to continue on
the controversial Danube power station at
Gabčikovo-Nagymaros. Economic issues also dominated at a meeting of the
Central Committee held on 1 and 2 November. In his role as party leader,
Grósz stipulated only one condition for selling off state enterprises -- the
proportion of foreign capital and private shares held by Hungarian citizens
was not to exceed '49 per cent of the total shares' which were 'the
collectively held property of the Hungarian state'. He went on to blame
Hungary's problems on the failed policies of the Kádár government in the
1970s, accusing it of having taken control away from the people and having
failed to address adequately the concerns of the country's intelligentsia and
youth. As regards the emergence of numerous independent organisations, it was
broadly agreed that the party should tolerate 'a pluralistic society but only
within the framework of the one-party system' since any loss of power by the
MSzMP would result in anarchy. The conservative Central Committee Secretary,
Berecz, warned that the party would no longer tolerate those who opposed the
system or those who gave too much exposure in the media, especially radio, to
critics of the party and the government. The reformers rejected this warning
outright, pointing to the need to involve society much more in political
life. This discussion revealed the existence of serious differences of
opinion between fundamentalists and reformers regarding the pace, extent and
nature of further reform.
On 24 November 1988 Grósz kept his word and
handed power over to the 40-year-old economist Miklós Németh. Rezső
Nyers, the much respected original initiator of the NEM, joined him in the
newly created post of Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. Németh, who
had been elected Central Committee Secretary in June 1987 and became a member
of the Politburo from May 1988 onwards, was regarded as equally committed to
reform as the ex-Social Democrat, Nyers, who had been ousted from office at
the behest of the Soviets in March 1974. He had early on formed the opinion
that Hungary
could only adopt western ideas of freedom and democracy if it could rid
itself of the legacy of Stalinism and revitalise Socialism by introducing a
multi-party system. The radical reformers, led by Imre Pozsgay, felt, on the
other hand, that the pace of change preferred by the party's centralisers and
fundamentalists was far too slow and inadequate. Now firmly established in
government, they were determined to press on with more reforms.
At a full meeting of the Central Committee
held on 15 December 1988 the reformers forced a withdrawal of the party
conference's May resolution to the effect that Socialism could be realised
only within a one-party system. The question as to whether the newly emerged
'alternative organisations' would be allowed to take part in the forthcoming
parliamentary elections in the late autumn of 1990 was left open for the time
being. It was also decided that new legislation and the drafting of a new
constitution should come before parliament in the spring of 1990 after the
party had had time to discuss them thoroughly. A lecture which Berecz had
delivered on the subject of 'Political pluralism - the relationship of the
party to new alternative political organisations' was to be retracted, as
were Grósz's pronouncements that the old guard was not prepared to give up
Hungary's basic Socialism, the country's firm position in the eastern bloc
and Communist political leadership without a fight.
As a result of pressure from the reformers,
the Hungarian parliament passed a new law allowing freedom of assembly and
combination on 11 January 1989, thus introducing two important democratic
measures. Citizens were given the right to form their own independent
political parties, organisations, interest groups and trade unions. After registering
with the authorities they would be completely free to carry out their
activities, hold meetings and rrange demonstrations. The practical framework
in which political parties would be allowed to operate was the subject of
further legislation which retroactively legalised the 30 parties and
organisations which had been founded since 1988. While the orthodox wing of
the party complained of 'uncontrolled haste' and warned of the dangers of
political fragmentation, the justice minister, K. Kulcsár, announced the
government's intention of emulating western European models in developing a
society based on the rule of law. It was this attitude which lay behind the
demand to create an independent Constitutional
Court comprising ten members and a chairman elected
by parliament.
The legislation of opposition groups opposed
to its monopoly of power hastened the demise of the MSZMP. The Hungarian
Democratic Forum (MDF), which with upwards of 10,000 members was the biggest
of the so-called 'alternative organisations', FIDESZ and the radical-liberal
Alliance of Free Democrats ( Szabad
Demokraták Szövetsége -
SZDSZ), which had emerged from the 'Network', did not at first see themselves
as traditional parties, though they did try to create nationwide
organisations. In the meantime, the old traditional parties had also
announced their presence. The Independent Smallholders' and Civic Party ( Magyar Független Kisgazda Párt - FKGP), which was reconstituted on
19 November 1988, saw itself as the mouthpiece of not only agricultural
workers but small businesses, craftworkers and commerce. Alongside advocating
a rebirth of Christian values, its political demands included creating
democratic government, protecting the environment and establishing close
relations with the EC. On 19 January 1989 the Social Democratic Party (Szociáldemokrata
Párt) announced its programme at its first meeting for over 40 years. Its
main aims included creating an adequate social welfare system, observing
human rights, ending the military alliances of the Cold War, declaring
Hungarian political neutrality and obtaining full EC membership. The
Hungarian People's Party (Magyar Néppá?rt), formally founded on 11
June 1989, saw itself as the heir of the National Peasants' Party. As well as
espousing nationalist values, it called for the creation of a stable economy
and the promotion of both private ownership and self-governing cooperatives.
The Christian Democratic People's Party (Keresztény Demokarta Párt - KDNP) claimed descent from its
predecessor and namesake which had been wound up in 1949. Its pronouncements
placed it in the same ideological tradition as western Christian Democratic
parties. The employers' organisations which had operated unofficially for
some time joined the Democratic Federation of Independent Trade Unions in
establishing an umbrella organisation on 19 December 1988, and an independent
trade union, calling itself 'Workers' Solidarity', was founded on 25 February
1989. On 20 January representatives of the MSzMP and the MDF met for the first
time to discuss arrangements for allowing the new parties to take part in the
forthcoming parliamentary elections and how to restructure the country's
political institutions at the earliest possible juncture.
Events followed fast and furiously in the
weeks to come. Imre Pozsgay deliberately opened the floodgates on 20 January
1989 when, commenting on the findings of an historical commission appointed
by the Central Committee, he no longer described the events of the autumn of
1956 as a counter-revolution but spoke of a 'popular uprising'. The MSzMP
leader, Grósz, rejected this 'over-hasty categorisation' but said he did not
wish to ignore opposition demands to re-open the case of Imre Nagy and his
colleagues. Although Prime Minister Németh was used to Pozsgay fielding
criticism on his behalf, even he felt obliged to advise his ministerial
colleague to be more circumspect. The commission's reappraisal of events in
1956 questioned the whole basis of the Kádár period of government and the
Soviets' right to intervene militarily at that time. On 7 February Hungary's
15 biggest opposition groups offered to cooperate with the party in
implementing further reforms but only on condition that the 'popular
uprising' was no longer referred to as an attempted 'counter-revolution', but
rather as an attempt to destroy 'the Stalinist party state'. At the climax of
the heated public debate on this issue a compromise was reached at a special
meeting of the Central Committee held on 10-11 February. It was announced
that it had been 'the leadership's failure to revitalise the system' which
had 'resulted in the political explosion of 1956. A genuine popular uprising
broke out, though counter-revolutionary activities became more pronounced
from the end of October onwards.' It soon became clear that the view of the
'popular uprising' having degenerated into 'counter-revolution' when, on 1
November 1956, Nagy responded to the second Soviet intervention by
proclaiming Hungary's departure from the Warsaw Pact, declaring Hungarian political
neutrality and announcing the creation of a multi-party system, could simply
no longer be sustained. The growing demands for Nagy's complete political
rehabilitation inevitably undermined the convenient construction which the
party had tried to place on events.
Of even greater significance was the decree
by which the Central Committee introduced a multi-party system. Many party
members argued that society had been inadequately prepared for the changeover
and warned of the danger of destabilising the system. It was therefore
necessary in their view that the change should be one of 'gradual transition
within a controlled framework'. The leadership made it clear that it was
prepared to work with all responsible political groups but would make use of
its political power to have 'the final say' in the event of any disagreement.
The system could be successfully reformed into an economy based on individual
efficiency and mixed ownership, only if it also incorporated a humane social
policy based on the principles of social justice, collective solidarity and
self-help. Grósz, in his position as General Secretary, stressed that the
party was sincere in its efforts to remove the legacy of Stalinism and build
a 'Socialist infra-structure' superior to 'bourgeois society'. Hungary would
develop 'its own new model of democratic Socialism'.
The radical reformers ignored the call to
stick to a single party line for the sake of appearances. Nyers complained
about the delaying tactics of the Central Committee's 'secret anti-reform
wing' and Németh referred to a split in the Politburo over the nature and
pace of reform. Nor did he rule out the possibility that the MSzMP might lose
the forthcoming election. Pozsgay boldly tackled the subject of the long-term
consequences of Stalinism which he accused of having turned eastern Europe
economically into one of the 'longest suffering areas of crisis in the
world'. His remark that in his eight years as party leader Mátyás Rákosi had
been directly responsible for the deaths of more Communists than the 'fascist
dictator' Horthy over a quarter of a century was severely criticised when the
full Central Committee met again on 20-21 February 1989. In the last session
chaired by Kádar the Committee discussed how the constitution could be revised
in keeping with a new spirit of legality, averring that 'the 1949
constitution had been a mere copy of the Soviet constitution'. When those who
wished to maintain the party's centralised control insisted that the new
constitution should retain the concept of Socialism and define Hungary as a
'free, democratic and Socialist state', a vigorous debate ensued. The shift
from the party's monopoly of power and the traditional concept of the MSzMP's
'leadership role' was defined in terms of neither the state nor social
institutions or individuals having the right to the exclusive exercise of
power nor the right to wrest it by force. The draft made no explicit mention
of introducing a multi-party system. Instead of celebrating the 7 November,
the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution, as a national holiday, the 15
March was chosen to commemorate in future the events of 1848 when Hungary
revolted against the Habsburg monarchy.
Under pressure from its own pro-reform
elements the MSzMP reluctantly relinquished its 40-year-old claim to be the
sole political representative of the Hungarian people, a claim which had
never been legitimised and freely accepted by Hungarian society. In view of
Gorbachev's policy of Perestroika in the Soviet Union, the old guard which
was resisting major reform could no longer rely on the intimidating threat
that their Soviet Colleagues would not tolerate fundamental changes in Hungary. The
fact that the MSzMP's membership was already dwindling rapidly made the
radical reformers very conscious of the fact that they were in danger of
losing the democratic debate to their newly emerged political opponents.
Despite undergoing a process of renewal, the party was being held responsible
for earlier crimes, mistakes and idiocies committed in its name. The
reformers believed that their only chance of not being excluded at the ballot
from playing a further part in shaping their country's future lay in placing
themselves at the head of the reform movement and making a credible break
with the past .
THE
DEVELOPMENT OF A DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM
The dramatic
internal political changes failed, however, to distract Hungarians from the
worsening economic situation. In 1988 rising prices and an estimated
inflation rate of 20 per cent resulted in minimal economic growth. The
systematic removal of state subsidies succeeded in reducing the budget
deficit by 10 billion forints and a modest surplus was achieved in foreign
trade with the West despite a 17.2 billion dollar debt. But the wages of
white and blue-collar workers continued to fall in real terms. Even so, on 11
January 1989 further massive price increases came into effect. Food became on
average 17 per cent more expensive, the cost of medicine rose by a staggering
80 per cent and public transport by 60 per cent. Németh tried to calm
protests from the trade unions and the factories by claiming that the worst
was over and that the transition to democracy was being accompanied by 'signs
of a healthier economy'. Nevertheless, Hungarians generally expected to have
to tighten their belts further. Since the opposition could offer no
convincing overall economic strategy that could hold out the prospect of
rapid improvement, the only way forward to a market economy lay in making
further sacrifices and drastically reducing consumer spending.
The new political groups made good use of
their new freedom. On 11-12 March 1989 the MDF held its first national party
conference in Budapest
which was attended by 700 delegates from 200 constituent organisations. Its newly
elected steering committee led by József Antall was asked to investigate the
possibility of transforming the Forum into a political party, though
delegates initially wanted to remain an organisation which would function as
a rallying point for similar minded groups. The different groups which formed
the MDF agreed on a basic programme which called for the new constitution to
incorporate the concept of pluralism, the rule of law and legal equality for
all forms of property and enterprise. This was to be drawn up by a newly
elected constituent assembly rather than the existing National Assembly which
remained dominated by the MSzMP. An alternative rally held by the 31
opposition groups on 15 March, the anniversary of the 1848 revolution,
attracted three times as many participants than that organised by the MSzMP.
Several speakers demanded for the first time the withdrawal of Soviet troops
from Hungary.
There were also calls for cutbacks in the military budget, a declaration of
Hungarian neutrality in foreign policy, the restoration of national pride, an
end to falsifying Hungarian history and a re-evaluation of the events of
1956. The government, for its part, demonstrated its goodwill by introducing
provisionally for a three-year term new forms of public service for
conscientious objectors opposing universal conscription. Other gestures
included joining the United Nations Commission for Refugees and legalising
strike action from 23 March onwards.
On a visit to Moscow
on 24 March 1989 Grósz tried to calm the fears of Soviet colleagues who were
annoyed by Hungary's
decision to allow a multi-party system. He praised the MSzMP's continuing
leadership role and its 'alliance with all realistic people as the most
important guarantee of political stability and the dynamic development of
Socialism'. But his assurances that Hungary would strengthen its
economic and military cooperation with the Soviets and foster closer party
relations were rejected by the reformers and met with general incomprehension
on the part of the Hungarian public. Grósz did, however, succeed in returning
with Gorbachev's 'full guarantee' that there would be no repetition of the
kind of Soviet military intervention that had occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The
Soviet position was summed up in the statement that 'armed force should not
be misused to interfere in the internal affairs of other Socialist
countries'.
When arguments over reform grew more heated
at a full Central Committee meeting on 29-30 March and the danger of a split
in the MSzMP emerged, the Politburo decided to back down. At a subsequent
meeting on 12 April four of the Committee's conservative members - the
party's chief ideologue, Berecz, its activist leader, János Lukács, the
unpopular health minister, Judit Csehák and the agricultural minister, István
Szabó - were ousted to make way for reformers. The move showed that only
twelve months after carrying the hopes of the reformers, Grósz's influence as
party leader was in terminal decline. He was no longer able to hold together
the opposing wings of the party as they gradually drifted apart. His promise
to find 'a new unity on controversial issues', to strengthen democracy and
debate in a 'phase of renewal', and his attempts to restore lost confidence
in the party and reverse its rapidly declining membership failed to end the
deep tensions. After the departure of 23,000 more party members from the
beginning of 1989 onwards, the MSzMP's membership slumped to 780,000. Since
only 8 per cent of these were below the age of 30 the Communist Youth League
decided to disband itself on 22 April and create in its place a new federally
structured organisation called the Hungarian Democratic Youth League (
DEMISZ).
Although parts of the old power structure
tried to resist reform, the pro-reform elements were not deterred from taking
further dramatic action. Following an announcement by Nyers on 2 March 1989,
work began on removing the 'Iron Curtain' along Hungary's
border with Austria
on 2 May, despite protests from the East German, Czech, Rumanian and
Bulgarian governments whom the Hungarians nicknamed the 'Gang of Four'. When
a major cabinet reshuffle took place on 10 May, the ministers of foreign
affairs, finance, industry, economic planning, agriculture and education were
all replaced by reformers. Németh's announcement that Gyula Horn had been
appointed foreign minister brought a seasoned diplomat into his cabinet whose
commitment to defending Hungary's
reforms was not in doubt both inside and outside the party. His abilities
were put to the test a few days later when a government decree of 13 May
provisionally stopped work for two months on the Danube
power station at Gabčikovo-Nagymaros. Horn was given the task of
explaining his government's action to Hungary's
angry Socialist partners in Prague
and the alienated Austrian authorities.
On 20-21 May about 400 members of the MSzMP
representing 110 'pro-reform groups' held a national conference in Szeged. Here they
demanded that Imre Nagy and those executed alongside him should be cleared of
their alleged crimes. They also called for the speeding up of Hungary's
transition to democracy, the holding of a party conference by the following
autumn at the latest and a genuine reform of the Communist movement. None of
the delegates objected when Pozsgay argued that they should ignore the
party's orthodox elements who were opposed to transforming the MSzMP into a
western-style social democratic party. While recognising the undesirability
of creating 'a dangerous power vacuum', he believed it would not be a
catastrophe were the party to split.
In April, following a petition signed by no
fewer than 15,000 Hungarians, an official inquiry was begun into the legality
of the show trial staged against Nagy and his colleagues in 1958. While this
was still underway, the Central Committee, which met between 28 and 30 May,
condemned what it called the 'contrived political trial' and 'illegal
sentence' against Nagy. On 9 June the judges of the Supreme Court recommended
that Nagy and eight others sentenced for their part in events should be
pardoned since the authorities of the time had repeatedly abused the laws 'in
the most primitive manner'. Despite growing opposition from party
fundamentalists who feared the fallout that would result from re-opening the
controversy surrounding the trial, the government pronounced innocent those
'individuals sentenced for activities against the state' in 1958. It promised
that 'no-one will ever again be sentenced' in Hungary 'for his or her political
convictions without due process of law', adding that 'the ideas and
democratic, humanitarian and nationalist aspirations of Imre Nagy and his
supporters are an integral part of the present government's outlook'. On 16
June, the 31st anniversary of his execution, the mortal remains of Nagy and
four of his closest colleagues were laid in state in the presence of 600,000
people in Budapest's
main square. After a commemoration service broadcast nationally on television
and radio, they were re-interred in the same Budapest cemetery where they had once been
unceremoniously dumped into the mass graves of Plot 301. On 6 July 1989 the
Supreme Court announced that the judgement in the trial against Nagy and his
colleagues had been illegal even according to the law of the time and that
all involved were now posthumously pardoned 'because there had been no
crime'. This gesture of reconciliation brought to a close a tragic chapter of
Hungarian history and signalled the country's return to the rule of law. It
also strengthened the reform elements both inside and outside the state
apparatus, while at the same time causing a further loss of prestige for the
party's orthodox wing.
In the meantime, the MSzMP's attempts at
renewal were already being pushed further by the reformers. On 8 May, János
Kádár, who was by now seriously ill, lost his seat on the Central Committee
and was deprived of his honorary post as party president. He was reduced to a
political has-been without the least attempt to honour his previous record of
service. The reason behind this dramatic step was doubtless his tearful
acceptance of blame at the previous meeting of the Central Committee when he
lost control and asked to be punished for his part in the deaths of Rajk and
Nagy. He also came out publicly in favour of revealing the blunt truth of
what had gone on behind the scenes during the Nagy trial. He saw the 'tragedy
of Imre Nagy' as his 'own personal tragedy', believing that their fates had
been indissolubly linked by circumstance, a fact which he felt had been more
understood in the West than by his own party comrades. By an irony of fate he
died on 6 July 1989, the very day on which Imre Nagy was pardoned of all the
crimes of which he had been accused.
When the Central Committee met on 24 June in
what was described as its 'most open and critical meeting since the end of
the Second World War', it took a decision which was to have profound
ramifications: it set up a new collective four-man leadership. Although
Károly Grósz kept his title of General Secretary and his seat in the new
Presidium, most of his responsibilities were transferred to Rezső Nyers,
who was styled the new 'President of the Presidium', and to Pozsgay and
Németh. Reformers also dominated the new-styled ' Political Executive
Committee', the new enlarged 21-man strong Politburo and the new look Central
Committee Secretariat. The party dogmatists, who opposed any further
development towards democracy and a multi-party system, tried to disguise
their aim of restoring the dictatorship of the proletariat and a centralised
party, but the reformers responded with a barely concealed threat to expel
them from the party, failing which they would found their own new social
democratic style party. The decree summoning a party conference on 6 October
and nominating Imre Pozsgay for the new office of president was intended to
placate the radical reformers.
In mid-April the opposition groups rejected
an MSzMP invitation to round-table talks similar to those which had taken
place in Poland.
Rather than find themselves integrated into the power structure they wanted
'to challenge those in power'. On 13 June 1989, however, party leaders did
meet directly with the 'opposition round table' (a loose assortment of nine
parties and independent organisations) and a third grouping compromising
representatives of seven mass organisations (trade unions, youth
organisations, Patriotic Popular Front etc). The party wanted to create a
framework for all loyal elements to participate in government to help tackle
the country's political and economic problems. For the opposition, on the
other hand, the main priority was to bring about a fast and peaceful
transition from a dictatorship to a representative democracy. They demanded
legalisation of their activities, the holding of free elections and the
acceptance of their proposals for revising the constitution. The victory of
three candidates closely allied with the Hungarian Democratic Forum in the
parliamentary by-elections of 27 July and 4 August - the first opposition
deputies to enter parliament for 40 years - had a positive effect on the
atmosphere surrounding negotiations. On 27 August the round-table opposition
reached agreement with the party on the procedures to be adopted in the
national elections due to be held in March 1990. A politically independent
commission was given the task of ensuring that the official media, hitherto
exclusively controlled by the MSzMP, would provide balanced and neutral
election coverage.
The round-table discussions ended on 19
September with agreement on draft legislation to amend the constitution and
the criminal law, create a Constitutional
Court and regulate the organisation and
activities of political parties. But there was still no agreement over the
choice of date for the presidential election and the procedure by which the
new president should be elected. The opposition thought that this should be
decided only after the new parliament had been elected. Although Pozsgay
offered the new political parties initial financial assistance of 35 billion
forints to help get their organisations off the ground, the MSzMP's refusal
to dissolve its 60,000 strong workers' militia or reveal its financial assets
meant that there was still general scepticism regarding the credibility of
the government negotiators. After parliament met on 26 September 1989,
however, a large majority passed some of the measures agreed to in the talks.
For example, a new passport law gave Hungarians complete freedom of movement.
The citizen's freedom to choose his or her place of permanent or temporary
residence was declared a 'fundamental human right' and the new criminal law
declared all political activity aimed against nationality or race a criminal
act. Any threat to the constitutional system or the independence of the state
and its territorial integrity was defined as an 'anti-state activity'.
Citizens were free to criticise the system, its institutions or political
figures without breaking the law. Thus Hungary's emergent democracy was
beginning to assume a tangible form.
At the same time Hungary was going its own way in
foreign policy. On an official visit from 11 to 13 July the US president, George Bush, promised that the USA would support Hungary as a 'helping partner'.
On 24-25 July Nyers and Grósz addressed the Soviet leadership in the Kremlin.
While Hungary's new leader
praised Moscow's
recent initiatives as a 'poweful catalyst for introducing democracy into
political and social life' in his country, he also stressed the need to
effect the changes 'not in stages' but 'quickly and decisively'; otherwise
they would inevitably sink 'into lethargy'. On 16 August 1989 the government
and the MSzMP distanced themselves from the violent events of the 'Prague
Spring' 1968 when Hungarian troops had assisted the Soviets in suppressing
the Czechs and the Slovaks. Referring also to their own bitter in 1956, they
announced their desire to reform the Warsaw Pact with a view to creating 'institutional
safeguards against any such actions recurring'. No sooner had angry protests
from the Czechoslovak Communists subsided, when Németh's government, at the
urging of foreign minister Horn, decided on 11 September to allow all East
German citizens who had fled to Hungary
to leave freely for West
Germany. This measure, which attracted
world-wide attention, was furiously condemned by the East German government.
When, on 31 October, parliament instructed the government to terminate the
agreement with the Czechs to build the power station at
Gabčikovo-Nagymaros, relations with the more orthodox Czechoslovak
Communists went from bad to worse. The government then broke new ground when
it applied for membership of the Council of Europe on 16 November -- the first
time any member of the Warsaw Pact had risked breaking away from the military
alliance. On 7 November 1990 Hungary
became the Council's 24th member state.
In domestic policy the radical reformers
were no longer prepared to settle for half-hearted compromises. While Sándor
Péter, chairman of the newly founded Marxist-Leninist Party of Hungary,
called on his members to defend pure Socialism to the death, and the Ferenc
Münnich Society, which for some time had acted as a rallying point for
orthodox Communists, warned in exaggerated terms of the consequences of
abandoning Socialist policies, the reformers pressed ahead with their second
national conference on 2-3 September 1989 in Budapest. On 16 September they
founded a new 'movement for a democratic Hungary'. Recognising the need
for a 'complete change to the political system and its leadership', together
with the need to transform the Communist Party into a modern reform movement,
they announced that they were now prepared to break with the party's political
fossils'.
At the party conference held between 6 and 9
October 1989, at which General Secretary Grósz announced his departure from
active politics, he attacked those of his colleagues 'who believe they have
the authority to decide who is a reformer and who is a fundamentalist'. His
plea for greater tolerance and more compromise, for slowing down political
reform in favour of urgently tackling the economy and improving relations
with Hungary's
Socialist partners met with little response. In contrast, Nyers as party
leader criticised unflinchingly the latter-day consequences of Stalinism and
lamented the mistakes the party had made in suspending the NEM reforms in
1972 and failing to implement political reforms alongside the 1985-86
programme for economic growth. His call for the founding of a new party in
the social democratic tradition was seconded by Pozsgay who put forward draft
proposals for its statutes and programme. After a serious and much
interrupted debate, a vote was taken on 7 October. Of the 1,202 delegates in
attendance, 1,005 voted to wind up the MSzMP and found a new Hungarian
Socialist Party ( Magyar
Szocialista Párt -MSZP).
Grósz was one of the 159 delegates who voted against. Nyers was elected
chairman, Pozsgay and Németh vice-chairmen. A national steering committee
compromising 25 members acted as a kind of Politburo. Renouncing the
'Leninist principles' espoused in the past, the new party pledged itself to a
new multi-party system and promised to work within the framework of parliamentary
democracy. It also accepted the social market with its mixed economy of
private and public ownership, both guaranteed equally under the law, and
announced its commitment to the ideals of freedom, democracy and humanism.
Members of the old guard completely rejected the new party and continued to
profess their loyalty to the MSzMP.
Even though the radical reformers had gained
a narrow majority with 13 members on the new steering committee they had to
take account of other currents which existed within the new party. For
example, the Democratic People's Platform, which appeared for the first time
at the party conference as a group in its own right, won five seats on the
committee. It adopted a classic Marxist position on some issues such as
control of the market economy by workers' councils. The Marxist Unity group
led by Robert Ribiánszky and supporters of the János Kádár Society, who
identified strongly with the political ideas of the long-serving party
leader, adopted an even more extreme position. Although only 50,000 of the
MSzMP's membership of 720,000 had left to join the new party by the end of
October, it was still too early to say whether it was failing to attract the
popular support its reforms were intended to create. Committee members
repeatedly argued that the MSZP was a 'genuine people's party'. It would not
only represent mainly the interest of workers, but also those of
professionals, small-time producers and small businesses, and would distance
itself from any elements which might seek to misuse democracy in order to
promote class interests.
The MSZP's first party conference endorsed
the draft legislation from the round-table talks which was voted on when the
new parliamentary session began on 18 October 1989. The preamble of the
provisional constitution, which was passed with only five votes against and
eight abstentions, defined Hungary as a 'republic' based on the values of
bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism.
A new law on the activities and financing of
the political parties gave the opposition groups the fight to constitute
themselves officially. These parties which in future would have to submit
their financial accounts to a newly created treasury were to provide the
'institutional framework' in which 'the popular will and the activities of
the citizen in political life' would find expression. The MSZP was ordered to
hand over to the state all assets belonging to the old MSzMP. These amounted
to three-quarters of an estimated total of 10.3 billion forints together with
real estate. Although the radical reformers failed to win party conference
approval of their proposal to remove politics from the workplace, parliament
banned political party activity inside firms and disbanded the workers'
militia which was not replaced. The 23 October was declared an official
holiday to commemorate the outbreak of the 1956 Uprising. In January 1990 the
new Constitutional Court
in Esztergom began its work of checking whether Hungary's laws were in
harmonywith the constitution and international law. The decision to give the
highest office in the state to an individual president meant bolishing the
Presidium. Prior to the elections the parliamentary president, Mátyás
Szűrös, had carried out the duties of the post. Since no agreement was
reached on whether the new president should be directly elected in January
1990 or whether he should be appointed by the new democratic parliament, due
to be elected in the late summer, it was decided on 31 October 1989 to hold a
referendum which took place on 26 November. A disappointing 58 per cent
turn-out gave the opposition a majority of only 6,101 votes for its motion to
have the new head of state elected by the new multi-party parliament. This
removed the popular MSZP candidate Pozsgay's chances of becoming president of
the new republic which he had played a major part in shaping. The laws which
were now passed rapidly by deputies who almost all owed their mandates to the
old MSzMP were instrumental in developing democracy further but did nothing
initially to tackle the country's economic ills. In the first half of 1989
industrial production fell by 0.7 per cent because with inflation running at
18.5 per cent and correspondingly low purchasing power there was reduced
demand in the domestic market. Comecon exports stagnated and the figures for
trade with the West were disappointing. Despite an export surplus of 500
million dollars, the government faced a balance of trade deficit of around
1.5 million dollars. When the budget proposals for 1990-92 were presented to
parliament, Németh had to admit that Hungary's foreign debt now
exceeded 20 billion dollars and the internal government debt amounted to
1,100 billion forints. But it was clear on 21 November 1989 that the
parliamentary deputies were not prepared to accept the IMF's conditions for
granting further loans. The Hungarians were expected to devalue the forint,
drastically reduce subsidies on utilities and take immediate steps to close
down loss-making companies. Despite Németh announcement that previous
governments had been responsible for running up secret external and internal
debts of 3 billion dollars and 300 billion forints respectively, deputies
went ahead with reducing VAT by 2.4 per cent to 14.5 per cent and personal
income from 45 to 40 per cent. When the MSZP leadership failed to push
through a demand to raise rents by 50 per cent for a new house building
programme, the prime minister resigned angrily from the Presidium and also
threatened to resign as head of government if the revised budget proposals
were rejected.
Despite drastic reductions in government
spending on the army and the administration, and the prospect that at least
50,000 or even 100,000 workers would be made redundant, a large majority of
eputies eventually approved the government's economic programme on 19
December and the budget on 21 December. The latter, however, also increased
social welfare spending and allocated funds to combat the effects of
unemployment. Rents were raised by 35 per cent, food prices were no longer
subsidised by 25 per cent on average and deputies accepted an inflation rate
of 20 per cent. Németh made no secret of the fact that Hungary could
not expect any tangible economic recovery nor any improvement in the standard
of living. The fact that the World Bank, the IMF and EC governments were
willing to provide generous loans which could help the government achieve a
limited measure of economic stability was recognition of Hungary's
successful move towards democracy and a market economy. The controversial
question of whether the government should raise the 2 billion dollars
required for an international exhibition to be held simultaneously in Vienna and Budapest
or whether the money would be better spent on an urgently needed housing
programme added to an already heated debate.
Despite a demonstration by orthodox
Communists who refused to recognise the legality of the 7 October decree
winding up the MSzMP and who held their Fourteenth Party Congress attended by
800 delegates representing 100,000 members on 17 December in Budapest, the
Hungarian government and parliament continued to pass more measures intended
to introduce democracy. The extent to which the rule of law had been achieved
was clearly demonstrated when the minister for internal affairs, István
Horváth, resigned on 23 January 1990 after accepting responsibility for a
bugging scandal involving members of the secret police. On 25 January
parliament placed clear restrictions on the activities of the security
services whose future role was to deal only with cases where there was a
threat to the security or sovereignty of the country and its constitution.
They were also to be allowed to open mail and bug telephones, but only in
certain narrowly defined circumstances and subject to supervision by the
minister of justice. Parliament also declared that the pursuit of private
enterprise was now a civil right and passed the required legislation for
privatising state-owned concerns, re-opening the stock exchange and allowing
farmers to withdraw from cooperative farms or change these into private
farms. It also extended the 'fundamental human right' of freedom of worship
and conscience, as safeguarded by the new constitution. Every Hungarian was
granted the right to practise the religion of his or her choice and it was
left to parents to decide whether their children should be given a religious
upbringing and whether they should receive religious instruction which was
reintroduced into the schools. The churches were explicitly acknowledged as
free and independent institutions, and full diplomatic relations with the Vatican were restored on 9 February 1990, when
Pope John Paul II promised he would visit Hungary in 1991.
At its last sitting before its dissolution
on 14 March 1990, the National Assembly pardoned all of Hungary's
citizens who had been unjustly condemned by the courts during the Stalin era.
Sentences meted out in trials involving fabricated evidence were declared
null and void. Financial compensation was considered for Hungarians taken
into Russian captivity after the end of the war and for the German ethnic
minority which had long suffered discrimination because of the post- war
notion of collective guilt. The preamble to the legislation stated that
'parliament asks for the nation's forgiveness and bows its head before all
the victims of illegal acts, for the crimes in question were not committed by
citizens of the state but by the Stalinist authorities'. At this time
Hungarians were also following the deteriorating situation of their
co-nationals in Rumania.
From the beginning of December 1989 almost 30,000 of them had fled to Hungary along
with 10,000 Rumanians. Németh's government joined the Geneva Convention on
Refugees on 24 February 1989 and attempted to put pressure on the
Ceauşescu régime by making formal protests and allowing demonstrations
to take place outside the Rumanian embassy in Budapest.
When the Rumanian revolution broke out,
Hungarian radio, press and television reported in detail the violent clashes
in Timisoara
(Temesvár) with its considerable Hungarian population. The events of the
revolution were closely followed as they unfolded and culminated in
Ceauşescu's fall on 22 December 1989. Foreign Minister Horn travelled to
Bucharest on
29 December to re-establish friendly relations and secure a guarantee of individual
and collective rights for the Hungarian minority. But despite Budapest's raised
expectations, the meeting proved disappointing. On 5 January 1990 agreement
was reached on easing the flow of cross-border traffic and on 11 January a
new trade agreement was signed, but the new Rumanian government, led by Petre
Roman, did not translate its promises into action to improve the legal
position or extend the cultural independence of the Transylvanian minority.
After 8 February rumours that Hungary
was seeking a revision of the borders between the two countries sparked off
popular protests in Rumania
and led to the first outrages against Hungarian citizens and buildings,
resulting in a steady increase in the stream of refugees. When the extreme
patriotic movement, Vatra Romaneasca, employing nationalist slogans and
exploiting growing hatred, instigated clashes which left eight dead and over
300 injured on 19-20 March in Tîrgu Mures ( Marosvásárhely), relations
between Budapest and Bucharest reached a new low. Thanks mainly
to the level-headed and unequivocal response of the Hungarian government and
members of the nationwide Hungarian Democratic Union, the ethnic conlict did
not spill over and action was taken after April to limit the damage.
The efforts of the Németh government to
hasten the Warsaw Pact's changeover from a military alliance to a purely
political alliance and to secure the withdrawal of the 50,000 Soviet soldiers
stationed in Hungary
aroused considerable public interest. It was openly discussed whether Hungary should declare political neutrality,
enjoying a similar status to that of Austria
or Finland.
It was also seen as vital that Hungary become a full member of
the EC in the hope that this would speed up the process of overcoming the
economic crisis. This seemed an essential precondition for stabilising the
country's new parliamentary democracy. In late November 1989 the cabinet
decided to reduce the strength of the armed forces by 35 per cent by the end
of 1991, as well as cutting the number of offensive weapons and shortening
the length of military service by six months down to twelve. After difficult
negotiations, the Soviet Union agreed on 10
March 1990 to the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops, their families and
50,000 civilian employees, as well as complete disarmament by the end of
1991. Although the Soviet foreign minister, Shevardnadze, admitted that this
order was 'possibly a bit too late' in coming and believed 'it would have
been better if this agreement had been signed earlier', his Hungarian
counterpart, Horn, stressed the fact that Hungary wished to remain inside the
Warsaw Pact but only if it were radically restructured to bring it into line
with political changes taking place in Europe. The early departure of the
first Soviet units on 12 March was an event of major public interest and took
place in the run-up to the new parliamentary elections.
On 25 March 1990, after a vigorous debate on
future government policy and an election campaign noted for its character
assassinations, an estimated 7.5 million Hungarians were given the
opportunity to vote for 386 deputies in the first free, equal and secret
elections to be held in Hungary
since 1947. By a complicated system of both direct and proportional
representation 176 seats were to be secured by directly elected candidates
who won an absolute majority in the first round of voting. A further 152
seats were to be occupied by candidates nominated on regional party lists and
58 seats were allocated to candidates returned by the remaining vote at
national level. Those seats were to be occupied by candidates who won the
biggest share of the constituency vote after the directly elected members.
Each of the ethnic minorities: Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Slovaks, Rumanians,
Germans, Jews and gypsies were guaranteed at least one deputy. In an election
turnout of just 65 per cent only 157 seats were secured in the first round.
The Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) with 24.7 per cent of the vote and the
Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) with 21.4 per cent fared almost equally
well with the voters. The Independent Smallholders' and Civic Party (FKGP),
the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and the Alliance of Young
Democrats (FIDESZ) each received about ten per cent of the vote, while the
Social Democrats, like the old Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSzMP),
failed to clear the 4 per cent hurdle with only 3.5 per cent of the vote.
For the second round of voting on 8 April
candidates simply required a relative majority of the votes. The MDF and the
Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) formed an electoral alliance and
agreed with the Smallholders to support the better placed candidates. The
tactic paid off. In a poor electoral turn out of only 44 per cent the MDF
managed to increase its share of the vote to 42.5 per cent. In contrast, the
Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) with their left-liberal programme only
managed to expand their share of the vote to 24.1 per cent.
Although the MDF had won 165 seats it had
failed to reach the target of 194 seats required to give it an absolute
majority. As a result, its leader, József Antall, was obliged to enter into
coalition in order to form a government. It was noticeable that the radical
reformers, Pozsgay and Horn, whose consistent democratic reforms had made Hungary's
first free elections possible, won very little support in their own
constituencies. Both reached parliament only via the regional list while
Miklós Németh, standing as an independent, won his seat directly in the first
round. Well-known spokesmen of the other parties, like I. Csurka and D.
Csengey of the MDF, V. Orbán and G. Fodor of FIDESZ, J. Torgyán of the
Smallholders, G. M. Tamás, F. Kőszeg and P. Tölgyessy of the Alliance of
Free Democrats, also failed to win a direct mandate, whereas Béla Király, a
revolutionary hero of 1956 recently returned from the USA, was directly
elected without much difficulty.
Miklós Németh's resignation at the
inauguration of the new National Assembly on 2-3 May 1990 cleared the way for
the election of the 58-year-old historian, József Antall, as prime minister.
Ruling out a grand coalition with the Free Democrats from the outset, he held
talks with the Christian Democratic People's Party and the Smallholders on
their joining the government. Announcing his government's programme on 22
May, Antall referred to the mistakes and missed opportunities of the past. He
explained that his cabinet would have four main priorities: to extend legal
freedoms and safeguards for the individual while at the same time encouraging
the citizen's self-development; to restore lost confidence in the government
and the authorities after 43 years of Communist rule; to continue the steady
reform of the economic system by introducing a market economy; and to seek
Hungary's incorporation in the process of European integration. In its first
100 days in power his government would concentrate on reforming the state
apparatus, closing down bankrupt state enterprises -- a measure often
threatened in the past but never carried out -privatising the service sector,
recruiting foreign investors and balancing the state budget. He also promised
to find a way of reducing the costs of the planned international exhibition
to be held in Vienna and Budapest, but saw no prospect of halting
the expected increase in inflation which it was feared would rise to 20 per
cent, nor of bringing it down to under 10 per cent before 1994. After more
than 60 deputies spoke in the ensuing debate, 218 voted for the new
Democratic Forum-Smallholders-Christian Democrat coalition and its programme,
18 abstained and 126 voted against.
The new government comprised 13 ministers of
state and three ministers without portfolio. The MDF not only provided the
prime minister, Antall, and the foreign minister, G. Jeszenszky, but also the
ministers of the interior, B. Horváth, defence, L. Für, justice, I. Balsai,
trade and industry, P. A. Bod, culture and education, B. Andrásfalvy,
transport, C. Siklós, and the environment, K. S. Keresztes. The Smallholders
provided the ministers of agriculture, J. Nagy, and labour, S.
Győriványi, and two ministers without portfolio, J. Gerbovits and G.
Kiss. The chairman of the Christian Democrats, L. Surján, took over at the
ministry of welfare. Recognised experts who were also independent of party policial
ties took over finance, F. Rabár, foreign economic relations, B. Kádár, and
supplied one minister without portfolio, F. Mádl. The Hungarian press reacted
negatively to the fact that there were no women in the new line-up.
The average age of the country's new leaders
-- 53 years -- was also criticised, as was the bias shown towards academics:
nine of the ministers were graduates and seven had held posts at universities
or the Academy
of Sciences. The press
also criticised the fact that the creation of two new state secretary posts
at each ministry would inflate the government apparatus. Highlighting the
fact that there were too many former school colleagues, friends and relations
of the premier in the new government, the opposition quickly cast doubt on
their competence and accused Antall of allowing too many experts from the old
government apparatus to remain in place.
Since negotiations on forming the coalition
had failed to reconcile conflicting opinions, the government's programme for
tackling its most urgent priority of re-organising the economy remained
completely vague. There was no agreement on the extent to which state firms
and farmland should be privatised, nor on how much foreign investment should
be permitted or how the budget deficit and the foreign debt could be reduced.
To guarantee the viability of the government talks were held between the two
party leaders of the MDF and SZDSZ, J. Antall and P. Tölgyessy. On 29 April
1990 they concluded an agreement which provided for a state president to be
nominated by the opposition and elected by parliament. They also agreed on
proper procedures for changing the constitution and introducing a vote of no
confidence procedure which would allow parliament to bring down the
government. Few of the politicians now responsible for Hungary's
future were aware of the scope and complexity of the problems they would have
to solve if the country was to continue along the road to becoming a
democracy and a market economy.
In contrast to developments in the other former
Communist states of eastern Europe, Hungary's process of renewal and
democratisation had been carried forward with consistently growing enthusiasm
by one wing of the ruling MSZMP in the belief that only political pluralism
and the firm rule of law could help solve the impending social and economic
crisis. By dismantling the monopoly of power which the Communists had usurped
after the Second World War and by allowing a multi-party system and an
opening up to the West, the radical reformers consciously accepted that this
would result in their being voted out of government and becoming politically
isolated. Because they had freely chosen to break radically and irrevocably
with the Stalinist past, Hungarians felt increasingly self-confident as they
pressed on with setting up a western-style democratic
parliamentary state and transforming their planned economy into a market
economy. Many expected generous material help and moral encouragement from
the rich industrial countries, though this turned out to be unrealistic.
Encouraged by a revived patriotism and in the knowledge that the strength of
their national solidarity had helped them overcome major crises in the past,
the Hungarians set about trying to take their appropriate place in the
European Community.
NEW POLITICAL CHALLENGES
The new parliament began its work amid great
enthusiasm, expecting to bring the country's serious economic problems under
control. On 23 September 1990 the new government (Kormány) announced a
three-year programme of national renewal (A Nemzeti Megújhodás Programja)
aimed at introducing a free market economy by continuing the programme of
reform, deregulating prices at the earliest opportunity, halving the amount
of state subsidies and implementing drastic public spending cuts. The
government set up a new 'Committee for Balancing Conflicting Interests' to
mediate in social and tariff conflicts between private sector employees and
employers who had organised themselves to oppose the direction taken by the
government's economic policies. As the executor of run-down state property
the government was itself one of the country's biggest employers and
therefore an interested party. After extremely careful drafting by the
foreign policy and defence committees, a resolution terminating military
cooperation with the Warsaw Pact was passed by an overwhelming majority in
the Hungarian parliament on 26 June 1990. Antall had already announced in
advance that his government would be taking this step when he attended a
meeting of the alliance's political advisory committee in Moscow on 7 June. Consequently, the
parliamentary vote, which was enthusiastically received in Hungary, was
noted without comment in the Soviet press and evidently did not damage
relations with the other members of the alliance. There was also widespread
agreement on amending the constitution, especially the previous October's
definition of the republic as a 'bourgeoisdemocratic and democratic socialist
state'. Hungary
was now characterised as an 'independent democratic state based on the rule
of law' with an economic system described as a pure 'market economy' (Article
XL/1990 of 25 June 1990, §2 Section 1 and §9 Section 1).
Harking back to the country's monarchical
past, the decision was taken on 11 July 1990 to incorporate the holy crown of
St Stephen in the official state emblem, thus signifying recognition of 1100
years of Hungarian statehood and national identity. At the same time, St
Stephen's day, the 20 August -- the day on which Hungary's first Christian king,
Saint Stephen ( 997-1038), is commemorated -was reinstated as a national
holiday after a period of 40 years. But the christian-national government and
the liberal opposition were bitterly divided over the government's attempt to
push on with the transfer of power at local level through a new local
government law and the imposition of official guidelines for privatising
state enterprises.
In-depth television and press coverage of
parliamentary debates tempted many deputies to grab the limelight by using
populist slogans and delivering scathing attacks on their political opponents
-- much to the annoyance of the Hungarian public which was feeling insecure
about the recent changes and difficult economic situation. The sight of
parliamentary parties adopting entrenched positions caused many to lose
interest in day-to-day politics. When another referendum on the procedure for
electing a president was held on the 29 July only 14 per cent of the voters
bothered to turn out. In the first round of the local government elections on
30 September 1990 just 40 per cent of the electorate voted instead of the
required 50 per cent, with the result that the election had to be declared
void in many areas. During the second round on 14 October, only 29 per cent
cast their votes. Although this turn-out produced a legally valid result, it
was a clear demonstration of the public's feelings of disillusionment,
political fatigue and incomprehension about democratic procedures, duties and
rights. The MDF lost a large number of votes while the SZDSZ and FIDESZ
opposition parties chalked up successes in the towns. In the countryside
success went mainly to independent candidates, including many former
Communists and supporters of the old régime.
After a deal was struck between the MDF and
SZDSZ on 29 April 1990, the formerly persecuted author and playwright, Árpád
Göncz, was elected speaker and acting head of state. On 3 August he was then
elected to the highest position in the state, that of president (Köztársasági
elnök), when 295 deputies -- including the Socialists -voted for him.
Born in 1922 and a founder member of the SZDSZ, he owed his new position not
to his popularity or moral authority but to the fact that he appreciated the
need for the strongest opposition party to assume the responsibility of
participating in government. A lawyer by profession, he had joined the
Smallholders' Party after the Second World War. Sentenced to life
imprisonment in 1958 for his part in the 1956 Uprising, he had been released
as part of an amnesty in 1963, and from 1989 onwards had been chairman of the
Writers' Federation. His balanced nature made him appear acceptable to urbane
cosmopolitans, populist nationalists and reformed Communists alike. Although
the Hungarian president performs all the usual duties of a figurehead, he
also exercises considerable influence over legislation, is supreme commander
of the armed forces and assumes important powers in times of emergency or in
wartime. On a number of occasions Göncz tried to extend his prerogatives and play
a much greater part in shaping daily politics. When, at the end of October
1990, he refused to use force by ordering the army to pull down street
barricades (erected by taxi and lorry drivers after a petrol price increase)
even though traffic was nationally at a standstill, the government faced its
first political conflict. After further argument and at the urging of the
cabinet the Constitutional Court
placed a narrow interpretation on the president's powers and decided in
favour of the parliamentary system on 25 September 1991. This did not,
however, deter Göncz from occasionally investigating whether laws were in
harmony with the constitution. He also refused to endorse government
dismissals and appointments. His modesty, pragmatism and success in remaining
aloof from party politics, together with his refusal to let party squabbles
override the common interest, earned him growing respect both inside and
outside Hungary.
On 5 August 1990 he was succeeded as speaker by G. Szabad of the MDF, another
veteran of the 1956 Uprising.
The government and the opposition were
united in their efforts to institutionalise the most important aspects of the
political separation of powers and the rule of law. The Constitutional Court (Alkotmánybíróság)
which convened for the first time on 1 January 1990 was given the task of
ensuring the law was observed. Its ten judges, each of whom was elected for a
nine-year term of office, were obliged to monitor the constitutional legality
of parliamentary legislation and other statutes. The transition from a former
system of 'political' justice to one presided over by an 'independent'
judiciary required the departure of politically compromised judges who could
not be entrusted with basic reform of the legal system and the process of pardoning
former offenders. It also meant appointing lawyers with a clean political
record who held no particular party allegiance and who were legally forbidden
to engage in any political activity. Efforts to establish the rule of law and
hasten the introduction of social and political pluralism mutually reinforced
each other. As a result of its members' lack of professionalism, the
single-chamber parliament (Országgyűlés) -which passed 77 laws in
1990 alone -- was initially out of its depth in trying hurriedly to formulate
new laws to regulate the country's political and social and economic
institutions and still find sufficient time to establish control over the
government and the administration. Organisational changes and new
appointments in all the main departments of government proceeded only very
gradually and took place mainly behind the scenes, away from the gaze of
public and parliament. Despite gradually losing public support, Antall's
strong position, based on his authority within his own party and the
coalition, allowed him to pursue his own political preferences without taking
too much heed of parliament. He could also rely on not being challenged in
cabinet. Although it was agreed that consolidating democracy should be
accompanied by the systematic drafting of a new constitution during the first
parliamentary session, nothing was done in this respect. Members of the
parliamentary parties fully recognised the need to 're-educate' Hungarians to
an acceptance of democratic values and develop a political culture of
regulated 'conflict and compromise'. They would have to be educated to
tolerance and a readiness to compromise if democratic discussion and codes of
behaviour resulting from political participation were to be safeguarded. But
Hungarians found it difficult at first to accept the role of organised
pressure groups in shaping economic and social policy and the importance of
these groups being given a say in social and economic policy decisions.
By the beginning of 1990 Hungary had
66 officially registered political parties, as well as 16 unofficial parties
and nine voters' associations. Of these, 28 satisfied the necessary criteria
to take part in elections and twelve put forward national lists of candidates
at the parliamentary elections in March and April. In addition, an explosion
in the number of organisations articulating specific interests led to the
emergence of over 20 groups advocating specific values, numerous workers'
organisations, countless organised pressure groups, three independent trade-union
federations and a number of occupational organisations whch became prominent
for a time. Nearly 40 youth organisations took the place of the disbanded
Communist Youth League. Some were affiliated to political parties, some were
above-party or linked to the churches and some, such as the Scout movement,
had historic roots. Many of these groups, whose members came overwhelmingly
from the urban intelligentsia, lacked a strong organisational basis among the
general public. Their memberships fluctuated considerably and, because their
objectives and ideologies were unclear, it was often hard to distinguish them
from each other. These organisations, the pressure groups and the six parties
which sat in parliament suffered internal conflict and splits and experienced
amalgamations and dissolution. They consequently did not appear genuinely to
represent a broad consensus of public opinion.
During the election the victorious MDF
placed its 'populistnationalist' tradition well to the fore, promising a
cautious economic and social policy, together with 'controlled' privatisation
of state enterprises and Hungary's
rapid incorporation into the process of western European integration. As a
party which appealed to centrist and right-wing conservative opinion, its leaders
repeatedly stressed the Christian-humanist, progressive-national and liberal
orientation of their Democratic Forum. But its popularity among the voters
dwindled because it could not satisfy the public's unrealistically high
expectations of rapid economic improvement. There were also doubts about the
competence of some government members who were obviously not up to the job.
Above all, the continuing erosion of Antall's authority as prime minister,
together with an illness which increasingly sapped his energies, encouraged
the growth of 'populist' ideas within the party's inner leadership. This
group found its main spokesman in the playwright and party vice-president,
István Csurka. The 'populists' were united in rejecting any ideology based on
modern values. They glorified the traditional role of the peasantry which was
seen as representing the genuine roots of Hungarian society. In contrast to
the country's intellectual 'urbanites', who were guided by a rationalist
philosophy and modernist ideas, the extreme right-wing nationalist groups
barely concealed their antisemitism. Csurka provided them with a platform in
his Magyar Fórummagazine.
His manifesto, entitled "'Some Thoughts on Two Years of Changing the
System'" was published in August 1992. In it he saw the 'real Hungary'
encircled by a Judćo-Bolshevistic-International-Plutocratic Conspiracy'. His
demand for 'more living space' for a Hungary
surrounded by enemies and his call for a new policy to 'promote Hungary's
interests' caused a great stir. Antall was relatively cautious in criticising
these ideas, while the MDF leadership described the essay which revelled in
fascist-cum-National Socialist phraseology as a 'useful contribution to the
discussion'. Csurka was supported by the chairman of the World Federation of
Hungarians, Sándor Csoóri, who maintained that neither fascism nor
antisemitism had ever existed in Hungary -- only a danger of
Jewish infiltration. When, on 23 October 1992, President Göncz, whom Csurka
described as a 'Jewish-Bolshevistic puppet', paid his respects to the victims
of the 1956 Uprising, he was shouted down by right-wing extremists, neoNazis
and protestors, some of whom sported uniforms of the Arrow Cross. Csurka
leapt to their defence. He attacked the media for blowing up the incident and
made Göncz responsible for refusing to sack the controllers of radio and
television. While Csurka attracted right-wing radicals and anti-Semites in a
new grouping calling itself the 'Hungarian
Way', Antall continued to try to prevent a split
in the party. At the Sixth Party Congress, held between 22 and 24 January
1993, a large majority re-elected Csurka to the Presidium despite the
reservations of the prime minister who had been unanimously confirmed in his
post. Nevertheless, Csurka lost his seat on the party's parliamentary
committee in March as a result of his increasingly extreme pronouncements.
When he opposed the basic treaty signed with the Ukraine on 12 May 1993, which
recognised the existing frontier between the two countries, the MDF
leadership used this to justify his expulsion from the parliamentary party
along with three of his closest supporters. Csurka and his colleagues
subsequently founded a new Hungarian Party of Justice on 23 June 1993 which
elected him as party leader at its first party conference on 7 November.
Although he had to admit that he himself had once been recruited as a secret
police informer, he persistently criticised the lack of any real shift in
power, arguing that former Communist officials had been allowed to establish
themselves in new managerial positions and that the crimes of the past had
been overlooked.
The MDF was further weakened when the
popular chairman of the Employers' Federation, János Palotás, left to start
up a new Party of the Republic on 19 November 1992. This party pursued
liberal economic policies and promised to press on with measures to revive
the economy, especially fighting inflation, developing modern democratic and
administrative institutions and improving the infrastructure.
The government was also hampered in its work
by an internal debate within the coalition's second largest partner. During
the election the Independent Smallholders and Civic Party (Független
Kisgazda, Földmunkás és Polgári Párt --
FKGP) campaigned for the creation of a democracy based on the rule of law and
a ruthless settling of accounts with 'national traitors' who had been
'bolshevistic tormentors of the people'. It wanted a new Hungary which
would enjoy complete sovereignty, one in which the law would be respected, in
which the goals of humanism, peace and freedom would be served and in which
the people's sense of national pride would be restored alongside equality of
opportunity and adequate social security. Since the interests it represented
were dissatisfied with the pace of change dictated by the government, its
chairman, József Torgyán, forcefully redistributed land to the farmers in
early 1991 to keep one step ahead of new legislation. When Torgyán's long
association with the state security service came to light, something he
vehemently denied, the parliamentary party on which the government depended
for its parliamentary majority removed him as chairman but later had to give
way to grass-roots pressure and agree to his return to the party's ruling
committee at the end of April 1991. Although most of Hungary's secret police
files had been destroyed before the events of 1989-90, a law intended to
purge the old bureaucracy was about to throw light on the past activities of
about 50,000 Hungarians. Government personnel and parliamentary deputies were
to be investigated by a committee formed by: the state president, parliament,
the Constitutional Court
and the government. The findings were to be treated confidentially as a
'state secret'. Torgyán who, like many others involved, had no reason to fear
the outcome of an investigation, responded with even stronger attacks on the
Communists and the Socialist reformers. Employing populistnationalist slogans
he complained of the dangers facing Hungarian minorities among Hungary's neighbours and questioned the
borders imposed on Hungary
by the Trianon Treaty after the First World War. His effective use of the
media drew attention to these issues and upset the coalition. Following
disagreement on choosing ministers, the FKGP's threat to leave the coalition
in February 1992 was prevented only when the party split. Most of its 36
deputies, led by the future minister of agriculture, János Szabó, remained in
the coalition while Torgyán formed his own parliamentary group of eight deputies.
In contrast, the smaller coalition partner,
the Christian Democratic People's Party (Keresztény Demokrata Nemzeti Párt -KDNP) tried to pursue its
objectives through unspectacular but constructive work. Ideologically, it
subscribed to traditional Christian values, but preferred to campaign
independently of the churches in order to give non-religious citizens the
opportunity of becoming members. Strongly committed to social and ecological
issues, it also rejected an 'unbridled' liberal economic policy, sought the
creation of a state based on the rule of law and advocated a broad measure of
local self-government. As regards privatisation, the party called for most
state property to be sold off and the proceeds allocated to public spending
and welfare programmes.
In the strongest opposition party, the
Alliance of Free Democrats (Szabad Demokratdk Szövetsége -- SZDSZ) the Budapest intellectuals initially had the
main say. They had bravely spoken out against the system in the 1970s and had
created a respected platform for their views in the magazine Beszélő. Subscribing to
the values and traditions of European and Hungarian liberalism, they opposed
the aims of the Social Democrats and the Hungarian democratic populist
movement. But recognising historical and social realities, they arrived at a
radical democratic position based on the principles of equality and
individual rights. They saw it as their duty to oppose the government and
ensure the reform of all aspects of political life, even if this meant having
to forego parliamentary power. Antall, however, described them as a concealed
'left-wing party hiding behind anti-Communist phraseology'. The Alliance's call for a
faster and more thorough programme of privatisation combined with an
extremely tight monetarist policy ignored the fears felt by large sections of
the population at the effects of such economic shock therapy. The result was
that the SZDSZ lost popular support and many of its members. On 15 November
1992, P. Tölgyessy, who took the blame as party leader, was replaced by Iván
Pető. Cooperation with the Young Democrats of FIDESZ was also
problematical, although an alliance with this group was concluded in the
run-up to the elections on 15 July 1993. At first essentially different only
in its age structure, FIDESZ stated that it was interested in pursuing
constructive politics and rejected the SZDSZ stance as 'fundamentally
oppositional'. Indifferent to denominational differences and sceptical of
nationalism in any form, the Young Democrats represented in generational
terms the sons and grandsons of those who had taken part in the 1956 Uprising
and who had no memory of the ensuing brutal reprisals. Advocating a
radical-liberal and anti-Communist programme, they sought a rational economic
policy to determine the respective roles to be played by private,
self-governing and state enterprises in the economy. While demanding equality
of opportunity and the unhindered representation of private and group
interests, they also pleaded for solidarity and close cooperation with the
other nations of eastern Europe. Despite its organisational weaknesses and
small membership, FIDESZ was highly respected, not least on account of the
professionalism and stimulating speeches of its parliamentary deputies. But
it, too, suffered from personal squabbles and in November 1993 many of its
members decided to leave. This raised the question as to whether in the
emerging political landscape a party based solely on representing the
interests of youth could continue to exist in Hungary in the long term.
The newly formed Hungarian Socialist Party (Magyar
Szocialista Páirt -- MSZP)
found itself in the role of an 'opposition within the opposition'. The last
Communist foreign minister, Gyula Horn, took over its leadership from Nyers
on 26 May 1990. Initially stigmatised as the heir to the Communist MSzMP, or
even as a cover organisation for it, it was supported by those sections of
the old party who were willing to learn from experience and were prepared to
carry out reform. The Socialists who drew closer to their west European social
democratic counterparts opposed attempts to deal with the past in a way that
would simply arouse emotions. They also rejected any form of privatising
state property, preferring instead to retain the former system of 'collective
property' and cooperatives. Growing economic problems, galloping inflation
and a sudden rapid rise in unemployment, together with internal disputes
within the government, benefited the party and its policy of preserving
inherited socio-economic structures. The departure of the defeated radical
reformer, Imre Pozsgay, after the election of a new party chairman on 10
November 1990 and his founding of a new National Democratic Front (Nemzeti
Demokrata Szövetség), along with the playwright, Zoltán Bíró, on 17 May
1991 failed to stem the rapid growth in support for the Socialists revealed
by the opinion polls. It was significant that the old 'party bourgeoisie' of
the former Communist system, who had successfully preserved their position
and taken their know-how into the new power structure, stayed inside the
party, as did its working-class members who had been badly affected by the
changes in the economy.
As Hungary moved along the road
towards a pluralist society new trade unions also emerged alongside the new
political parties. These organisations constituted an extra-parliamentary
opposition and were mainly the product of intellectuals such as college
lecturers, academics and artists. Some of them joined forces in the Democratic
Alliance of Independent Trade Unions (Függtlen Szakszervezetek
Demokratikus Ligaja --
FSZDL). They were opposed by the Central Council of Trade Unions (Magyar
Szakszervezetek Orszagos Tandcsa --
MSZOT) which had been formed by 19 subsidiary unions in the Kádár period and
which at the end of 1990 numbered 2.7 million members. In July 1991 the
ruling coalition and the liberal opposition passed new legislation intended
to redistribute the assets of the 'old' Trade Union Federation. A legacy of
the Communist régime, its property was to be shared out proportionately among
the new independent organisations. The MSZP was the only political party
which refused to take part in the process. Against a background of growing
unemployment the 'new' trade unions pursued a more belligerent policy towards
employers and in industrial conflicts often supported spontaneous strike
committees and workers' councils against managements and the government.
Their demand that employees should be offered a shares package if their
enterprise was subject to privatisation was rejected by the government's
economic advisers who feared that this would deter potential investors.
Consequently this occurred in only a few cases. There was certainly no
obvious bias shown towards the employees, even though the Socialists' policy
was winning growing support, especially among workers in the traditional
areas of heavy industry and among the pensioners and the struggling lower
middle class.
It was generally agreed that establishing a
liberal economy, democratic political system and constitutional state in Hungary would
be a long-term process which would only succeed if the problems of changing
to a market economy and overcoming the inherited structural problems of the
old planned economy could be overcome. It was clear to both the government
and the opposition parties that far-reaching structural changes, accompanied
by inflation, unemployment and a reduced GDP would result in lower living
standards, impoverishment and economic hardship for the vast majority of the
population, especially as the old Communist social welfare system, which had
functioned inadequately, could not be sustained because of a lack of
resources. Despite a balance of trade surplus for 1990, the appearance of
thousands of new joint-stock companies and generous loans from the IMF, EC
and neighbouring states, more and more Hungarians were experiencing hardship
owing to a surge in prices caused by rampant inflation and the removal of
state subsidies. Nor could people's basic needs be attended to with payments
from the inadequately funded state welfare system. In the first year of
Antall's government, redundancies resulting from the first round of
privatisation caused the unemployment figure to rise from 20,000 to 185,000.
The cost of consumer goods increased by 36 per cent and that of industrial
products by 37.8 per cent, while the GDP fell by 5 per cent. With inflation
hovering aound 35 per cent it was estimated in the spring of 1991 that one
million Hungarians, i.e. 10 per cent of the population, were not in receipt
of a living wage and that a third were clearly living below the poverty line.
Reduced trade with the former Soviet Bloc countries and the end of Comecon,
agreed at a meeting in Budapest
on 27 June 1991, was not offset by increased trade with the West. There was
also little hope of recovering debts in the region of 1.5 billion dollars
which had been run up by the government of the disintegrating Soviet Union. The 1991 budget which had to tackle a
deficit of approximately 10 billion forints ($110 million) was approved by
parliament only at the last minute, at 11 p.m. on 30 December 1990. Despite
an existing foreign debt of 21 billion dollars, requiring annual capital and
interest repayments of 1.6 billion dollars, the IMF provided Hungary with
a new financial credit of 1.5 billion dollars subject to strict conditions on
24 February 1991. At the end of October 1990 widely supported demonstrations
by taxi and lorry drivers had forced the government to withdraw petrol price
increases. As the year ended more big price increases led to unofficial
strikes by railway workers, widespread protests by farmers, and doctors and
nurses refusing to work. The government tried to meet some of the demands of
these groups by raising the lowest monthly wage from 5,800 to 7,000 forints
(from about $63 to $76) and by making social benefit payments of 4,000
forints per month. The average wage at this time was 12,500 forints ($136).
The government did not, however, succeed in
halting the downward economic slide. The expectation that up to 90 per cent
of Hungary's
state enterprises could be sold off to private interests proved unrealistic.
Few investors were interested in the country's large-scale enterprises such
as loss-making steel and aluminium works, electronics factories or the bus
company, Ikarus, with the result that most of the workforce had to be laid
off. In contrast, more than a billion dollars of foreign investment flowed
into smaller joint ventures and private firms which accounted for 25 per cent
of total production by the end of 1991. In all, 627,000 people, 11.6 per cent
of the population, were unemployed in October 1992, although many were
engaged in some form of secondary employment which was not covered by the
statistics. Despite the fact that inflation had been brought down to under 25
per cent and tourism had earned 1 billion dollars, the explosion in social
benefits and the small balance of trade surplus meant that the budget for
1992 predicted a deficit of 70 billion forints ($645 million) which
eventually grew to 214.7 billion forints, three times that amount. Because Hungary
failed to keep to its conditions the IMF held back 600 million dollars from
the loan it had agreed to in 1991. The Gross Domestic Product which was down
by almost 12 per cent in 1991 had, however, fallen by only a further 4.5 per
cent.
The poor budget figures were also partly a
result of the growing stream of refugees and asylum seekers who were entering
Hungary to escape poor
economic conditions in Rumania
and the escalating civil war in the disintegrating federation of Yugoslavia.
In 1990, 17,380 foreign nationals had sought permanent residence, and in the
first half of 1991 a further 8,000 sought asylum. By the end of the year
another 50,000 had to be taken in as well as war refugees from Croatia.
Subsequently the figures rose so dramatically that on signing the Geneva
Convention on Refugees, Hungary
insisted on a clause to the effect that citizens of non-European countries
had no right to asylum in Hungary.
In 1993 only 9,000 applicants, mainly descendants of Hungarian émigrés, were
granted the right to residence, whereas 223,000 applicants had their
applications rejected.
On 16 December 1991 Hungary
signed an agreement by which it became an associate member of the European
Community. This agreement, which envisaged the gradual creation of a free
trade zone over a period of ten years, was ratified by the Hungarian
parliament on 17 November 1992. On 1 February 1993 a free trade agreement was
also signed with the seven members of EFTA. This agreement, which came into
effect on 1 July, was aimed at removing all trade barriers and promoting
industrial and economic cooperation. But neither arrangement led to much
improvement in the general economic situation. At the beginning of 1993 the
number of unemployed remained steady at 640,000 and price increases hovered
around 22.5 per cent. But there was considerable concern that in some regions
up to a quarter of those fit for employment had no job, a half of the chronic
long-term unemployed were younger than 35 years old and more and more people
-- estimated at over two million -- were living below the poverty line. When
a Society for Persons Living Below Basic Needs was started up in 1992, it
collected in the space of a few days over 170,000 signatures calling for
fresh elections. But it was forced to stop its activities after the Constitutional Court
declared its petition unconstitutional on 20 January 1993. Antall, already
suffering badly from ill-health and being increasingly represented by the
acting interior minister, Péter Boross, tried to counter growing criticism of
his economic policy with a government reshuffle in December 1990 in which six
ministers lost their jobs. The finance minister, Mihály Kupa, who had
followed a strict monetarist policy, was replaced by the trade and industry
minister, Iván Szabó (MDF). Despite public spending cuts and tax increases,
Szabó announced a deficit of 249.9 billion forints (2.72 billion dollars)
when he presented the budget for 1994. Figures for 1993 showed that
industrial production and the GDP were down to 60 per cent and 80 per cent of
their respective levels in 1988. But the belief that the economy had gone a
long way towards becoming a market economy, the fact that inflation had been
brought down to under 20 per cent for the first time and that the first,
admittedly tentative, signs of an upturn in the economy were appearing, gave
cause for quiet optimism. The number of unemployed which had peaked at
705,000 in February 1993 (14 per cent), fell to 593,000 (11.8 per cent) in
April 1994. The government was proud of the fact that 1993 had ended with
21,485 joint ventures in existence and that foreign investors had committed
over 5 billion dollars to the Hungarian economy. In a study published in
April 1994 the Hungarian Academy of Sciences concluded that even if
privatisation were speeded up and the volume of exports increased, and even
if private capital were attracted in bigger amounts and larger investments
made strictly according to market criteria, it would be 1997 at the earliest
before Hungary would experience any economic recovery. Economic levels
reached in the 1980s might only be achieved at the earliest by the year 2005.
When Hungary
applied for full membership of the European Union on 1 April 1994 -- hoping
for acceptance by the year 2000 at the latest -- it did so in the hope that
this move would not only strengthen the country's sovereignty and security
but, above all, help solve its economic problems quicker.
Although the Antall government tried to
minimise the inevitable conflicts which arose from the need to carry out
urgently needed reforms and what society was prepared to tolerate, Hungarians
expected their government to alleviate the social costs of change which were
falling mainly on the poor and the old. Society became polarised in an
emotionally heated debate on how the legacy of Communism could be overcome, a
discussion which had begun even before the changes took place. Opinions were
divided on the key issues of returning private property to its former owners,
rehabilitating and compensating those whom the previous régime had found
guilty of crimes against the state, and condemning the 'culprits'. It was
clear that the process of settling accounts with the past would have to be
conducted within a proper legal framework. As early as March 1990 a
'spontaneous action' to transfer state assets into private property was
carried out, whereby foreign investors were also considered. At the start of
1991 about 28,000 state-owned companies were still in existence, nominally
valued at 2,900 billion forints. These were eventually to be disposed of by a
newly created State Property Agency. Up to 15 per cent of their shares were
to be held by institutional investors, up to 20 per cent to be sold to
foreign purchasers and up to 40 per cent to Hungarian companies. The state
would retain ownership of the remaining 25 per cent. The bureaucracy's
handling of the privatisation programme and the poor condition of many of the
items on offer prolonged the whole procedure. Interest was limited to the service
sector and the catering trade. By December 1992 almost a third of former
state enterprises had been returned to private ownership. In 1990 alone
almost 27,000 new privately owned firms were set up including 7,000 in
industry and more than 14,000 in the service and commercial sectors. As
family businesses rarely employing a workforce of more than 20 employees,
they had little effect in improving the labour market. Agriculture, though it
had previously only had to meet the low quality standards required by the
Soviet market, was equally badly affected by the changes to the system,
especially the reduction in subsidies. Although Hungary had already witnessed the
relatively successful integration of small and largescale production with
corresponding specialisation and interdependence -- though it was no
substitute for full privatisation -- the FKGP (Smallholders) urgently
demanded an end to collective farms and an immediate return to traditional
structures of peasant ownership.
A compensation law, introduced after several
revisions on 26 June 1991, tried to restore a system of properly regulated
and clearly demarcated property ownership. It sought to uphold the legal
claims of former owners of confiscated or nationalised assets and real
estate, but instead of envisaging full restoration of property, offered
partial compensation in the form of option rights on state assets earmarked
for privatisation. Claims supported by evidence were to be submitted by
mid-December. Maximum compensation was set at 5 million forints ($66,000) and
former owners were given the right of exercising the first option to
purchase. A second compensation law passed on 7 April 1992 dealt with
property taken over by the state between 1939 and 1945. While FIDESZ members
rejected the whole idea of paying off outstanding debts from the time of
their parents' and grandparents' generations and the SZDSZ voted against it
on the grounds that all of the country's citizens had suffered under
Communism and should thus profit from the privatisation programme, the MZP
rejected any restructuring of collective ownership. The price the coalition
had to pay as a result of bitter internal disagreement on the extent and
degree of privatisation took the form of a split in the FKGP and a consequent
reduction in its parliamentary strength.
Another issue which was similarly
controversial and gave rise to an emotionally heated public debate was the
proposal to extend the statute of limitations. Approved on 4 November 1991,
it stipulated that the courts should continue to investigate serious crimes
committed between 21 December 1944 and 2 May 1990 which had previously not
been pursued for political reasons. These included murder, grievous injury
resulting in death and high treason. The choice of date, the 35th anniversary
of the Soviet intervention which had savagely crushed the popular uprising,
was quite deliberate. While its advocates argued that reconciliation with the
past was impossible in cases where justice had been abused and the suffering
of the victims had been ignored, its critics contended that a long inquiry
into cases involving high treason might result in a witchhunt. They believed
it would prove fatal, both politically and morally, to the process of coming
successfully to terms with the past if crimes committed decades before were
pursued further. At Göncz's request the Constitutional Court ruled the measure
unconstitutional on 2 March 1992. The government parties whose roots lay in
the pre-Communist tradition obviously found it difficult to make a realistic
assessment of the dangers and potential social conflict which would result
from reawakening old ways of thinking in trying to come to terms with the
past and making a positive contribution to developing a new political culture
in eastern central Europe. They introduced a draft bill in November 1992
which tried to ensure that at least crimes committed during the suppression
of the 1956 Uprising -- including those committed by foreigners -should be
punished. Up to 15 November of that year special squads had executed almost a
thousand people. By 31 July 1957, 6,321 people had been condemned by the
courts for political crimes; 70 had been executed. In October 1993 the Constitutional Court
ruled that the investigation of suspects was constitutional on the grounds
that international law on crimes against humanity did not recognise statutory
limitation. In the meantime the regular courts had announced numerous legal
pardons. A law passed on 13 May 1992 promised compensation to any dependants
of victims incarcerated or executed by pro-Nazi governments and the Communist
régime for political, religious or racial reasons.
The virulence of traditional anti-democratic
thinking could be seen in the government's attempt to control radio and
television and discipline critical journalists. Conscious of the possible
effect of foreign opinion, the government proceeded cautiously when it
introduced legislation to 'reform' the media in July 1990. With its
popularity declining and dissatisfaction spreading, it tried to pursue a
policy of effecting 'radical changes in the political outlook and attitude of
Hungarian radio and television'. But President Göncz, while keeping within
the narrow definition of his powers, enlisted the support of the Constitutional Court
in refusing to dismiss the controllers of radio and television. In response
the right wing of the MDF conducted a propaganda campaign which culminated in
the organising of a large demonstration in Budapest on 18 September 1992. Several
hundred thousand demonstrators demanded that the 'Hungarian media' should
report events in 'a Hungarian spirit' and called for the head of state's
resignation. Csurka accused the 'Communists and the mass media' of
obstructing reform. A group of intellectuals calling themselves the 'Democratic
Charter' responded in turn on 25 September by holding a counterdemonstration
in front of the parliament building. This was attended by 70,000 people who
demonstrated against nationalism and antisemitism and called for basic
democratic values and a tolerant society. After the government accepted
responsibility for the budget in December in a highly stylised debate during
the 'media war' and insisted on its right to decide on Constitutional Court
appointments, the controllers resigned after months of relentless criticism
on 7 January 1993. President Göncz, who had defended them on several
occasions against right-wing nationalist critics, thanked them for their
service in preserving the independence of the media 'despite unparalleled and
savage political attacks'. They were replaced by government-appointed
commissioners who kept opponents off the screen and ensured that news
broadcasts toed the government line. Many editors, however, continued to
resist intimidation. On 4 March 1994, two months before the election, 129
radio employees, a quarter of whom worked in programme research, were sacked
and banned from re-entering their workplaces. Despite international criticism
and a torchlight protest on the eve of the national holiday, the 15 March,
the government stuck to its policy which abused the constitutional right of
freedom of opinion. In fact, this dubious demonstration of the government's
ability to take effective action failed to improve its chances of being
re-elected.
Blame for the situation was laid at the door
of the new prime minister, Péter Boross, who had succeeded József Antall
after the latter's death on 12 December 1993, aged 61. A lawyer and long-time
director of a chain of restaurants, Boross had frequently stood in for Antall
during his time as minister of the interior when the premier had been ill
with leukaemia. Praising Antall's services in restoring Hungarian
sovereignty, establishing parliamentary democracy and transforming the
economy, he promised to continue his predecessor's economic and foreign
policies. In view of widespread popular scepticism concerning the social
consequences of the changes and disappointing opinion poll returns which
predicted heavy losses for the MDF in the next elections, Boross had little
time in which to project a political image of himself as his own man. To
distract attention from the failures of the MDF's policies and take the wind
out of the sails of right-wing extremist groups the new prime minister made
blatant use of nationalist slogans during the election campaign. He
complained about the common fate all Hungarians were facing irrespective of
borders and accused all those 'who move among us like strangers' of being
enemies of Hungary.
Thus Boross showed a demagogic eagerness to occupy the political ground which
interested many Hungarians: the situation of their co-nationals in
neighbouring countries and the legal position of ethnic minorities inside Hungary.
The situation of Rumania's Hungarian minority,
which found itself in a very difficult position after Ceauşescu's
execution, was especially worrying. Following disturbances instigated by the
extreme patriotic Vatra Romaneasca movement in February and March 1990, a
conference was held in Hungary
in April 1991 to discuss Transylvania. This
was roundly condemned as 'revisionist' by the National Salvation Front in Bucharest. Using
various diplomatic channels the Rumanian government repeatedly stated its
desire to take the European lead on the question of 'realising minority
rights'. But this had no effect on silencing the Hungarian monority's
complaints about very real grievances and discrimination. In particular, the
Rumanian president, Iliescu, made it clear on several occasions that Rumania did
not regard itself as a multi-racial state and would not respond to demands
for a more federal framework designed to increase regional autonomy and
development. Tensions were fuelled further with the setting up of a
Transylvanian government-in-exile in Budapest
and a manifesto published on 30 September by the Democratic Union of
Hungarians in Rumania (UDMR). This called on the Rumanian government to
guarantee traditional minority rights and establish necessary institutions to
monitor their observance such as a ministry for ethnic minorities. A Rumanian
ban on carrying out an opinion poll on the question of autonomy in two
electoral districts with an almost 90 per cent Hungarian population was
accompanied by new military manoeuvres which again set off alarm bells in
Budapest. On 22 November 1991 the Rumanian government reiterated its
determination to create racial harmony and combat xenophobia, racism and
extremism. But at the same time it also made it clear that it was only
interested in protecting the rights of individuals, not the collective rights
of minorities. A few days later it banned the UDMR and reduced the amount of
Hungarian-language teaching in Rumanian schools. Hungarian politicians of all
colours, especially Antall and his foreign minister, Jeszenszky, persistently
drew attention to the difficult situation of their co-nationals and sought
support for their policies on their trips abroad. In view of the intolerable
living conditions which existed in Rumania,
more and more members of the Hungarian minority joined the fast growing
number of economic refugees who sought asylum and the right of residence in Hungary.
Relations between the two countries, though
not yet at crisis point, remained tense, as did those with the successor
republics of former Yugoslavia.
As the conflict there grew from the summer of 1991 onwards the number of
ethnic Hungarian refugees rose rapidly, creating serious problems for the
Hungarians in terms of providing accommodation, clothing and food. On 18
September Hungary asked
the EC to send observers to its border with Croatia. By the end of the year
the continued fighting had resulted in approximately 50,000 refugees crossing
from Slavonia into Hungary.
Afraid that 50,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the Voivodina might be used as
hostages by the Serbian authorities, Antall announced on 21 October 1991 that
one of the main planks of Hungary's
foreign policy would be to protect its co-nationals in Yugoslavia.
Changes in the ethnic composition of certain areas, brought about by
deliberate 'ethnic cleansing', were seen as a real danger. When ighting
across the border intensified the Hungarian government felt obliged to
increase the country's state of military readiness, which it did on 8
November. The fact that the Hungarian authorities strictly observed the
United Nations and European Community sanctions against Serbia resulted in
the Hungarian minority being greatly obstructed in the exercise of its
formerly generous political and cultural rights. Many of its members were
conscripted and any who tried to act as spokesmen for the minority were expelled
to Hungary.
The 650,000 or so Hungarians living in Slovakia also
complained about the increasingly nationalistic and hostile environment which
had grown up around them since the fall of Communism. The main source of
friction was the escalating dispute in the summer of 1991 over work on the
power station complex at Gabčikovo-Nagymaros which Hungary
wanted stopped for environmental reasons. The plan, conceived as far back as
the 1950s, envisaged the creation of an artificial reservoir covering an area
of 65 square kilometres, a canal 24 kilometres in length, several high dams
and multiple locks which would make diverting the course of the Danube unavoidable. This raised the prospect of the
actual river bed and surrounding meadowland drying up. Moreover, the canal,
which was to be over 20 metres high in places, cut straight through the
Hungarian minority's main area of settlement. As early as 1989 Hungary had
unilaterally stopped work on its own territory and had tried to pursuade the
Czechs and the Slovaks also to abandon this gargantuan Communist project,
despite the fact that 1 billion dollars had already been poured into it.
While the central government in Prague thought
a peaceful solution would be possible, the largely independent regional
government of Slovakia,
which emerged when Slovakia
was granted federal autonomy in 1990, insisted on rapid completion of
building operations in keeping with the original agreement. The Slovakian
prime minister, Vladimír Mečiar, blamed 'militant and fascist elements
on the Hungarian political scene' for creating opposition to the project and
accused Antall's government of 'supporting nationalism, racism and
antisemitism'. Attempts at mediation by the EC failed in the autumn of 1992
and on 3 November Slovakia
broke the original agreement by unilaterally diverting the Danube,
an action which the Hungarian government regarded as highly damaging to
relations between the two countries.
Tensions increased still further when Slovakia
became an independent republic on 1 January 1993. In a government declaration
Mečiar stressed the fact that the interests of ethnic minorities could
not be maintained at the expense of the state as a whole. At the same time,
he announced his government's intention to redraw Slovakia's administrative
borders, one of the results of which would be the abolition of districts in
which Hungarians made up the majority of the population. With Soviet arms
consignments to Hungary in
mind, he also called for the creation of a strong army to defend Slovakia. Resisting
growing pressure from within his own party, Antall tried to maintain a policy
of restraint. He completely rejected the suggestion, intended to placate the
right wing of the MDF, that the transfer of inland waterway traffic to the
canal would, according to the borders laid down in the 1920 Trianon treaty,
result in a change in Hungary's
favour. But Slovakian government measures banning bilingual place-name signs
and reducing financial support for Hungarian cultural institutions, together
with demagogic speeches by publicity-seeking politicians on both sides, did
little to improve diplomatic relations. After the government in Budapest had failed to persuade Slovakia to make concessions to the Hungarian
minority, its delegates abstained when the vote was taken on accepting Slovakia as a
member of the Council of Europe. In Slovakia, on the other hand,
there was a deliberate attempt to whip up fear of Hungarian nationalists and
their alleged attempts to create a 'Greater Hungary'. Only when Mečiar's
government fell in March 1994 did the new Slovakian prime minister, Jozef
Moravčík, re-open a dialogue with the Hungarian minority.
It was the Hungarian parliament's
ratification of a basic treaty with the Ukraine in the first half of 1993
which led to further internal disputes within the MDF, culminating in the
exclusion of István Csurka's right-wing nationalists and the party splitting.
In the eyes of the nationalists Hungary's renunciation of former territorial
claims sealed the fate of 200,000 Magyars who lived in the CarpathoUkraine
which had belonged to Hungary before 1918, even though the cultural and
political rights of this minority had been expressly, guaranteed in the
treaty. Its critics, supported by the World Federation of Hungarians,
believed that the dropping of revisionist demands would be a precedent for
similar agreements about to be signed with Rumania
and Slovakia.
It was only because all the deputies of the three opposition parties voted
for it that the treaty was eventually ratified by the required majority on 12
May 1993. This apparent 'betrayal' of the vital interests of 5 million
Magyars outside Hungary's
borders was used in later political debates to stir up nationalist feeling
and turn voters against the opposition parties.
Hoping that a liberal attitude to its own
ethnic minorities would work to the advantage of its co-nationals in
neighbouring states, the Hungarian parliament allocated funds to support
national minority organisations in Hungary on 12 May 1992. On 9 July
1993 a new law was also passed which placed the members of 13 ethnic groups
under the protection of the state. It guaranteed minorities the right to
preserve their own cultural identity and traditions and allowed them
unrestricted use of their languages. The state agreed to cover any costs
involved in guaranteeing the latter. All ethnic minorities were granted the
right of local self-government if they made up 30 per cent of the local rural
or urban population. A new Office for Minorities was established to ensure
that the law was observed and to prevent racial discrimination. However, the
parliament of Hungary's
500,000 gypsies, representing 31 member organisations, still complained of
'serious racism', even among high-ranking government officials and
bureacrats, and demanded an end to libellous press reports about the rise in
'gypsy crime'. Although the growth of Hungarian nationalism and the revival
of authoritarian, antisemitic and pre-war revisionist ideas have not
seriously affected community relations with ethnic minorities since 1989, it
has proved extremely detrimental to Hungary's efforts to build up
good relations with its neighbours.
Hungary's religious
communities also had an important role to play in helping to consolidate the
new society. Following the removal of administrative-bureaucratic controls on
their activities in 1989 they were relatively cautious about exercising their
new freedom and avoided any direct involvement in politics. A new law on
freedom of opinion and conscience helped bring about a genuine separation of
church and state. Churches were allowed to set up their own educational
institutions. Religious studies continued to be included as an optional
subject in the state school curriculum, but teachers of the subject,
appointed by the churches, were still paid by the state. The once richly
endowed Catholic Church was one of the main beneficiaries of the return of
state property which it deemed necessary for its spiritual, pedagogic and
pastoral work. This was officially returned on 10 July 1991. Although
two-thirds of the population nominally belonged to the church, only about 12
per cent took part regularly in religious activities. Between 16 and 20
August 1991 Pope John Paul II visited Hungary with the aim of
strengthening 'the rebirth of church and nation'. On his very first day in
the country he visited the grave of Cardinal Mindszenty whose body had been
transferred on 4 May, 16 years after his death, from Mariazell in Austria to
Esztergom cathedral. Entirely in keeping with his hosts' wishes, the Pope
made several appeals for eastern Europe's post-Communist governments to
provide greater protection for their national minorities and allow them the
use of their own language and culture as well as the possibility of contact
with their homeland. His outright condemnation of abortion as killing 'the
living mystery of love' and his appeal to uphold the sanctity of marriage met
with reservation and criticism in the Hungarian press, as did his demand for
the complete return of nationalised church lands and other pronouncements on
current politics. Commenting on the Church's unhappy situation in Hungary and the gulf that existed between the
hierarchy and the congregations, the Pope blamed Hungary's relatively aged
churchmen who had remained neutral or even been sympathetic towards the
system for turning many young believers away from religion. Although many
Catholics crossed the border from Hungary's neighbouring countries to see the
Pope celebrate mass, the committee responsible for organising his tour had to
admit that the number of visitors had been about 30 to 40 per cent fewer than
expected.
In his government address delivered on 22
May 1990 Antall had placed particular importance on the need to expand Hungary's
education system. Detrimental spending cuts in the 1980s had been
instrumental in causing stagnation in higher education. In the autumn of
1990, as part of its attempt to introduce western standards, the government
began laying the legal foundations for radical reforms such as the university
law which was eventually passed by parliament on 13 July 1993. The difficult
financial situation caused a delay in restructuring the overmanned institutes
of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences and
the attempt to reintegrate research and university teaching which had
previously been kept strictly apart. The same was true of improving
educational provision in the countryside. This was seen as a major priority
if the government hoped to reduce widespread youth unemployment and assist
unskilled workers in acquiring qualifications. The complete lack of state
subsidies and reduction in grants impoverished Hungary's cultural life and
narrowed the scope of artistic activity. The newspaper and magazine industry
which had been thoroughly privatised in the meantime adapted itself
relatively well to the new circumstances thanks to the involvement of foreign
publishers. A whole new variety of publications appeared on the market,
although a deterioration in quality compared with previous standards was
often evident.
As far as foreign policy was concerned,
post-Communist Hungary
encountered little difficulty in acquiring international recognition and
support. As early as the 1990 election campaign, the MDF projected itself as
the credible advocate of European integration. Once in power it consistently
pursued the winding up of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, while avoiding a
unilateral withdrawal from these institutions which had outlived their time.
It also tried to acquire full membership of the EC and NATO at the earliest
possible juncture. Hungary
became the first of the eastern European Socialist countries caught up in the
great tide of change to become a full member of the Council of Europe on 6
November 1990. This was followed by an affiliation agreement with the EC on
16 December 1991. This so-called 'Europa agreement' came into effect on 1
February 1994 and was important in helping Hungary gain access to the western
European market by removing trade and customs barriers. On 1 April 1994 Hungary also
became the first post-Communist eastern European country to apply for full
membership of the European Union. It also acquired guest status in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation and on 8 February 1994 joined the 'partnership
for freedom' which NATO regarded as a transitional stage towards eventual
full membership.
After the agreed dissolution of the Warsaw
Pact on 1 April 1991 and the final departure of Soviet troops on 17 June,
full sovereignty was restored to Hungary after a period of 47
years. This historic moment was marked on 30 June by festivities, church
services and the ringing of church bells for one hour. Hungary announced its desire for further
regional cooperation mainly with Austria
but also as expressed in the agreement signed by Italy,
Austria, Yugoslavia and Hungary in November 1989. This
aimed at increasing cooperation and fostering good relations among the five
or six countries of the Alpine-Adriatic region. Here the Antall government
committed itself to a new strategy of directly pursuing national
self-interest and announced that part of its foreign policy would be to
continue supporting Hungarians living outside the country's borders.
On the initiative of the Czech president,
Václav Havel, the heads of state, prime ministers and foreign ministers of
Poland, the Czechoslovak Republic and Hungary met in Bratislava on 9 April
1990 to discuss the creation of a European 'confederation of free and
independent states' to replace the former military alliances.
Discussions were dominated by the need to
find common solutions to shared problems. These included national security,
the political, economic and social problems of the 'quick return to Europe'
desired by all parties, ways of dealing with growing nationalism, and the
consequent problem of ethnic minorities, the dangers of German reunification
and the resurgence of old hatreds in former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet
Union. On 15 February 1991 Presidents Havel, Walłęsa and Göncz met
in the Hungarian town of Visegrád
where they agreed on informal cooperation between their three countries.
Following proposals put forward by a mixed commission, the heads of the
so-called 'Visegrád countries' met in Cracow on 6 October 1991 where they
agreed to promote greater regional cooperation and step up efforts to
persuade the EC and NATO to accept their joint application for membership.
They recognised the importance of establishing parliamentary democracy,
observing human rights and protecting national minorities, as well as
extending bilateral trade arrangements and increasing crossborder cooperation
on telecommunications, transport and environmental matters.
A further meeting held in Prague
on 6 May 1992 was dominated by the issues surrounding affiliation to the EC,
the civil war in Yugoslavia
and problems arising from the break-up of the Soviet
Union. An attempt was made to defuse the dispute over the
hydro-electric power station at Gabčikovo-Nagymaros and the diversion of
the Danube by calling in EC mediators. The
economic ministers succeeded in signing an agreement in Cracow on 21 December 1992 which
established a free-trade zone with effect from 1 March 1993. This was
intended to speed up an economic revival by removing trade restrictions and
customs barriers to goods and services. After the break-up of Czechoslavakia
into two independent states, serious disagreement began to emerge, partly
because of differences between Hungary
and Slovakia
but also because the Czech prime minister, Václav Klaus, wanted his country
to apply independently to join the EC. These differences surfaced openly in
discussions at the beginning of 1994 on whether or not NATO's concept of a
'partnership for peace' should be accepted. Hopes for building on the
cooperation achieved by the 'Visegrád countries' began to founder on problems
such as whether the association should be expanded to include four members,
the economic priorities of its members, and differing and partly
self-interested ideas about the political direction it should take, and the
growing ethnic conflict between Slovakia and Hungary. In contrast, relations
with the Czech and Polish governments developed quietly. Hungary and Poland signed an agreement to
cooperate on weapons technology, arms production and officer training.
Despite all the changes to Hungary's political system, Antall acknowledged
the continuing importance of the former Soviet superpower when he visited Moscow a few days after
taking office. Relations between the two countries were influenced in the
next few months by a number of issues: doubts as to whether the agreed
departure of Soviet troops from Hungary would take place on schedule,
Hungary's desire for a swift end to the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, arguments
about the disposal of state assets, the extent of Soviet-Hungarian trade and
how future contacts between the two countries might be increased. The
attempted coup of Soviet Communist hardliners in August 1991 caused great
anxiety in Hungary.
After President Gorbachev had regretted the Soviet Union's 'impermissible
interference' in Hungary's affairs in October and November 1956, Antall and
his foreign minister, Jeszenszky, provisionally signed an agreement in Moscow
on 6 December 1991 aimed at establishing good relations and continuing
cooperation with the Soviet Union shortly before its break-up. Hungary also signed a basic treaty with its
new nuclear neighbour, the Ukraine,
on 9 December 1991, establishing diplomatic relations and outlining future
cooperation. It was the renunciation of territorial claims in this treaty
that sparked off a furious debate within the Hungarian coalition, which
resulted in the treaty not being finally ratified by the Hungarian parliament
until 12 May 1993.
Further intensive talks with the new Soviet
Union successor state, Russia,
took place before President Yeltsin was able to make his first state visit to
Hungary.
Addressing the Hungarian parliament, he condemned the Soviet Intervention of
1956 and proclaimed the dawning of a new era in bilaterial relations which
would henceforth be developed 'on the basis of equality and mutual respect'.
At his own wish he laid a wreath on the grave of Imre Nagy, the executed
prime minister of the revolutionary government of the time and also brought
with him records from the KGB and CPSU archives dealing with the suppression
of the 1956 Uprising. The controversial agreement on the withdrawal of
Russian troops involved no further commitment from either side; neither
sought financial gain from the procedure. Any environmental damage caused by
the Russians was offset by the installations the Red Army left behind for
Hungarian use. Hungary
also received a consignment of Russian arms worth about 1.8 billion dollars,
the equivalent of the old Soviet Union's Comecon trade debt with Hungary. In
addition, over 4,000 works of art confiscated by the Russians after the Second
World War were returned. The visit, which was rounded off by the signing of
several supplementary agreements dealing with investment protection, tax
regulation and the joint protection of minorities was hailed as an historical
watershed in Russian-Hungarian relations. After touring areas of Finno-Ugrian
settlements in Russia in
June and July 1993 and attending a reception by President Yeltsin, Göncz
continued to describe relations with Russia as 'unproblematical'. Moscow's warnings to
the Hungarians not to join NATO grew louder as 1993 wore on. This, together
with the internal power struggle in Russia
in October, the outcome of the Russian parliamentary elections and the
nationalistic tone struck by government and opposition, aroused public
anxiety in Hungary where
it was feared that the Russians might be contemplating a return to the Soviet Union's traditional imperialist power policy.
When Antall made some early visits abroad to
Austria, West Germany and France
at the end of June 1990 he discussed not only economic affairs, but the
possibility of receiving concrete aid to help Hungary with the process of
changing its political system. The infringement of Hungarian minority rights
in Rumania
was also discussed. Despite disagreement with the Austrian government over
arranging the 1996 international exhibition -- the Hungarian parliament
decided to go ahead with the project on its own on 5 December 1991 -- and
despite Austrian irritation at Hungary's termination of the agreement with
the Czechs on the Gabčikovo-Nagymaros power station, announced on 25 May
1992, the process of improving already well-established political and
economic relations was not adversely affected. No obvious problems resulted
from attempts to establish 'model relations' between the two countries which
were praised as a perfect example of cooperation between neighbouring states.
On 6 July 1991 a new treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed with Italy, aimed
at developing further traditionally good relations. Frequent talks with Bonn culminated in the signing of a Treaty of Friendly
Cooperation and Partnership in Europe on 6
February 1992. Germany
supported Hungary's
application to join the EC, stating that this should happen as soon as
appropriate 'economic and political criteria' were met. An agreement on
military cooperation, concluded on 5 April 1993, committed both governments
to a regular exchange of information and views. The visit to Hungary of
the Israeli president, Chaim Herzog, from 17 to 19 June 1991 was seen as an
event of profound moral importance.
The growing crisis in neighbouring
Yugoslavia, the break-up of the federation and the spread of the conflict
there was watched with growing anxiety by Budapest, not least because the
government was aware of the dangers these events posed for Hungary's
co-nationals. Although the Antall government admitted on 10 February 1991 to
having delivered 10,000 machine pistols to Croatia, it pursued an extremely
cautious policy thereafter by withholding recognition from the vairous
successor republics, observing United Nations and European Community
sanctions and trying to prevent an escalation of the conflict.
Although the Hungarian government's rash
nationalistic pronouncements and bold intervention on behalf of Hungarian
minorities incurred some disapproval and blame, its calculated, constructive
foreign policy generally won international respect and recognition.
A DESPAIRING BACKWARDS SOMERSAULT
As the National Assembly came to the end of
its first legislative period, parliamentary activity became more hectic and
politicians grew increasingly hostile to each other. From mid-1993 onwards
the pollsters predicted heavy losses for the considerably fragmented
government parties, especially the MDF. Early on they forecast that the much
reviled and politically ostracised reform Communists would be the likely
winners in the May 1994 elections. Hungarians were growing increasingly fed
up with politics, faced as they were by high unemployment following the loss
of approximately 1 million jobs, rampant inflation and a falling standard of
living. But instead of blaming the situation on the MZP, who had been the
true architects of their misfortune, they held the middle-class parties
responsible. Having promised so much after the fall of Communism, the coalition
had obviously underestimated the problems involved in changing from a planned
to a free market economy. The government appeared increasingly incapable of
dealing with the social consequences of the reforms and was accused of
incompetence, nepotism and indecision. In the fight against inflation and the
attempt to reduce public spending the conservative coalition took all the
necessary decisions, but failed to follow a clear policy on privatising the
country's run-down state enterprises. It also appeared incapable of opening a
dialogue with the trade unions and opposition and was unwilling to respect
the division of powers between the government, parliament and the president.
By evoking Hungary's
past greatness, indulging in irredentist dreams and demonising his opponents,
the reform Communists, Antall threw away the chance of winning back the
support he had lost. His successor, Boross, also failed to build on the
coalition's existing support in the remaining six months before the
elections, despite his extravagant promises and use of nationalist slogans.
After electing defence minister, Lájos Für, as its chairman in February 1994,
the MDF projected itself as a party which could guarantee political stability
in contrast to the situation in the other post-Communist states of eastern
Europe. It also presented itself as a bulwark against the return of Socialism
and the only alternative to a new MSZP-led post-Communist government. The MDF
warned that a Socialist election victory would jeopardise Hungary's chances
of joining the West, arguing also that a generous redistribution of wealth
would undermine the country's economic progress thus far. It also maintained
that the old apparatchicks would re-occupy their former positions and insist
on the return of their lost privileges. But these arguments had little impact
on the voters.
The electorate was more prepared to trust
Gyula Horn to bring about a rapid improvement in living conditions. Although
he had loyally served the Communist state for decades, he had become a
well-recognised international figure since being appointed foreign minister
in 1989 and had successfully projected himself as a reformer, coming across
in parliamentary debates as a competent, level-headed, pragmatic and
efficient politician. The accusation that he had been a member of the militia
which had helped crush the 1956 Uprising did nothing to dent his popularity.
Even the régime's former opponents preferred to trust a politician who
represented the MSZP's social democratic traditions rather than the Right.
True, the Socialists had no new coherent ideas to offer on reform, but they
did promise to revive their economic policy of the 1980s whereby the
changeover to a market economy would proceed at a slower and socially more
acceptable pace, while institutions of proven value would be retained.
Large-scale enterprises would still be centrally managed, successful
agricultural cooperatives would receive government assistance and investment
capital would be made available for new ventures. The government's priority
would be to reduce the budget deficit through a programme of spending cuts,
while at the same time tackling inflation and unemployment as well as
offering tax incentives to foreign and home investors in the hope of bringing
about sustained economic growth.
In the SZDSZ, led by former dissidents,
there was serious internal disagreement over whether it would be right to
join the former Communists in government and whether this would make any
sense if the latter gained an absolute majority. Should they merely help the
MSZP to drum up a majority? Should they help morally to legitimise the MSZP
and take responsibility for guaranteeing the continuing reform of the system
in keeping with their own ideas? After dubious compromises with the conservative
government had caused a number of internal crises, the party, which saw
itself as liberal in the economic sense with left-of-centre tendencies, did
not wish to shirk holding power. Members certainly enjoyed rumours that the
chairman of the parliamentary party, Gábor Kuncze, would be a likely choice
for prime minister, since Horn seemed to be content to perform the duties of
foreign minister. There was also little to choose from between the party's
economic programme and that of the government coalition. The SZDSZ advocated
limiting the role of the state. While the government would still lay down the
general framework for economic development, voters were promised that
priority would be given to tackling social problems and introducing a more
open privatisation policy. It would also undertake a stronger export drive,
cut company and personal taxes and improve the efficiency of the civil
service. It also strongly supported the need for the earliest possible
integration of Hungary
into the political and economic structures of the West. FIDESZ, on the other
hand, having been carried along by a wave of support for almost three years
and registering 40 per cent in the polls, lost much of its electoral
credibility when it ruled out raising pensions and its involvement in dubious
real estate deals became known. Despite a belated attempt to occupy the
right-of-centre ground vacated by the MDF, it failed to make any headway with
the voters.
The pundits' predictions were largely borne
out by the results of the parliamentary elections held on 8 and 29 May 1994.
The figures showed that 68.94 per cent of the electorate voted in the first
ballot and 55.3 per cent in the second ballot. In the first round the MSZP
won 33 per cent of the vote, coming first in 152 of the 174 contested
constituencies. After the second round, Socialist candidates, including some
who stood as independents, trade unionists and representatives of the
Democratic Youth League, won 209 of the 386 parliamentary seats (54.1 per
cent). The Alliance of Free Democrats ( SZDSZ) won 70 seats (18.1 per cent).
This meant that the prospective
coalition could count on a comfortable two-thirds majority. The MDF failed to
achieve the breakthrough it had hoped for, managing to return only 37
deputies (9.5 per cent). While the FKGP and the KDNP had to settle for 26
(6.7 per cent) and 22 (5.7 per cent) of the seats, FIDESZ, expecting large
gains, had its hopes dashed when only 20 of its candidates won seats (5.1 per
cent). Two independent candidates were returned. Only 139 deputies, about a
third of the total, were returned for a second term. The virulent antisemite,
István Csurka, and his right-wing nationalist party, Hungarian Truth and
Life, picked up only 1.43 per cent of the vote while the former Communists of
the MSzMP received only 3.27 per cent. Many commentators interpreted the
failure of the radical splinter parties to clear the 5 per cent hurdle and
the outright defeat of the extremists as proof of the Hungarian electorate's
political maturity and sense of responsibility. It also indicated that the
new constellation of political parties in Hungary was beginning to enter a
period of consolidation. As in most of the former Socialist Bloc countries,
the ex-Communists had regained power constitutionally after a brief interlude
of middle-class government. Whereas the support for their directly returned
candidates lay in the major urban working-class districts, the rural
districts of the south and east and the areas of heavy industry where
unemployment was high, the MDF's four successful direct candidates won
exclusively in the middle-class suburbs of Budapest. The SZDSZ candidates won 17 seats
directly, mainly in the west of the country where the population was
economically better situated thanks to the existence of a small-scale
cross-border trade resulting from its proximity to Austria.
Aware of the problems facing a new
government, President Göncz called for the formation of a government of
national consensus on 31 May. During the final phase of the election Gyula
Horn had been badly injured in a traffic accident. On 4 June an extraordinary
MSZP party conference voted overwhelmingly (431 to 19) to nominate him as its
candidate for the premiership. Horn ruled out any return to the Communist
social order and spoke in favour of a market economy and a liberal economic
policy. Promising to work for national reconciliation he invited the liberals
to form a coalition. With the Socialists in an absolute majority, the SZDSZ
initially showed little desire to accept an invitation to discuss a
coalition, but the detractors of the MSZP within the SZDSZ, led by Péter
Tölgyessy, failed to prevail over the pragmatists led by the party leader,
Ivén Pető. The latter were seriously prepared to participate in the new
government on two conditions: that they were guaranteed an equal say in
formulating and implementing future policy and that the recommendations of
the MSZP's economic advisers and former finance minister, László Békesi, were
accepted as a basis for economic recovery. A round of tough negotiations
followed which culminated in the signing of a new coalition agreement on 24
June. Running to 150 pages, it laid down the common principles of government
policy and guidelines on government appointments. The MSZP also demanded
stricter party discipline since several factions among the Socialists could
not be relied on to give full support to drastic spending cuts. Only four of
the 432 Socialist delegates to the extraordinary party conference voted
against the agreement. Under its terms the SZDSZ was to be given three
ministries including the important interior ministry. The office of
vice-premier was to go to the former leader of the parliamentary party, Gábor
Kuncze, along with five state secretary posts. It was also agreed that only
commonly agreed legislation would be placed before parliament. Although the
SZDSZ chairman, Pető, passionately defended the coalition terms at a
special party conference, over a fifth of the delegates rejected them by 106
votes against to 479 for.
When parliament resumed on 28 June Zoltán
Gál of the MSZP was elected speaker despite his long Communist party career
and earlier membership of the Central Committee. The former MDF prime
minister, Boross, was chosen as its main deputy and decisions were taken on
the composition of committees. Announcing his government programme on 14
July, Horn appealed for national reconciliation and unity to overcome the
country's problems, arguing that Hungary could only flourish if
widespread feelings of resentment against the former Communist system could
be dispelled. The new government was prepared to enter into a dialogue with
any social group in a spirit 'devoid of arrogance'. 'Hungarians have had
enough of hatred, enmity and continual mistrust', he maintained, 'They expect
the government to find solutions, not indulge in fruitless debate.' But the
new prime minister held out little prospect of rapid prosperity. Alongside
drastic spending cuts to reduce the budget deficit, the government would be forced
to implement unpopular measures in the months to come, such as raising taxes
on consumer goods and energy consumption, reducing the number of civil
servants and withdrawing state subsidies. The urgent sale of state
enterprises would hasten the expansion of a market economy 'based
predominantly on private property'. 'I would be satisfied', he continued, 'if
after four years in office I can say that our government prevented another
economic recession and created more tolerable living conditions'. He said
that his government's overriding priority would be to achieve Hungary's
closer integration with western Europe and the European Union. A referendum
would be held on the question of joining NATO. He also promised to conclude
basic treaties with neighbouring countries which had Hungarian minorities,
promising that Hungary
would in return agree to respect the inviolability of existing frontiers and
the rights of their co-nationals inside Hungary. On 15 July 265 deputies
pledged support for Horn and his new government team. When a vote was taken
on the new programme only 93 voted against.
As well as providing the minister of the
interior in the new, smaller 14-man cabinet, the SZDSZ also supplied the
ministers of education and culture ( Gábor Fodor) and transport ( Károly
Lotz). Long-serving former MSzMP officials took over key ministries: László
Békesi was made minister for finance and the economy and László Kovács took
over at the foreign ministry. György Keleti, a professional soldier, became
minister of defence, Pál Vastagh became the new minister of justice and Béla
Katona took over national security. At least one woman managed to secure a
seat in the new cabinet: Magda Kovács-Kósa, who was put in charge of labour
affairs. Six of the new ministers had studied economics, four were lawyers
and two were engineers. The opposition and the press slammed the close ties
the Socialist ministers had had for years with the Kádár régime. It had been
during his period in government that they had made their careers and acquired
their administrative experience. The suspicion was frequently voiced that
former Communists who had been forced to quit four years previously had
regained their positions of power and influence by the back door and would
jeopardise the transition to democracy. Observers saw problems ahead for the
new parliamentary majority, not so much because of disagreements which could
be expected within a Socialist-Liberal coalition but because the MSZP was
split between a reformist wing and a strong faction dominated by a Communist
and Socialist trade unionist outlook. The latter appeared reluctant to share
responsibility for the rigorous policy of cutbacks being demanded by the
World Bank and the IMF because it feared these would cause a further fall in
living standards.
The new government's first political actions
at home met with a mixed reception. The conservative controllers of radio and
television were dismissed, diplomats recalled and bureaucrats removed from
their posts. A law intended to ban former Communists from the civil service
was revoked. The government also withdrew from the planned 1996 international
exhibition on grounds of cost and attempted to curb investigations into the
events of Hungary's
past. In contrast, the government's foreign policy measures proved very
popular. On 18 July 1994 Horn made an early visit to Bonn
to secure Germany's
support for Hungary's
efforts to join the EU. His new cabinet also placed great weight on
normalising relations with neighbouring states in which Hungarians formed a
significant minority. This intitiative coincided with similar intentions on
the part of the Moravčík government which had come to power in Slovakia in
March 1994. Since that time it had redressed several of the main grievances
of Slovakia's ethnic
Hungarians and had indicated its interest in signing a treaty with Hungary. The
two presidents, Göncz and Michal Kováč, expressed their desire for
better relations and closer cooperation when they were received jointly as
guests of US President Clinton on 22 June. At talks held in Bratislava on 5 August 1994 the two prime
ministers agreed to sign a future treaty aimed at creating an appropriate
framework for establishing good relations between neighbouring states. Hungary announced it would be prepared to
recognise the inviolability of the Slovakian border in return for ethnic
Hungarians in south Slovakia
being granted all the rights normally accorded to Europe's
ethnic minorities. In the case of Rumania, however, there was no
sign of differences being overcome. The Rumanian prime minister, Nicolae
Vacaroiu, invited Horn to Bucharest
and a meeting of the two foreign ministers was arranged for September 1994.
However, hopes of any rapid reconciliation suffered a major setback when the
extreme nationalist National Unity Party (PUNR) joined the Rumanian
government on 19 August.
Hungarians still appear convinced that the only way out of their
country's unsatisfactory and worrying economic situation with its
accompanying signs of social crisis lies in a pluralistic system and a state
based on the rule of law. But a more realistic view of what has been achieved
in the first four years of democracy and a free market economy has begun to
prevail. Indeed, many feel disappointed, and this disappointment is likely to
increase as the new government's drastic spending cuts take effect.
Hungarians were initially proud of the fact that they had by their own
efforts coped with the great changes that had taken place in Hungary
in 1988-89 and, indeed, that they had exercised a decisive influence on developments throughout the whole of eastern
Europe. But this gave way to a feeling of disillusionment when they gradually
began to realise that, although they had, economically speaking, one of the
best starting positions of all the former Socialist Bloc countries, Poland
and the Czech Republic had in the meantime taken far better advantage of the
opportunities that opened up. Despite signs of a genuine economic recovery
and the fact that investments and industrial production were up by 30 per
cent and 9.4 per cent respectively in the first quarter of 1994, the
long-term decline in the Gross Domestic Product will at best be halted in the
coming years and inflation may well cross the 20 per cent mark again. Hopes
of joining the EU in the near future and receiving more substantial help from
abroad have gradually evaporated. But strengthened by a revived patriotism,
an ingrained sense of realism and the knowledge that national solidarity has
helped them overcome worse crises in the past, Hungarians are earnestly
attempting to overcome the difficult problems of the present so that they can
take their rightful place in the much-heralded new Europe.
|
|
