Hungarian left faces identity crisis
International Viewpoint #193 • October 29, 1990
HUNGARY advantageous from the standpoint of "survival."
The MszMP is an orthodox "Communist" group which calls itself a "workers" party. Both parties are the same in that their functioning is marked by the patterns of the old state-party, and they are paralyzed by that. The MSzP is stubborn. It
THE POLITICAL MALAISE afflicting "post-socialist" Hungary became glaring in mid-October after the second round of the local elections. Only 27.4% of voters bothered to go to the polls. Of those, the majority favored the anti-Communist parties currently outside the government, the Free Democrats (SzDSz) and the Young Democrats (FiDeSZ). These parties have put forward proposals for more rapid privatization than the ideologically conservative coalition in power, dominated by the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), whose zeal for privatization has been somewhat overshadowed by its nationalism.
The old ruling Communist Party split into two successor parties, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) and the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSzMP, the same name as the old united CP). The former got around 9% in the parliamentary elections, and is represented in parliament. The latter got a few percent, and fell below the threshold for representation. The MSzP pushed a referendum for direct election of the country's president, which was held on July 29, since some of the old CP state leaders, such as Imre Pozsgay, remain much more popular than their party. But 80 per cent of the voters stayed away from the polls.
The old organ of the Communist Party, Népszabadsg, has changed its formula. It is now a stock company, in which a West German media trust holds a plurality of the shares. It presents itself as an independent pluralist newspaper controlled by its staff. Paradoxically, left-wing former CP journalists consider the participation of the West German trust as a guarantee against attacks by what they regard as a rightist, even ultrarightist, government. It has won the reputation of being the highest quality daily paper.
The following article on the prospects for the left in Hungary and the future of the MSzP was published in the August 22 Issue of Népszabadsag. Its author is a leader of the Left Alternative group and one of the country's most respected academics. Minor cuts have been made. TAMAS KRAUSZ
N OW it is becoming clear that
the Hungarian Socialist Party [MSP] in its present state is simply not viable. A relatively large number of us have tried to breathe life into it, but it almost seems like wasted effort. This bitter truth is in no way altered by the fact that the same applies to the other parties claiming to be left. The caricature of a multi-party parliamentary system that has arisen as a product of the breakdown of the single party/ state and of the 18 (MSzMP), seems more credible than a ley [old] Hungarian Socialist Workers Party discredited by state socialism. (I cannot go further into the causes of this here.)
The MszP - just like the [present] MszMP — is an anachronistic phenomenon. The former has embraced the "liberal" narodnik-socialist wing of the bankrupt elite; the latter, the conservative. The MSzP groups the remnants of the former "reform Communists", who recently took the right-sounding name "reformist socialists" and will soon change their name to the even more rightsounding "social liberals," if that is more has shed what it can of its past. But in its heroic isolation, it has not been able to come forward with any new ideas. Following its "the worse, the better" logic, it has increasingly turned inward. In the manner typical of small groups, its organizations waste their time in selfjustification, repeating pointless elementary truths. Younger force seeks way out
A younger and more united force does exist, which is seeking a way out of the impasse but which has not yet reached the point of breaking with the old dogmatism, which takes the form in the MSzP of a peculiar combination of Stalinism and liberalism.
The MSz.P is undoubtedly in a disadvantageous position by comparison with the MSzMP, because the bankrupt economic and political elite is only using the Socialist Party as an instrument in pursuing its strategy for survival. The MSzP has in reality become a party of refuge, which has taken on a "salon socialist" appearance. It has forced a section of its membership, whose patience had reached its limits, to abandon the party. That is more comfortable for the party elite. At least these ex-members are not "making trouble."
The MszP is also a gathering place for intellectual sects with social democraticpopulist-liberal-christian socialist-etc. ideologies that have been unable to root themselves in broader sections of the society.
The third sect, the MSzDP, goes in for a nostalgia similar to that of the MSzMP, and since nostalgia can get results for any party except those whose names start with "socialist", it excluded itself from the political arena virtually from the outset?. While the MSzP was able at least to arouse illusions, the MSzDP was not able to deceive anyone. Even its anti-Communism turned out to lack credibility.
### MSzP moderates its anti-Communism
The MSzP leaders wanted to accomplish their "renewal" with a more peaceful form of anti-Communism. But that form of self-justification did not get a favorable 1. A Magyarorsazági Socialdemokrata Párt, Social Democratic Party of Hungary. This party lays claim to the heritage of traditional social democracy. Its slogan is "Social democracy, the road to Europe." Cf. Magyarország politikai évkönyve 1990, Aula-Omikk, Budapest 1990.
October 29, 1990 • #193 International Viewpoint response anywhere. The "positive" election results turned the heads of top circles of the "party elite". The legacy of Pozsgay [a top reform figure in the CP] attracted individuals and, making eyes at the MDF, they claimed to be "humanizing" it. Others followed the zigzags of Miklos Nemeth, who spoke the language of the MDF, pursued the economic policy of the SzDSz Free Democrats), and unfortunately remained a member of the Socialist Party.
Still others at the May congress wanted to outflank the SzDSz to the right, as the "most authentic social liberals." The majority of the membership simply could not follow this. Those who remembered what social democracy is were atounded to find that the Horn-Pozsgay duo had by no means aroused as much sympathy as they expected in Western social democratic circles. Thus, "social democratization" proved to be a failure as a "search for an
At the May congress, it became clear that the MSzP could not escape from under the ruins of "state socialism." The old "leaders" and the old clique politics remained from the past, as well as the "survival" mechanisms, with whose help the majority of delegates were lined up behind a much reduced number of old leaders. Unfortunately, this numerically shrunken aparatus continued where the left off. Power bargaining, small-time putsches and petty betrayals continued. Membership fell below even the level of October 1989. Old leadership retains control of party one new leader emerged alongside the "seven" ((Berecz, Grósz, Németh, Horn, Szürös, Poszgay, Nyers). At the same time, in other parties entirely new faces appeared, and on the bourgeois revealed temselves. The "seven" very quickly flagged. They should have foreseen that. But their domin ant reflex was to save their own positions. They had not the slightest intention of giving up their places to any younger persons in the interest of "the cause" (if there ever was any such thing in their lives). Among the ossified leaders of the state-party, two survived the change of regime in the presidium, Pozsgay and Horn. These politicians — as we know - won international recognition for their "achievements" in "dismantling" the party-state aparatus.
In reality, the "five" are identified with the following basic achievement. In the interest of their own survival, with the support of the pro-reform circles in goverment, they purged the party membership, sayıng that there was no need for "Stalinists." With the zeal of the converted, they overshot the mark. They prepared the way for their own eclipse by driving away members of the party. In vain, the remnants of the party elite, through various party programs each trying to outbid the other, tried to divest temselves of the legacy of the state-party.
In vain - oppressed by a guilty conscience and a minority complex - the majority "socialists" who had settled down in parliament tried through a deal with the other parties to win the confidence of the new government and opposition. They did not know how to be so "constructive" and accommodating, they did not know how to vote obediently for very important laws so as to win praise. However, the new "democracy" great disappointment for the SzDSz, since it offered the people a Christian national-
New system resembles parlamentary dictatorship
Rather than bourgeois parliamentary democracy, the system looked more like a parliamentary dictatorship, in which the executive power remained absolute master. In the light of all this, it is not surprising that the outsiders, Fidesz and SzDSz, gave the impression of being more to the left than the MSzP, which appeared to be playing the role of a punching bag.
two seemingly completely ırrational ideas were created by the survival ambitions of the "leaders". The first is identified with Gyula Horn, the newly elected party chairman. The MSzP was to become an electoral party without a mass membership. That was really an original idea, since up until now history has not seen a left electoral party. Capital is not social democratic parties..A not particularly major socialist party such as the Austrian one has 700,000 members. Despite the consequences of the collapse of the state-party, this "experiment" is a
The second impracticable idea came from the fading Imre Pozsgay. According to this, here in Hungary — we should establish a French-Italian style Socialist party. This tragicomic conception was further weakened by the fact that Pozsgay garnished it with the anti-Communism cultivated by the SzDSz and the MDF. At the end of the day, it had no credibility. But after a decade of reform Communism, this idea, put forward precisely at the time of the elections, led to accusations of coat turning. In accordance with the tradition of the state-party, the party leadership lagged behind the events, and is it still trailing behind them.
Correspondingly, the fraction illustrated all this in the view of millions in an almost farcical way. The old people tried to defend the interests of the left, while at the same time discrediting them. It is impossible to expect from the fraction that it say in front of the country and the world that the IMF neo-free enterprise therapy in Hungary, as well as
HUNGARY in East Europe and in the world in general, has failed. Former minister Bekesi cannot say this when he himself was the "best" representative of this policy in Hungary. Today, however, they are surprised that the MDF and the Small Holders Party [the ruling calition] are pursuing the policy that they initiated, undoubtedly with less style and culture, but more successfully, which means that the country is more quickly and efficiently heading into the
Of course, there might be one or two individuals with more haracter, with greater intellectual and political courage, in the presidium, who could say that the Western-type market economy utopia of the "reform Communists" has while important sections of the population are being impoverished and traditional big ruined, while interest payments on the debt, the growth of inflation and unemployment are advancing according to the
Finally, it should be said frankly that we do not want so much of a change in the system, if we accept the realities (of course, we would have to know what we want). At most, what has been realized is the International Monetary Fund program, which today the MDF and the SzDSz claim as their own, and this program should long ago have been left to them and not given a "socialist" coloring. But they have not yet recognized that the abstract model of the market economy, has replaced redistribution model of state socialism, is "inapplicable." Only a jackal capitalism can be introduced, which would rapidly wipe out the credibility of the most dema-
The old "leaders" still do not see that after the change of system, the party as a whole has to change its function. The reform circles in fact served as a springboard for some leaders to gain the top spots in the party and, in the pragmatic tradition of the state-party, to reduce the "new party" to being an instrument of their power combinations. In this way, the old-new "leaders" not only isolated the party in society but shut it off from any genuinely original and left renewal, and found no friends in the international left.
Left not yet in catastrophic position
However, the left is not yet in such a catastrophic position as the situation of the MSzP might lead us to believe. In fact, the referendum affair, which was prepared in a totally childish way, offered an important experience. The left — despite its total dispersion — has the active support of about a million voters.
The MSzP, however, has not yet been able to mobilize even a few tens of thousands of people for a reasonably success- 19 ful political action, to say nothing of a
International Viewpoint #193 • October 29, 1990
HUNGARY/GERMANY million. For this, the left's favorable position has had no effect. However, the government's economic policy has brought discontent, impoverishment and oppression for hundreds of thousands of people. The MSzP has not been able to unite this potential for protest, and has abandoned it to the (extreme) right, thereby pronouncing a historic condemnation against itself. When, as a result of their experience with the MDF-Small-Holders catastrophic policy, working people are progressively losing their illusions, the socialists are "constructively" managing all this. Where is the limit to this fall?
The MSzP's major problem, lies elsewhere. The "leadership" is still only thinking about "big-time politics," parliamentary politics, the quickest way to get a minister or two in the government. In the meantime, however, it is being pushed out from where the left has had its traditional territory and base — it is being organization, from the social organizations where people struggle daily to solve problems. The party has hardly any field of activity left. The decisive section of the party intelligentsia is using a provincial, watered-down liberal ideology to help the old managerial and financial bureaucracy hang on as owners in "the brave new world." The failed elite wants to become part of the new power elite. This is what gives life to the groupings in the party leadership oriented to the MDF and the
Hungarian politics take triangular form
A precondition for creating an independent left is the recognition that Hungarian political life is "three cornered." There is a traditional Christian-nationalist conservafrom the Small Holders [traditionally the party of small farmers] all the way to national liberalism), a European liberalism (with internal shadings), as well as a socialist left with its own groupings and tendencies. If the attempt to independent left proves successful in the short term, then the residue character of the MSzP can be overcome. If finally this party shows that it is the party of the "productive classes," which make up the great majority of the Hungarian people (engineers, white and blue collar workers, workers, the left intelligentsia and so on), and not the political representative of the economic bureaucracy, then it can have a
Of course, for survival, some major and practical conclusions have to be drawn. Not in the order of importance - and with no claim to completeness — I would cite some prerequisites. It would be necessary finally to free ourselves from the old 20 "leaders" and shift the axis of the party's activity to defending the ownership rights of the working classes, to organize mass actions that would support the workers' efforts to exercise a check over the priprocess. It is necessary to reak out of our "salon socialist" sectarian isolation, for the party to be become the political movement of the social organizations (workers' councils, tradeunions, residence associations and so
A lett party cannot counterpose so-called economic efficiency to people, to defense of the environment, to the ongoing struggle for social justice, which includes the defense of human rights. Otherwise, there is not going to be any establishment of civil liberties but only impoverishment of the masses and economic power for the privileged, trampling on the rights of minorities. Without an organic combination of these factors, no new genuinely left party can be creat"Image building" impossible
Precisely for this reason, it is not possi-
"build an image." either social democratic or any other. Simply, a prohuman face is what is needed, and that can only be developed on the basis of the above practical orientations. In this respect, it can become clear that socialism, more than any form of capitalism, is the extension of the concept of human freedom, from politics to economics, to obstructed by "state-socialism" which in its late form existed as an amalgam between neo-liberalism and Stalinism. Today the task is different. We have to free ourselves from both traditions. It has to be recognized that socialism is the movement of civil society. *
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