TAMAS KRAUSZ, a historian and leader of the Hungarian Left Alternative, talked to IV about the privatization process. The interview was conducted in Budapest on January 20,1991 by Maxine Durand.
H OW would you sum up
the post-Communist government's activities? From many points of view one could talk about a restoration. We have a new state/party, a parliament which doesn't function, since there is a Central Committee that stands above it, and below a civil society that lacks means of expression. Thus there is a type of parliamentary dictatorship, which is not a parliamentary system on Western lines.
The new elite is divided into a Christian conservative tendency and a liberal, American-style, tendency. At the moment these two currents are aiming at a compromise behind the backs of the public, because they have realized that the people do not support the new system and are either indifferent or suspicious. The compromise flows from the elite's fear that its power could be threatened insofar as the IMF's measures do not succeed, and as unemployment, inflation and poverty spread
At the same time the left is fragmented, and I am not speaking here only of the old conservative left. Furthermore Hungarian workers, lacking any real tradition of international solidarity do not understand what is happening either in Hungary or the surrounding countries. • Why has the Hungarian government not resorted to "shock therapy" on Polish lines?
Hungarians have been able to see that the Polish solution gets you nowhere. All they have to do is watch the television. The Free Democrats wanted to send Hungary down the Polish road, but the nationalist current promised not to. Nonetheless, in practice, they too have adopted this policy since December 1990, and in my opinion a Polish situation or something like it nationalist movement is certainly stronger in that country than here. But the basic reason for the caution of our government is that they have at least understood that you cannot privatize without capital.
Is there not a contradiction between the nationalism of the Democratic Forum and their intention to sell the most efficient enterprises to foreign capital?
Fundamentally, the two parties say and do the same thing. If there are differences, these are to do with speed, not with the basic direction of policy. And there is in fact no contradiction as far as the sell-offs of enterprises are concerned; these are political decision, as they were in Kádár's time. For example, László Pál, who was secretary of state for industry in 1988, proposed in a report that the public telephone company should be put into the hands of Hungarian enterprises. But the govemment decided that it should be sold to the German Siemens firm or Ericsson of Swe den, because both of these support the rul
"All of you at the same time?"
ing party, the Democratic Forum. • To what extent does Hungary's destiny continue to depend on what happens in the Soviet Union?
Hungary depends on Soviet oil and steel and other exports, and thus what happens there is of vital importance. Everybody can see now that Hungary has been destabilized: the shop-windows may be full, but two or three million people have become poorer and the new tax system may lead to a further regression. The old perhaps profit from this situation, envisaging a restoration with the support of some Soviet military groups. This is a fantasy, but the Hungarian regime does not rule out such a possibility; Hungarian television has been trying to establish a parallel with the Lithuanian events. • Hungary considerably reduced its exports to the USSR, so the dependence is surely less.
That is true, but the immediate consequence has been a fall in industrial and agricultural production of around 10%, leading to the closure of enterprises. Western capital, meanwhile, shows an interest only in a limited number of sectors — such as Tungsram or a part of Ikarus. The West wants a banana republic in Hungary, not a competitor. The structure of the economy is going to be disrupted, and I am convinced that the new Hungarian government will then be obliged to turn back to the Soviet market, because that is onwards, wants to go. For the moment everybody is waiting because the Soviet Union has broken down. But within two or three years the Soviet situation will no doubt have settled down. • How can the workers respond? Can we expect the emergence of a
We are fighting to establish a new left, but in the near future the kind of movements we will see will be like the taxi drivers' strike. People are spontaneously party. I have met workers spoken well, but why should I believe you?"
You must understand that the political parties are of very recent origin here. Unlike the trade unions they do not have real social roots. This is why people have much more confidence in the former than in the parties. The workers' movement was a form against privatization and unemployment, but the government also understood that that they also expressed opposition to the Communist organizations and the exCommunist managers. Many of these latter have gone over from the Communist structures to the new bourgeois national-
However, one of the reasons why the majority of the workers' councils supports the new regime is that it has promised to change all the old bureaucratic leaders. Of course, some workers' coun cil members understood that problem is the system, not the personnel. Nonetheless they have placed their confidence in the new regime, and the latter has thus been able to get control of the workers' councils. This happened last week in a wholly authoritarian fashion. A part of the left wing has withdrawn from
In my view the left will maintain its positions in a number of the councils and build a new national coordination. But we must avoid all sectarianism and be present in all the unions. In the longer term I see the unions regrouping around three poles: the left wing unions, the unions tied to the Forum and the national. ist parties and finally those of the Democratic League, tied to the Free Democrats (liberals). • There is something surrealist about this country. The remains of the old system are combining with a new system which is only just developing. Is Hungary now a capitalist country?
The left wing organizations in the West that we have been able to meet thought that, after the fall of Stalinism, there would be a revolutionary solution. This was a very big mistake that has disorient-
HUNGARY ed the left both in the West and in Hungary. The majority of these groups believe that Eastern Europe has seen a political revolution. I, for my part, have written an article talking of a "conservative revolution." Certainly, the political system has changed, the Stalinist bureaucracy and the State/Party have been destroyed; but the workers have less power than before. One could say that we have gone neither forward nor back but sideways.
Marx and Lenin put forward the idea that several modes of production can coexist inside a particular society, and this applies to Hungary today. The system combines remnants of Stalinism, some socialist features, and the influence of the international capitalist centres, the latter being the dominant tendency at the moment. • What is the attitude of the workers to the changes?
For many of them things have got worse since Kádár's time. You cannot explain to them that it is better now because there is know that they have no access to the press. And even if you can say what you want, it changes nothing. The destruction of the old structures has led to some very interesting psychological shifts. People feel freer, but on the other hand, it is hard to find work; in such a situation people very quickly lose their enthusiasm for capitalism, faster than the regime imagines. That may open up possibilities for us. One can envisage a right wing nationalist mass movement on the one hand but perhaps also an important potential for protest may arise, on which the left can • Is a new ruling layer emerging or is it just the old bureaucrats recycling themselves?
You cannot talk of a new bourgeoisie. The people who might belong in this category are often completely uneducated, hardly able to read or write. They have no solid social position, they only know how
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• What about the
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significance of the changes in the leadership of the Workers'
Councils?
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Meisu 21 April 1, 1991 • #203 International Viewpoint
HUNGARY to count up their money and sell their goods. They know nothing of Western business practices. This is a truly primitive accumulation of capital! I don't know how to define the current state of affairs; what is clear is the old state socialism has ceased to function.
In Hungary there is a new liberal and nationalist political elite, but both these factions are dependent on the international bourgeoisie. To put it simply, the elite of Kadár's time existed only thanks to the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. Today this Kádárist layer has been destroyed. The new ruling layer is divided into two. An elite that was subjectively Communist now finds itself in a semi-opposition. The other part is dispersed among all the political parties. In a way, all the parties stem from the old HSWP (Hungarian Socialist Workers Party - the former ruling Communist Party). • What did you mean when you talked of elements of real socialism in Hungary?
A lot of people in the West do not understand the importance of the right to work. Some have called the system under Kádár state capitalism, and believe that we have the same system now. Perhaps in some ways this is true but it is not very useful. It is too abstract. The workers have social rights to lose, for example that of defending themselves through organizing unions, without which no
This socialist tradition remains and the workers aspire to control the factories. In fact, in many cases, privatization cannot be carried out without the workers coun cils and unions. The workers and technicians are beginning to understand that if they do not succeed in controlling the privatization process, if they do not inter22 vene, they will be out of work.
I am a university teacher and I grew up International Viewpoint #203 • April 1, 1991 with "state capitalism" or "state socialwith free education - a socialist gain. To produce a new bourgeois class the regime will have to attack such gains. State expenditure will be reduced, including on the health service. This was of course in no way a perfect system, but things can always get worse. We oppose any sort of restoration of the old "socialism" but we are equally against an unconAmericanization will not turn out to be worse than Sovietization? In Romania nobody wants to see another Causescu, but in Hungary there are workers who wouldn't mind having Kádár back. You can hear people saying this everywhere — a lot of people have already lost a lot. And the left is not able to make its voice
The television and radio have been shared out between the nationalists and the liberals. A year ago I was several times invited onto the television. Today, I am no longer invited — a sign of the change in political orientation. • A lot of people both in the West and the USSR have been saying that a market economy cannot be re-established in the East without open dictatorship.
I think that a market economy cannot be established, above all in the USSR, for a number of reasons. First of all, on the psychological level, people simply do not know how to behave in a "capitalist"
There is no business tradition. There is no capital to found enterprises. There is not enough foreign capital: the so-called Western aid is mainly designed to destroy the old order, not to put in place a new capitalist system. That system exists here in a primitive and underdeveloped form, and there are going to be great disappointments, perhaps this year.
In the Soviet Union, Shatalin proposed a 500-day plan for building capitalism; but 500 days is not long enough. So; the market, the highest stage of Stalinism? In reality there will be dictatorship, without the market and without democracy. The evolution in Hungary depends from many points of view on the international environment. Perhaps the Germans and Americans are ready to pay for the new capitalist class in Hungary. But that will cost a lot, above all with the Gulf War, which may change the whole line of thinking of the decision-makers of international capitalism. • Does the Hungarian left see itself as neo-Kádárist?
There is such a tendency in the new HSWP, where there are two currents, one Stalinist conservative, the other new left, plus a small liberal group. There are also two groupings inside the HSP, the social liberals and left wing socialists. The latter can be again sub-divided.
One current is sentimentally socialist; it wants to develop a socialist resistance in Hungary, and build socialism, but, having no coherent economic policy, they cannot in the end avoid the IMP's conclusions. The second sub-group is the Left Alternative, to which I belong.
The social-liberal tendency, associated with Gyula Horn or Rezsö Nyers, (who is something of a social democrat, who wants to defends social welfare) is very influential. Horn and the others are ambitious careerists - Stalinists who have turned into liberals. And there is nothing surprising here, one dogma has turned into another. • Is there a danger of a new nation-
The old crown from Hapsburg times has reappeared on the national flag. This reestablishes continuity with obscurantist traditions, but the parliament, including some HSP members, voted for it. To understand this we have to understand the political culture in this part of the world, and in particular the importance of the desire for revenge.
It seems likely that social conflicts will be channelled into national conflicts, with a long tradition to fall back on. Nationalism will probably take the form a new populism taking up a certain number of social demands. This will be very dangerous for the left, since it will occupy some of the left's traditional ground. There is a populist tradition in Hungary.
If the right wing opposition to the government becomes too strong here, the latter will try to limit, control, absorb. Things are already speeding up: a year ago, there were still people in the Democratic Form and the Free Democrats who considered themselves left wing. Now the Forum is more and more seen as a party that wants to cling onto power. Thus the new populism will emanate from the gov-
A leap in the dark for
HERE were no surprises in the
T
Congress proceedings. The leading group around Achille Ochetto, which won a comfortable majority in the provincial congresses, carried through their plan, essentially conthe line advanced since tinuing along
November 19892.
The moderate wing of the opposition
THE congress of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) which also stuck to its positions, in particular in the counter-report made by Aldo Tortoreltook place in Rimini on February 3, 1991, was a major event in la : it adheres to the traditional gradualist the history of the Italian workers' movement. Founded in reformism of the party, and retains an
January 1921 with adherence to the Communist International, essentially positive appreciation of Gorbathe PCI has been the leading political party of the Italian chevism.
A small minority around Antonio Basworking class for decades, through some very tough social solino, although accepting the transformaconflicts and in a context of mass politicization.
tion of the party and its name, had some
At the end of the congress, the PCI formally disappeared; in reservations.
Bassolino, for example, explained that its place is a formation with a more or less liberal-socialist the new party should reaffirm the motor orientation, which believes that the basic opposition between role of the working class, underlined the social classes and their political parties is obsolete. The very deep crisis of the European left and denounced the limits and mistakes of Gorchange is expressed in the adoption of an anodyne new name:
bachev.
the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).
The birth of the PDS took place in conditions identical to those that characterized the last days of the PCI, with very deep internal divisions, whose dynamic is very difficult to discern, but which, in any case, represent a serious obstacle to
Ochetto's project.
On the one hand there is a left wing, represented by Bassolino, the Ingrao-
Tortorella current and the ex-leaders of the Manifesto current (Magri, Castellina and so on).
Together, despite the objective difficulties, they could hope to counter-balance the majority, as indeed happened in
August 1990 at the start of the Gulf crisis.3
Ultra-reformists in strong position
On the other side is the ultra-reformist tendency around Giorgio Napolitano.
Although they were not able to impose their line of total support to Andreotti's foreign policy, they nonetheless came out of the congress in a strong position.
They are demanding the adherence of the PDS to what remains the majority current of the workers movement in capitalist
Europe and can thus appear as having a coherent project, implying also convergence and then unification with the Italian
Socialist Party (PSI).
The end of the congress and the first weeks of the new party's existence have clarified even further the difficulties of the
PDS project.
First of all, the congress was in no way the "founding congress" envisaged by
Ochetto and his supporters. Only a very small number of adherents to the PDS did not belong to the PCI.
One of the newcomers, the economist
Michele Salvati, spoke of their "small detachment", adding that the "subterranean left" which had been so much talked about had failed to "emerge". In fact only people who were already in the PDS orbit — some of them having been elected to Parliament or city councils thanks to its support — got their PDS card.
Furthermore, at the first meeting of the National Council, which was to elect the general secretary, Ochetto failed to get the necessary quorum; apart from the technical problems this poses, it shows that he is challenged even inside the majority coalition.4
Finally, on the day after the congress, the results of the elections to the new national leading organs, and the manoeuvres around the appointment of local leaderships, sparked off poorly concealed conflicts.
This was the case for example, in Turin and Milan, while in Genoa, accordtheir disillusionment.
The PDS is also in danger of being afflicted with big regional unevenness: according to the Rinascita reviews, nearly half of the members are concentrated in two regions, Emilia and Tuscany.
Hopes of rapid change abandoned
Awareness of all these difficulties has led members and even some leaders to set their project of "the alternative" in the longer term, leaving behind the hopes for rapid change of a year ago.
So far, Ochetto's operation has had a result diametrically opposed to that intended: the new party's contours are no clearer than those of the PCI, its sphere of
LIVIO MAITAN influence remains limited and it is torn by deep and unhealing conflicts.
The main contradiction that threatens it comes from, on the one hand, its capacity to swiftly profit from the advantages of having a new skin, and on the other the need to maintain contact with the aspirations of its base and traditional electorate.
This contradiction was shown up by the Gulf war. One day the PDS voted in the parliamentary debate in favour of the conclusions of Prime Minister Andreotti in defence of intervention (if with some reservations), then the next day the party criticized Bush's decision to launch the ground war.
These oscillations have been less visible in the party's daily l' Unità. Supporters of the war have been able to put their views in its columns more often and with more room than the "pacifists" or even supporters of the party line.
In a little more than a year, the PDS will 1. The text presented by Ochetto got 67% of the vote, that of Ingrao-Tortorella 26.6% and Bassolino's 5.7%. Only 29.9% of party members voted. The official figure for the party's membership before the congress was 1,280,000. 2. See International Viewpoint, no. 183, April 23, 1990, and no. 194, November 12, 1990. 3. In August 1990, when the PCI abstained on the govemment's decision to send ships to the Gulf, Ingrao distanced himself from this attitude by a parliamentary declaration and did not take part in the vote. Some 20 of the party's deputies supported his position. 4. The PDS Congress elected a National Council, a sort of parliament with 547 members. The Council in its tum elected a leadership of 118 members, which elected a "Political Coordination" of 24 members. 5. In the 1970s Rinascità, the party's review since the end of the war, had a very big circulation (around 100,000). But it has recently stopped publication owing to a dramatic fall in sales. 6. Normally the legislative elections should take place iy rake place in May 1nd the regional clections in Sic. 23 ily take place in May 1991. April 1, 1991 • #203 International Viewpoint
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