The development of the independent peace movement the price for a pseudo-indepenfor his group, strated his readiness to keep quiet about group are not automatically required to
The Hungarian independent peace movement is young, but already has
The Peace Group for a Dialogue was created in considerable experience.
1981 in the hope that the gradual liberalisation of the Hungarian regime in recent years would favour the organisation of an independent peace movement (see IV, No 33, June 27, 1983).
It was even prepared to pay a high political price in order for its activities to be tolerated. The group pledged itselt not to oppose in an open way the government's foreign policy in relation to detence. Such loyalty would allow the activists, or so they thought, a relative organisational independence in their work.
Some leaders of the group even considered it necessary to make an extra effort to prove themselves, and openly took their distance trom the
'dissidents' of the democratic opposition.
samizdat name of 'Beszelo' had the strong impression that the regime of
Janos Kadar, the first secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, would tolerate such an experiment.
Antoine DELAGRANGE
The rest is well-known. The Dialogue groups became more and more popular with the youth of Budapest and several other Hungarian towns. The regime saw a real danger in their growth: the political stability of the preceding years was
And the Dialogue groups' orientation, combining a determination to take a loyalist attitude toward certain aspects of the regime's policy with independence in action, could not offer sufficient guarantees for the regime in the long term for it to be able to tolerate
Hungarian reforms have been in the economic and cultural fields but not in the military domain.
Not only was this peace group meddling in taboo political subjects but its growing influence and ability to organise could sooner or later have effects on the basis of Dialogue's programme it-
The determination to maintain a loyal attitude to the regime played up by the original leaders of the group was not enough to reassure the Kadarist regime.
A political bureau of gerontocrats could not have much faith in adolescents who were newcomers to big-time politics.
representatives of the
In the beginning, regime participated in meetings and public debates organised by Dialogue.
once it became clear that this would not be enough to reintegrate peace groups into the official structures, the political bureau decided to act, putting a stop to this experiment of independence.
A summer peace camp organised in
1983 by Dialogue on an island in the
Danube between Buda and Pest that brought together Dutch and Hungarian peace activists and a delegation of women from Greenham Common (in England)
attacked by police.
forcibly escorted out
The Dialogue group under its of the country. Then the Dialogue group was banned outright. Its members were not prepared for such an eventuality. They had been convinced that they could become an accepted part of Hungarian political life. They never imagined that despite their loyalty they could be put outside the law.
The Kadarist regime, of cource, had to take account of the negative consequences
Repressive action threatened to tarnish their image both in the eyes of the Hungarian people, as well
The minor policy differences that exist between Hungary and its neighbours in the East are very important for a regime that has succeeded in uniting a large part of the population around a project of limited but real reforms. This distinction has enabled the Hungarian government, in fact, to obtain more favourable treatment from the capitalist countries.
In order to legitimise repression of the movement, the Kadar regime, therefore, resorted to an ingenious strategy. One of the leaders of Dialogue, Ferene Koszegi, was authorised to organise a new group under a new name.
This new group is called 6-4-0 with the numbers six and four representing the of years that the First and Second World Wars lasted [for Hungary] and zero, the hope that there will not be
Its aim was to appeal to and organise young peace activists who had been responsive to the language and arguments of Dialogue and who the Peace Council, the official peace organisation, was utterly incapable of attracting.
Granting legality to the former group could seem to justify banning competing ones. With a bit of luck, this game might even convince the outside world that the regime in Hungary really was different.
Koszegi played along with this game, announcing that he would follow the polbecome members of the Peace Council, which allows them to retain an appearance of independence.
By capitulating in this way to the diplomatic policies of the regime, Koszegy presents himself in Western Europe as the official independent' representative of the regime.
At the international peace movement conference that took place in Perugia, Italy, in July 1984 (see IV, No 61, Oc-
1984), Hungary became the first country in the Eastern bloc to institute the policy of sending a mixed delegation made up of traditional official delegates and 'independent official' dele-
For the occasion, since they still had not been able to draw in enough people from the old Dialogue group, Koszegi got an escort of two old wolves from the Hungarian political establishment. fact that these people had never had anything to do with the peace movement did image was rescued. The Hungarian media could, with some concrete arguments, proudly announce to the population that democratisation of society was follow-
For their part, the foreign press was only too happy to note, with great satisfaction, yet another sign of the renewal of the reform policy. A good proportion of the Western peace movement hoodwinked by this.
Some peace movement leaders even thought it necessary to safeguard the links with this different sort of regime, to reserve special treatment for Hungary.
With great difficulty, the members of the old independent peace group, Dialogue, managed to reorganise. A good proportion of the old members continued
The Budapest group even decided to ignore the ban and to keep the name of Dialogue. They had to confront
Today it is impossible for this group to organise public activities in a continuous way. innocent activity brings unrelenting re-
For example, Vermezo Park in Budapest was declared a nuclear-free zone on Sunday afternoon July 27, and within minutes the police moved in, forcibly removing white flags and banners. Furthermore, the tenant of the apartment where the group used to meet was interrogated by police, and eventually had to move. Several members of Dialogue have been interrogated by police under various pre-
It is very difficult to define a new
International Viewpoint 14 January 1985
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HUNGARY.
hope of becoming a legitimate movement in the eyes of the authorities is now lost. But a majority of Dialogue members still do not want to let themselves be pushed into the shadows of political life and to have to face repression.
The choice which presents itself to them is a painful one: either to continue the struggle and risk being completely pushed into a corner, or to withdraw
Before the banning, Dialogue had only just started to build links with the European peace movement. Western peace activists, on the other hand, have the means to bring sufficient pressure to bear to get guarantees from the Kadarist reCZECHOSLOVAKIA_ gime. They ought also to reply to the questions of the Hungarian peace activists about a peace-movement strategy extending to both military blocs. Does not the name of Dialogue itself imply such an aspiration and hope?
Joint declaration of from all political activity.