Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

A Red Letter Day

The centuries of Hungarian history have been more often veiled in sorrow than brightened by jubilant victories.

For Hungary, then, May 2, 1990, was a rare red letter day. On this day the opening session of the freely elected National Assembly took place in the Hungarian Parliament, thus formally ending decades-long Communist rule.

The events enacted in the Parliament were reminiscent of another day of jubilation, June 8, 1867, when, consummating the Compromise, Franz Joseph and his wife, Elizabeth, were crowned in the Church of Mátyás in Buda. The prime minister who then assisted in the coronations was none other than the same Count Gyula Andrássy, who returned from the exile he had chosen after the lost War of Independence in 1849.

What took place in Budapest on May 2, 1990 was also a sort of "coronation" - the crowning of Hungary's heroic and finally successful efforts to shake off decades long Communist rule, and to establish a freely elected government.

Witnessing the inauguration of the newly elected National Assembly were Archduke Otto von Habsburg, 77, who had been exiled from Hungary during most of his lifetime, and Msgr. Béla Varga, 88, a hero of the resistance during World War II, and Speaker of the Parliament between 1945-47 until he too, was forced into exile. Msgr. Varga, ironically, now gave the inaugural address after arriving from New York for this occasion.

The National Assembly's first act was to declare October 23, the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, an official national holiday. Thus, that revolution, remembered as "Glory in Defeat" now became a "Glorious Victory."

Credit for such an epochal turn of events belongs to the spirit of the Magyar nation of which Hugo Victor wrote:

"This eminent nation will arise from its grave where tyranny laid it. As long as the spirit of independence is virtue and heroism, glory and aspiration for liberty will live, Hungary will live."

The "Opium" of Goulash Communism

It is clear now that the Revolution of 1956 continued to smolder after its suppression. Still, the vengeance exacted a heavy price. Close to 500 patriots were executed, among them Imre Nagy; thousands imprisoned while other thousands were deported to the Soviet Union. The most severe loss for the nation was, however, the mass exodus of 200,000 refugees.

After the "stick" that crushed the revolution came the "carrot," a declaration by the government that "those who are not against us are with us," a slogan which was to deceive many. To promote the country's pacification, Moscow tried a new form or bribery: it allowed Hungary a wider latitude in economic experimentation than any other East bloc country, in exchange for political orthodoxy.

A gradual economic consolidation followed with foreign loans and investments flowing into the country from the West. Although much of this capital was used - not for modernizing production as intended - but to satisfy the appetite of the Soviet Union, enough remained in Hungary to help keep the people well-fed and supplied with material goods. Still, the greatest asset in creating a relative prosperity was the richness of the Hungarian soil. As Mikszáth has noted earlier: "Hungary is a country which is robbed every year only to recover its losses in the next, thanks to the fertility of her land."

Over the years, the Kádár government succeeded in creating a positive, liberal image for the system. Hungarian economic revisionism, nicknamed "goulash communism," produced relative prosperity and glitter which lured millions of foreign tourists - and allowed millions of Hungarian citizens to travel abroad. Favorable coverage in the world media enhanced this image.

The Kádár regime also succeeded, unfortunately, in channeling the masses' energies to the almost exclusive pursuit of material goods and pleasures. This pursuit, as calculated, would not allow time for the people to get involved in politics.

Thus, the "opium" of prosperity, skillfully dosed, seemingly made Hungarians forget that material well-being alone cannot secure a nation's future in

the long run. Many Magyars lost sight of the need to strengthen their ethnic base, underpinned by moral values and national consciousness, if they were to hold their ground in the Carpathian Basin.

Nation Led toward Ruin

This attitude, and the Kádár regime's policies, set the stage for a tragedy unprecedented in Hungary's history. While the leadership boasted of building up the country, it was, in fact, literally destroying the nation's future.

After the Revolution, at a time when the tremendous loss of lives and young manpower called for a stepped up campaign to encourage child-bearing, the Kádár government did diametrically the opposite: In 1956 it legalized abortion on demand. Since then the lives of some 5 million Magyars have been extinguished in the womb. A corresponding figure in the United States would be a mind-boggling 113 million abortions!

As a consequence, Hungary's population began to decrease. In 1990, it stood at l0,450,000 - 260,000 fewer than in 1980. It should be close to 14 million had normal population growth occurred since 1956. The average number of children in a family fell to 1.7 - at a time when Hungary is surrounded by two of Europe's fastest growing nations. Rumania and Yugoslavia.

The falling birthrate has resulted in a dramatic aging of the population: by 1990 the number of people in retirement age had become three times the normal. This in turn, diminished the productive labor force, which must bear a threefold increase in the social burden of caring for the aged.

Just as Hungary's very low birthrate belied the nation's surface vitality, so did its death rate: During the Kádár era Hungary's suicide rate became the highest in the world. At the same time, Hungary held and is still holding the last place in life expectancy among 33 developed nations.

During the Kádár years alcoholism became rampant, with 500,000 persons treated for this addiction. More state funds were spent for producing alcohol - a lucrative business for the state - than on erecting new homes in Hungary, a country with a catastrophic housing shortage.

The churches having been practically eviscerated, the influence of religion sank to an all time low. This left the younger generations without moral guidance amidst the corrupting influence of secularism, indifference, hedonistic consumerism, practical materialism and atheism," to quote Pope Paul John II's lament about the conditions behind the Iron Curtain.

As a consequence,. the divorce rate skyrocketed, causing a gradual disintegration of family life.

On the top of all this, the spirit of the younger generations was undermined by a destructive educational system which diluted moral and national values, distorted history, eradicated national pride and consciousness, and replaced them with socialist internationalism. The youth were kept in the dark about the fate of Magyar minorities in the successor states, and even honoring the memory of fallen Magyar heroes was frowned upon by authorities. The celebration of March 15 as national holiday was forbidden.

The outside world knew but little of what lay behind the friendly facades of "goulash communism" in Hungary. And only in 1988 did the regime's "dark secret" become known: A debt of 22 billion dollars had accumulated making Hungary the most indebted country behind the Iron Curtain.

Opposition on the Rise

j Hungarian Pro-Life Movement (Magyar Életért Mozgalom) and the United Hungarian Fund (Egyesült Magyar Alap) in Canada.

Such movements, however have run against the prevailing mentality, and restoring motherhood to its traditional pedestal in society promises to be a protracted struggle.

In contrast, efforts to spotlight suppressed Hungarian minorities in Rumania and Slovakia have succeeded in gaining widespread support. A taboo theme in Hungary during the Kádár era, it was Hungarians in exile who first took up this cause before international forums and the Congress of the United States. This inspired activists within Hungary to stir up public opinion at home. Contacts among writers in Hungary and their colleagues in exile multiplied, and soon samizdat publications began to rouse the public. The country's foremost writer and poet-laureate Gyula Illyés championed the minorities cause. After his death in 1983, Sándor Csoóri continued the campaign supported among others by István Csurka, Ferenc Kun-Szabó and Sándor Lezsák,

the latter being the organizer of periodical gathering of Hungarian writers at Lakitelek,

In Munich, the Hungarian language Nemzetr (National Guardian), edited by Tibor Tollas, served as the voice of the Opposition at home. Acknowledging the paper's contribution to the common fight, Lezsák wrote Tollas in May 1990:

"We won... Without you we would have been weaker and our truth untold. You also share in our victory, because you stood on the ramparts as national guardians of truth and security... There was a long period during which our dismembered nation could make her voice heard only through you..."

Among exile organizations the Transylvanian

Among exile organizations the Transylvanian World Federation founded by István Zolcsák, the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation led by László Hámos, and the National Council of Hungarians from Czechoslovakia, headed by Rev. Kristóf Hites were in the forefront in developing close contacts with the opposition behind the Iron Curtain. Thus, they were instrumental in the political awakening in Hungary while fighting for the Magyar minorities from the free world.

There is a Hungarian word where a single accent makes a great difference. Lázítás means incitement, lazítás means loosening. Opponents of the regime at home skillfully walked the line of lazítás lest they be jailed for lázítás (Some were).

Finally, lazítás at home and abroad did succeed in loosening the tight Communist control over Hungarian society, a process which might have taken years had the epochal year of 1989 not produced a political earthquake in the Soviet domain.

Prelude to a Grand Finale

Premonitory rumblings of events to come was detected by the fine political antennae of some Magyar leaders in the Party. They sensed that the time has come to jettison Communism; the time when long suppressed Hungarian interests must be superordinated to red ideology.

A group of reformers was ready to act. Early in 1987 Imre Pozsgay, the president of the Patriotic Front and member of the Politburo, submitted to János Kádár a memorandum prepared by thirty-five economic and political experts under his direction. The memorandum, titled Fordulat és reform (Turnabout and Reform), spelled out the heretofore unspeakable truth, namely:

Hungary's backwardness is frightening, its technology outdated. The country's entire Marxist system faces bankruptcy.

The backwardness of the Soviet Union, compared to Western technology, is even worse and keeps worsening day by day. They face a bigger bankruptcy than we do.

There is a crying need for economic reform, but such a reform is unimaginable without wide-ranging political reforms.

The memorandum turned out to be a precursor of national awakening.

Anti-government sentiment was exacerbated by the reluctance of the Kádár regime to protest the ever worsening suppression of 2.5 million ethnic Magyars in Transylvania. The regime's silence, imputed to an excessive "socialist solidarity" with Rumania, was all the more scandalous, because in the meantime the chambers of the United States echoed with condemnations of the ethnocide practiced by Ceausescu.

It was Ceausescu's plan to raze villages that finally shook Hungarian officials from their torpor, a plan which provoked the greatest emotional outburst in Hungary since the Revolution, In a huge demonstration attended at Heroes' Square in Budapest, a crowd of nearly 100,000 vehemently denounced "the Red Dracula." Later, Imre Pozsgay declared that "the incomprehensible and idiotic political program" of Rumania's leaders "is an injury to European civilization, a crime against humanity."

The situation was aggravated by tens of thousands of Magyar refugees pouring in from Transylvania to Hungary. By this time the reform group within the Party, including Pozsgay, Miklós Németh, Mátyás Szürös, Rezs Nyers and Károly Grosz was gaining ground. In July of 1987 Grosz, a moderate reformer, was named prime minister, but discredited by diplomatic blunders and the inadequacy of his reform program, he had to step down the following year Mátyás Szürös then became acting president, with Harvard-educated Miklós Németh serving as prime minister, Imre Pozsgay as minister of the State, and Gyula Horn as foreign minister. The latter's appointment was especially fortunate, Horn being an imaginative and tireless diplomat.

And Then Came the "Earthquake"...

1989 saw the pace of reform accelerate breathtakingly.'

On January 11 Parliament approved bills legalizing freedom of assembly and freedom of association.

On February 11 the Communist Central Committee approved in principle the creation of independent political parties and their participation in free, general elections.

On March 17 Hungary signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, pledging not to force fleeing foreigners to return to their own countries.

On May 2 Hungarian soldiers began dismantling the barbed wire fence along the border with Austria, Hungary becoming the first Soviet bloc country to open its border with Western Europe.

On May 8 the Central Committee forced former leader János Kádár into retirement.

On May 30 the Hungarian Communist Party (Socialist Workers' Party) admitted that former premier Imre Nagy was executed illegally for his role in the 1956 uprising.

On June 16 Imre Nagy received a grandiose televised funeral in the presence of 250,000 at Heroes' Square after his remains had been exhumed from an unnamed graveside No. 301 in a Budapest cemetery. After the funeral he was reburied in the same spot which has become a national shrine. The funeral could be interpreted as the burial of Communism itself in Hungary.

As if to underline that symbolism, János Kádár died a month later.

Soon after Nagy's reburial, Hungary reverberated with feverish political activity as a free press mushroomed along with new political groups. From the political rush and scramble the populist-conservative Magyar Demokratik Forum (MDF), the urban-liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), and the Organization of Young Democrats (FIDESZ) emerged as early leaders.

On September 19 the government and opposition parties agreed to create a multi-party political system that would be based on free elections to be held in the spring of 1990.

On October 7 the Communist Party (formerly Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party) renounced Marxism and renamed itself the Hungarian Socialist Party - the first time that a ruling Communist party had ever turned away from its fundamental ideology. (A small orthodox group, however, continued to use the old party's name in the upcoming electoral campaign.)

The "grand finale" took place on October 23, the anniversary of the Revolution. Standing on a balcony overlooking Parliament Square, acting president Mátyás Szürös solemnly declared to a gathered crowd that the 1956 uprising was actually a movement for "national independence." He pronounced the People's Republic of Hungary to be dead, and replaced it with the nomenclature Magyar Köztársaság (Republic of Hungary).

Signs of communist rule quickly disappeared from public places. Long an eyesore, the Red Star atop Parliament's dome was to be removed, street names were changed. institutions renamed, and statues of Lenin were relegated to basement storerooms. The military discarded its red insignia, and the red star-decorated national coat of arms was soon to be replaced by the old one.

The news that Hungary had discarded communism by itself - the first country to do so - was front page news all over the world. The November 6 issue of TIME carried on its front cover a news photo of a girl waving a huge Hungarian flag, a tribute to the Hungarian people. A later issue quoted Árpád Göncz, Hungary's noted author and playwright thus:

"I'm proud that these historic changes have come about without bloodshed or force. This is the result of the wisdom of the people. No one called for revenge."

No one knew at the time that Göncz was to be elected president of Hungary in the spring of 1990.

Neither did the world expect that Hungary's epochal move would trigger a monumental chain reaction in Eastern Europe in the remaining few months of 1989. The next in line to shake off Communist rule were the East Germans, for whom Hungary had opened her frontiers weeks earlier as a conduit to West Germany. While enraging East German Stalinist leaders, this humanitarian act gained gratitude and accolades for Hungary, especially from West Germany. The November 11 issue of DIE WELT expressed this sentiment in an article titled "Thank you, Hungarians:"

When the first sections of barbed wire were cut and landmines cleared from the frontier we did not yet foresee that this small break through a wall was to become such a big opening, a road to freedom for those who longed for liberty.

The Hungarian people's readiness to help, the leniency of custom officers, and the government's magnanimous suspension of formalities for crossing the border finally caused the DDR (East Germany) to falter...

All these hardly could have been achieved without the Magyars' opening of the Curtain. Small Hungary, which had already won the sympathy of the free world in 1956, again made history in 1989...

She deserves more from us than mere sympathy; the entire German nation ought to help her in a tangible way.

Chancellor Kohl, for his part, pointed out that "It was Hungary who removed the first brick from the Berlin Wall."

Paralleling the East Germans' rush for freedom, Czechoslovakia deposed its communist rulers in a "velvet revolution" which put a gentle writer Vaclav Havel in the presidential seat.

Bulgaria ousted its hard-line leader, Todor Zhivkov, after 35 years of rule, a move followed by gradual democratization in that country.

Finally. and quite unexpectedly, Rumania's Ceausescu was ousted in the most dramatic and bloodiest upheaval of all, in a revolution triggered by Hungarians in Transylvania just before Christmas.

By year's end Moscow's satellite empire was no more.

Dawning of a New Era

Hungary entered 1990 with the realization - and quiet pride - that overcoming dismemberment, foreign occupation, huge population losses, economic exploitation, and decades of demoralization, it was still able to make European history in a spectacular way. The Magyars had drawn on a reserve of their spirit and shaken off the shackles of Communism. Moreover, the Hungarians had helped other afflicted nations to do the same.

Acknowledging this remarkable record, Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne said in a speech delivered in Budapest in May, 1990:

"Hungary's role in this latest revolution had been crucial. You reasserted your rights and your independence without bloodshed or violence... All of the re-emerging democracies of Europe owe Hungary a debt. As a result we now remember who cut the first wire of the Iron Curtain, who hammered the first hole in the Berlin Wall, and who was the courageous pastor in Transylvania, supported by his Hungarian and Rumanian countrymen who, last December upset a tyrannical regime...

"Thanks to these events all of Europe is now on the threshold of historical change..."

After free elections held in the spring of 1990, a new coalition government was formed, composed of the Democratic Forum, Smallholders and Christian Democrats. Árpád Göncz, a Free Democrat and writer who had spent six years in prison after the revolution of 1956, was elected president by the Parliament.

The new premier,. József Antall of the Democratic Forum declared after the elections:

"We must communicate this message to all 15 million members of the world community of Hungarians: The Hungarian nation stands united, regardless of the foreign citizenships that some may have obtained during the thunderstorms of history."

Antall's reputation as a stern, unsmiling man was quite in keeping with the mind-boggling task he faced after the free elections-to raise the nation from its economic and biologic nadir.

But he could draw succor from the fact that in this century the Magyars had succeeded in raising their country from her ruins after two lost wars - thanks to the indomitable spirit of the nation. Generations come and generations go, but spirit remains a permanent force in a people's history.

On July 3, 1990 the free Hungarian Parliament voted to restore the traditional crowned coat of arms - a national symbol of Hungary.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary