Political
Lessons Of
The Events In Hungary
By Peter Schwarz
30 September 2006
World
Socialist Web
The
events that shook Hungary last week should be taken as a political warning
to the working class throughout Europe. The right-wing, pro-business
policies of the post-Stalinist “Socialist Party” have underscored
the absence of any political force on the official “left”
that in any way defends the interests of the working population. The
result is a political vacuum that allowed ultra-right forces to dominate
the streets of the Hungarian capital for several days.
The so-called “socialist
left” is implementing a program of cuts, which is being cheered
on by European financial circles, and which is creating social misery
and declining living standards for broad layers of the population, including
the party’s own voters. The right wing, with openly fascist elements
at its head, has mobilized in the streets and poses as the advocate
of the ordinary citizen.
The racist gangs that out-shouted
all others on the recent demonstrations and are quite prepared to resort
to violence have absolutely no concern for the needs of the common man.
They base themselves on the most reactionary tendencies in Hungarian
history—in particular, the Horthy dictatorship which came to power
in 1919 after bloodily crushing the Hungarian Soviet and went on to
form an alliance with Mussolini and Hitler in the 1930s, and the anti-Semitic
Arrow Cross Party, which organized the terror against Hungarian Jews.
The extreme right in Hungary
consists of a few thousand persons, and comprised a minority of those
taking part in the demonstrations, which included many angry but politically
confused citizens. However, the vacuum which has emerged because of
the lack of any organization representing the interests of the working
class has made it possible for such fascistic elements to play a prominent
role. Notorious right-wing extremists were able to speak to the crowds
without hindrance and win applause from those gathered.
The far-right is attempting
to channel widespread frustration over the country’s social crisis
into nationalistic fantasies and racist hysteria. Organizations such
as the Party for Hungarian Right and Life (MIEP), “the Rightists”
(Jobbik) and “64 People’s Committee” combine agitation
against the European Union and international capital with rabid anti-communism,
supplemented by the demand for Hungarian expansion to the borders of
1918 and unabashed anti-Semitism.
All this is taking place
in a country where over half a million Jews were murdered in Nazi gas
chambers. Before the Second World War, one million Jews lived in the
country. Today there are only 100,000 in a population of ten million.
The largest right-wing opposition
party, the Federation of Young Democrats (Fidesz), is playing a double
game. On the one hand the party maintains close political and personal
contact with the extreme right and has never clearly dissociated itself
from such forces. On the other, it generally seeks to publicly distance
itself from the fascists.
During the election campaign
of 2002, Fidesz leader Viktor Orban used the language of the extreme
right and denounced the Socialists as the “pawns of big finance
capital.” He even sought to establish a coalition with the anti-Semitic
MIEP—an attempt that was frustrated only because the latter failed
to re-enter parliament.
Between 1998 and 2002, the
same Orban occupied the post of prime minister and negotiated the country’s
entry into the European Union. He had also served for eight years as
a vice-president of the Liberal International, which includes organizations
such as the “free market” Free Democratic Party of Germany.
Since 2002, he has held a leading post in the European People’s
Party, which is the umbrella organisation for conservative European
Christian Democrats.
The recent demonstrations
were in part controlled by Fidesz functionaries via mobile phone. They
hoped to exploit the demonstrations to improve the party’s chances
in local elections to be held October 1. These elections are regarded
as the first big test for the Socialist Party since its victory in parliamentary
elections last April.
At the same time, Fidesz
has adopted a cautious public profile in regard to the protests in Budapest,
even calling off a large demonstration planned for last Saturday after
it became clear that many voters had been repelled by the violence of
the extreme right.
The wave of protests died
down considerably after Fidesz took the decision to call off the Saturday
demonstration. On Tuesday, some 1,000 demonstrators rallied in front
of the parliament in Budapest and on Wednesday this number had dropped
to a hundred.
While the demonstrations
of last week were large, they were by no means overwhelming. Some media
outlets spoke of 40,000 participants turning out last Saturday, but
many observers regard this figure as highly exaggerated and consider
20,000 as much nearer the mark.
A far larger number of Hungarians
stayed at home, no doubt alarmed by the antics of the extreme right
while brimming with anger over the right-wing course of the Socialist
Party. This majority lacks any voice in official Hungarian politics.
The experiences of the past
century show that the rise to prominence of the extreme right has less
to do with the inherent strength of such forces than with the weakness
and paralysis of the workers’ movement. The victory of the Nazis
in Germany—a much larger and better organized force than the current
Hungarian extreme right—was possible only due to the splitting
and paralysis of the working class through the political agencies of
Stalinism and social democracy.
The consequences of capitalist restoration
The re-emergence of the extreme
right today and its ability to manipulate social anger and despair constitute
a devastating indictment of the policies of the so-called “Socialists.”
The party’s unconditional pro-capitalist policies have disarmed
the working class and ceded the initiative to right-wing forces.
This process is by no means
limited to Hungary. In state elections held one month ago in the former
German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the neo-fascist German National
Party (NPD) was able to win representation in a second eastern German
state. It now has deputies in the state parliaments of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania. And in Poland, the extreme right and anti-Semitic League
of Polish Families (LPR) sits in government alongside the conservative
Law and Justice Party (PiS), led by the Kaczynski brothers. Until recently,
an ultra-right farmers’ party, Samoobrona, was also part of the
government.
One-and-a-half decades after
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
the consequences of the restoration of capitalism in these countries
are brutally clear. Far from bringing democracy or improved social conditions,
the introduction of the market economy has plunged broad layers of the
population into social misery and created conditions in which the most
politically backward and predatory layers are able to extend their influence.
Former leading Stalinist
politicians transformed themselves into confirmed advocates of the “free
market”—while retaining the completely inappropriate label
of “socialist.”
The Hungarian head of government,
Ferenc Gyurcsany, is typical in this respect. Once a leading functionary
in the former Stalinist youth movement, Gyurcsany made his millions
in the course of the “wild privatisations” carried out in
the 1990s and is now head of a government intent on implementing an
austerity program that is applauded by international capital.
Gyurcsany is by no means
the only Stalinist youth functionary who has been able to acquire power
and wealth. The same path has been trodden by Julia Timoschenko in Ukraine,
Alexander Kwasniewski in Poland, and many of the current Russian oligarchs.
Opposing Gyurcsany and his
party are former dissidents and “democrats” who have increasingly
emerged as hysterical right-wingers. This category includes the Kaczynski
brothers, who were both former functionaries of the Polish Solidarity
movement and advisors to Lech Walesa, as well as Viktor Orban and the
leader of the anti-Semitic MIEP, Istvan Csurka.
Orban’s Federation
of Young Democrats, the Fidesz, was founded in 1988 and played an active
role during the period of the collapse of Hungarian Stalinism. The MIEP,
led by 72-year-old Csurka, emerged from the Hungarian Democratic Forum,
one of the first organizations to actively oppose the Stalinist regime.
The working class cannot
afford to remain indifferent to the current efforts being made by these
ultra-right forces to bring down and replace the present government.
The chauvinist and racist policies of these organisations would have
devastating consequences should they come to power. Any attempt to revive
the project of restoring a “Great Hungary” would end just
as bloodily as the fragmentation of Yugoslavia into ethnic states into
the 1990s. It would plunge Hungary and its neighbours into violent conflicts
and precipitate ethnic pogroms, already foreshadowed by the agitation
of these organisations against Jews, Roma, Sinti and other minorities.
Opposing the efforts of the
extreme right to bring down the government does not, however, mean that
any political support should be given to the Socialists, whose policies
are diametrically opposed to the interests of the working population.
The really scandalous part
of the remarks made by Gyurcsany that became the occasion for the recent
protests was not his admission that he had lied. Such a statement should
surprise no one. Of much greater significance is the fact that he pledged
his party to a policy which is vehemently opposed by the vast majority
of those who voted for his party.
“What would happen,”
he said, “if instead of losing our popularity because of marking
time amongst ourselves we lost it because we promoted great social causes
[i.e., capitalist market policies]? In that case, it is not a problem
if we lose the support of society for a while.”
In other words, to implement
his pro-business program Gyurcsany was quite prepared to allow his party
to lose support and to hand over power to the right wing.
Just two weeks after making
his speech on May 26 to a closed meeting of his party’s parliamentary
fraction, Gyurcsany’s government passed a radical austerity package
involving a 30 percent increase in energy prices, a 5 percent increase
in value added tax for foodstuffs and public transport, increased health
insurance contributions, and education and prescription fees. All of
these measures will have dire consequences for low-income social layers.
The European Union commission
has expressly praised the package, which is aimed at lowering the country’s
budget deficit from 10 to 3 percent within three years. The European
media has also praised Gyurcsany’s “courage” in taking
on the electorate.
To stop the right wing and
oppose the pro-business, anti-working class policies of the Gyurcsany
government, the working class needs its own, independent political party.
It must draw the lessons from the experience of Stalinism. The latter’s
crime was not that it upheld the abolition of capitalist private property,
but rather that it suppressed the working class in defence of the interests
of a privileged bureaucracy, within the framework of a thoroughly nationalist
program.
These lessons have yet to
be understood by broad masses of workers, which is why the extreme right
was able to garb its own mobilisation in the mantle of the Hungarian
Uprising of October 1956. In fact, the 1956 Uprising was a left-wing
rebellion by workers against the Stalinist bureaucracy. Today, the heritage
of Stalinism is expressed in those figures intent on defending the interests
of international finance capital while posing as so-called “socialists.”
The interests of the working
population can be defended only on the basis of an international socialist
program, which unites workers across national borders and rejects every
form of nationalism and racism.
Comment
On This Article