The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic 1989-2011 | 91 comments (91 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 1)

A friend of mine points to a number of changes made during the first Orban government, which appeared to indicate a more welfarist approach than the MSZP. I see Medgyessy's promises as a response to this, rather than a genuine re-invigoration of social democracy.

Really interested to read your take on the MSZP, yet it is hard to say that the core of the MSZP - shall we call it "Kobanya-Kispest Nyugdijasok" are really socialists, I would simply call them Party loyalists. The results can be hilarious - I remember seeing a particularly stern Gyurcsany speech on TV, with a backdrop of what seemed to be 5000 old ladies, many of whom appeared to be drifting off to sleep or knitting, only to be roused by the need to clap enthusiastically, once in a while. My enduring memory of the period is how from 2004 the MSZP really did become a one-man show, with Feri dominating the circus. There were no serious opposing poles, no serious counterarguments, just a few people who had personal resentments.

In my naivety I was quite shocked that a member party of the PES had so little social, intellectual and cultural capital .. is this all there is? I also remember the MSZDP making noises at the time - of course, a quick chat put paid to all talk of rebellion from the pocket party. In conclusion, I found the MSZP to be quite a different beast to Labour or the SPD in Germany - it really is a post-communist party in habit. In this regards Fidesz are correct, even if their conclusions following this are wrong. The Hungarian left have been poorly served by the MSZP and if Fidesz do dismantle it, this could actually be a positive thing in the medium term. Not sure if a combination of 4K and Szolidaritas would have the answer.

by car05 on Wed Jan 11th, 2012 at 10:20:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (4.00 / 2)

My problem with the retrospective lists of Fidesz's so-called welfare measures is that many items aren't what they are presented as, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors. Some of these:

Politically speaking, the biggest own goal of the Horn government in the Bokros Package was the introduction of tuition fees: intended as a signal of an equal sharing of burdens, they drove the politically most active segment of society into Fidesz's arms. So the Orbán government's number one act to demonstrate a break with the prior policies was to abolish tuition fees. Well, not really: only the general tuition fee was abolished while special tuition fees were expanded greatly, and the effect on student income counterbalanced by a holding back of stipendium growth by inflation. (For full disclosure: I was a student throughout this time, including participation in the failed anti-Bokros-Package student protests.)
The poor tend to have more children than the well-off. The right-wing solution is not to end poverty (because poverty is the poor people's own fault), but to provide incentives to the well-off and disincentive the not-so-well-off. This was achieved with a combination of income-independent family benefits at a frozen level (not following inflation), tax benefits for parents with income up to a limit (leaving out the truly well-off and the jobless), and the disproportional increase of the lowest income tax bracket.
Another supposedly social measure was the provision of housing credits. This was a Thatcherite ownership society measure. While not directly aimed at the upper class, credits are certainly something aimed at the better-off, at the credit-worthy. In the particular case of the Orbán government's housing credits, there was the extra perversity that it was tailored for the children of the well-off, in requiring other homes as collateral. While not directly aimed at the upper class, credits also benefit the financial sphere (as I wrote earlier, this was one of the seeds of the currency crisis).
In addition to the not-so-social measures remembered as social measures, there are the forgotten anti-social measures. For example, pensions were held under what a Horn-era law mandated, and Fidesz pioneered the idea of hospital privatisation (2001 attempt by Szeged's Fidesz major followed by the law named for then health minister István Mikola, which was thrown out in the first days of the Medgyessy government; though soon they would do a 180 degree turn and prepare their own version).

If the spending spree of the 2002 Socialists was in reaction to something from Fidesz, then not to Orbán's non-welfare welfare policies (which were obvious enough to anyone with a tighter bourse), but Fidesz warnings in the campaign that the Socialists will restore parts of the Bokros Package.

are really socialists, I would simply call them Party loyalists

I certainly don't disagree with your low opinion of Gyurcsány and the stupidity and low intellectual capital of his supporters, but I don't see a mutual exclusion here. People can be damn superficial even if ideologically committed, as demonstrated by the millions who sticked to Gyurcsány role model Bliar in successive elections despite the government breaking all 1997 election promises. (At least a lot of German Social Democrats split off the SPD and joined Left Party predecessor WASG when Schröder was into Agenda 2010 and Harz IV at the same time Medgyessy was implementing his spending promises.)

The Hungarian left have been poorly served by the MSZP and if Fidesz do dismantle it, this could actually be a positive thing in the medium term.

The MSzP can sure go to hell, but Fidesz will find a framing for demonisation against everyone, and for the Left, IMHO, Jobbik (which now took the role of the misappropiator of leftist rhetoric) and Fidesz are now greater problems than MSzP or even DK not just on the short term but the medium term too.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Jan 11th, 2012 at 12:58:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (4.00 / 2)

I really appreciate all this fantastic detail, it's helping my understanding enormously. The period 2002-2006 is also quite interesting for me, considering what has happened since.

Having been generally appalled at the direction of travel of the Blair government, Peter Medgyessy was a welcome relief at first, and I remember feeling quite happy when he scraped in. Though he was a bit flaky on a number of issues, and lacked a direction of travel after the first year, arguably his first year in office was the closest encounter I've had to a social democratic government since 1979! (I'm that kind of geek). Of course, Medgyessy is an unlikely hero figure. In the second year he was already into mini-austerity measures - which eroded his popularity to a large extent. Erzsebet Szalai has written that 'big capital' orchestrated his replacement with Gyurcsany through placemen in the SZDSZ. Is there truth in this, do you think? As I remember the MSZP had a set of bad results in European elections and were easily panicked.

Instances spring to mind from 2002... angry arguments on trams. People carrying flags, going to Fidesz rallies shouting at people drinking beer at cafes, asking why they are ashamed to be Hungarian. Lots of small shops selling pretty shit produce, talking right-wing politics all day. Ooops sorry, the last one is happening all the time. But you get the picture. It was almost as if Fidesz was the angry sweating man in the room, somehow emptying the oxygen. The rhetoric needs serious deconstruction, similar to that which Norman Fairclough did with 'New Labour, New Language?' I know there have been critical books written about Orban - but maybe not the right ones.

by car05 on Wed Jan 11th, 2012 at 02:09:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 1)

Speaking of Erzsébet Szalai, already back in September (before the final push of laws and before the market attack), in a longer piece on the development of the elites in Hungary (touching on the big capitalists as well as generational issues), she notes that Fidesz's dear national capitalist class is not able to create growth and may even commit capital flight.

A politikai rendszerváltás utáni több mint húsz évben Magyarországon másfél millió munkahely szűnt meg - és a beáramló multinacionális cégek, valamint a magyar burzsoázia együttesen sem voltak képesek e munkahelyeket pótolni. Sőt tevékenységükkel még gyorsították is a leépülést. Orbán Viktor és csapata ezért hamar felismeri, hogy bár a magyar burzsoáziának és az ,,embereknek" egyaránt szánt nacionalista retorikája alapvető tényezője volt átütő választási győzelmének, a magyar nagytőke továbbra sem lesz képes beindítani a gazdaság szekerét. (Már csak azért sem, mert megrettenvén a tökéletesen bizonytalanná váló hazai gazdasági közegtől, amelyik nagyvállalkozó csak teheti, külföldre tart.) Ezért, ha sikeres akar lenni, óhatatlanul gesztusokat kell tennie a külföldi befektetők (autógyárak behozatala) és a mindenki reménységének számító kínai vezetés felé.		In the more than twenty years after the political system change, one and a half million jobs were lost in Hungary - and even the incoming multinational companies and the Hungarian bourgeois together were not able to supplement those jobs. What's more, they have even accelerated the degradation with their activity. Hence, Viktor Orbán and his team quickly realizes that, although its nationalist rhetoric aimed at both the Hungarian bourgeoisie and "the people" was a fundamental factor of its punch-out electoral victory, Hungarian big capital still won't be able to kick-start the cart of the economy. (If anything because, frightened of the domestic economic medium becoming perfectly uncertain, any big entrepreneur that can is moving abroad.) Thus, if they want to be successful, inevitably, they need to make gestures towards foreign investors (bringing in carmakers) and the Chinese leadership which counts as the hope for everyone.
Orbán kiépülő, nyíltan diktatórikus rendszere ezért nem lehet kizárólag a magyar nagyburzsoázia érdekkifejeződése -ma már helyesebb, ha egy olyan rendszernek tekintjük, melyet egy ,,nagy nemzetfelemelő vízió" megfogalmazói a nagy céltól vezéreltetve az erőszak legszélesebb eszköztárával építettek (és jelenleg is építenek) ki.		For that reason, Orbán's in-construction openly dictatorial system can not be an expression of the interests of the domestic big bourgeois only - today, it is more correct to view it as a system that has been (and still is) built by the drafters of a "great nation-raising vision" under the direction of the great goal with the broadest arsenal of violence.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 13th, 2012 at 04:27:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 1)

Yes, I was referring to this article, some of which I found really interesting, other parts which left me a bit bemused. For example, I think there's a danger of hyperbole and exaggaration around Orban's regime - not to overinflate myself, but I've been in many demonstrations in London, with miners, peace protestors and anticapitalists. I see no broad arsenal of violence of play in Hungary, and no great goal either, as Orban pulls levers and pushes buttons on a machine of state that just clanks and splutters. He may own the whole machine, but it's still a crap one - let's not exaggerate the capabilities of the Hungarian state. I didn't get Erzsebet Szalai's generational references entirely either, but I think the main premise and analysis was pretty sound.

by car05 on Fri Jan 13th, 2012 at 04:44:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 1)

Yes, I was referring to this article

I notice I forgot to link: it was in Népszabadság. I think the one you referred to was her 2005 piece, however (no mention of SzDSz here).

I see no broad arsenal of violence of play in Hungary

I found that off, too, but Szalai being a sociologist, she may not be thinking of physical violence.

generational references

Forgive me if you know this already, but the nagy generáció = "great generation" in Hungary corresponds to the "baby boomer" in English context, or (with more direct political allusion) soixante-huitards in French context, resp. Achtundsechziger in German context. What she wrote on this caught my eye because I'm well aware of this generational conflict from Germany, but didn't think much about it in relation to Hungary, although it's even more obvious here (with most of the famed liberal intelligentsia of the system change belonging to the 'great generation', and Fidesz to the next that rebelled but without a generational ideology [and I belong to the even more underachieving and even more nihilistically 'rebelling' generation after Orbán's, but that's another thing]).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 13th, 2012 at 05:05:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 0)

I found her description of the 3rd, 4th and 5th paragraph to refer to the SZDSZ, but you're right, it could equally be referring to the MSZP at the time. I wonder if the SZDSZ' obvious ties to business was partially exploited by the MSZP to distract atttention from their own - 'oh it's those darned liberals again, demanding the privatisation of the health system' ...

by car05 on Sat Jan 14th, 2012 at 02:20:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 0)

the 3rd, 4th and 5th paragraph

The 3rd mentions Tamás Kolosi by name. He is the head of economy researcher, think-tank and later pollster Tárki, which started out in 1985, became a Fidesz supporter/subsidy receiver in 1998-2002, then switched sides, and was certainly pro-Gyurcsány. However, I don't recall direct ties to SzDSz (but I may have missed them). That paragraph also mentions a turning away of big capital from MSzP; in 2005, she was more specific and wrote that big capial turned to Fidesz. As to whom she may think of, I think these two:

Sándor Demján: the construction business magnate who had a key role in the spread of malls, and was actually switching back and forth between Fidesz and MSzP;
Gábor Széles, an industrialist who built his empire of former state companies by gaining good relations with both MDF (when he got electronics company Videoton) and MSzP (he gained bus maker Ikarus under Horn), and who, after switching to Fidesz, built up a media empire (ECHO TV, Magyar Hírlap), infamous in particular for employing Zsolt Bayer.

the SZDSZ' obvious ties to business

My view of SzDSz at the time was more as useful idiots for big capital than paid tools. If you look back to 1989, SzDSz still had a strong social-liberal wing (including Ottilia Solt who died in 1997 and Erzsébet Szalai herself), and civil rights were their main platform until Bokros. Around 2002, it was my feeling that the party leadership drew all the wrong conclusions from the far-right attacks (well that begun with the promotion of Gábor Kuncze back in the Horn era): they almost completely abandoned civil rights as signature theme and switched to a completely neoliberal economic platform,hoping to win the entrepreneur votes Fidesz gained. This was on full display in 2006 when they campaigned for a flat tax (something former SzDSz leaders forget to mention now that Fidesz ruined the budget with the same), and the party suicide was sealed when they saw their saviour in a spineless and uninspiring neolib and former yuppie businessman promoted under Gyurcsány, János Kóka, and made him party boss in 2007.

With all that said, I'm not saying that all of SzDSz was merely useful idiots back in the Medgyessy era: I'd count then economy minister István Csillag as the main placeman for big business. And he was indeed the key to Medgyessy's resignation (Medgyessy wanted to replace him but SzDSz threatened a break). I thought you may have read of that in an earlier article.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sat Jan 14th, 2012 at 06:30:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 0)

You could maybe argue that the SZDSZ were the epitome of the Third Republic, a promising start, but gradually corroding over time. As one kicked the bucket (or became that most Hungarian of organisations, a zombie party of the undead) the other couldn't survive. I normally ascribe the mentions of co-operatives in the previous constitution to the presence of the SZDSZ, as no doubt many of them had some idea of a mixed social economy at the time.

Kuncze was a kindof hero to a certain type of polgari ember. A friend of mine once remarked that all 3 main political parties in the UK could safely exist in the SZDSZ and Kuncze was very much in the mould of a UK Tory for me, with the same sense of self-confidence and overall self-satisfaction. The legacy for Hungarian politics is that more muscular forms of social liberalism only briefly registered with the electorate, if at all, as MSZP politicians have proven either incapable of communicating on a cultural level, or have played dog-whistle themselves (eg Szekeres comparing Trianon to the Holocaust).

I've read that corruption and the SZDSZ had a relationship that really got going in the mid-1990s, some rumours about the Ujpest local government, perhaps? Of course, Fidesz produced the big Wikipedia to document some of them, including the Strabag affair, etc. In any case, I've also heard hair-curling allegations against senior MSZP politicians going well beyond simple financial misdemeanours - whether or not it was an attempt to prove that shit sticks, I will never know, but I've never looked at these people the same way since.

All of this has made LMP's job a difficult one - I note that you think there's a chance that LMP would support a Bajnai candidacy - is that where they will end up, do you think? I'd be very surprised, but I don't know how the internal battles are playing themselves out. One thing in Hungarian politics - it seems that the smaller the party, the greater the internal divisions...

by car05 on Sat Jan 14th, 2012 at 11:51:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 0)

(A late reply)

very much in the mould of a UK Tory for me

I must admit I don't even know if the stereotype I think Kuncze embodied and was chosed to embody (jovial countryside bourgois with two feet on the ground, as such a counter-point to the liberal stereotype of the dour cosmopolitan intellectual speaking from an ivory tower) has any parallel in British political life (the FDP would have [had] elements like that in the German system which I know better). That sense of self-confidence and overall self-satisfaction... is a more widely shared (and transmitted) attitude over here :-(

some rumours about the Ujpest local government

I'm not sure what you mean, because there are several rumours about the local government of Újpest [for others: a quarter of Budapest], most of them centered on mayor Tamás Derce (and I note I could add one myself). However, Derce was an SzDSz member only until 1994, and gathered his infame in the following time. (There were other, true-blue SzDSz mayors who were implicated in corruption affairs, the mayors of districts VIII, XIV and XIX. However, they were juniors compared to MSzP moneybaggers like Boldvai, Schmuck, Zuschlag, Hagyó, or possibly Csintalan who switched to Fidesz.)

whether or not it was an attempt to prove that shit sticks, I will never know

At one point I gave up trying to figure out what is genuine corruption scandal used by Fidesz media and what is minor irregularity blown out of proportion or baseless smear created by Fidesz media (but there were certainly all of those). I did note, however, that they haven't been all that successful in proving allegations before court even after their takeover, for example against Gyurcsány (and they really tried: I saw an email to my higher bosses with my own eyes in which a ministry guy asked for any information on business ties with the companies of Gyurcsány).

I note that you think there's a chance that LMP would support a Bajnai candidacy

Who knows where LMP will go now, after this amateurish display of internal divisions and spiteful reactions in public. (Now resigned leader András Schiffer says there was no support for his idea of an independent party line, well I'd rather call what LMP tried in the first 18 months a sad excuse for triangulation rather than independent party line.) But, Schiffer's attacks against Gyurcsány were not ideological but mainly along the 'moral' line in connection with the "we lied" speech (naively enough to be a useful idiot for Fidesz in approving quite politicised and biased parliamentary reports, for example on the 2006-7 police violence) and for a specific instance of alleged corruption, same with the Socialists, and Bajnai is IIRC not even a member. That's not a strong enough basis for the future rejection of a PM Bajnai or a government with the policies represented by Bajnai for me.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Jan 23rd, 2012 at 11:15:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (4.00 / 3)

Yes, the dominance of Jobbik+Fidesz is the main problem, but in tackling this, the real question surrounds the situation of the opposition. Without someone else to vote for, I can't see a way to present any kind of alternative.

Unfortunately things appear not to be good within the LMP, which has always had some hopeful aspects, despite a rumoured informal proximity to Fidesz, and an oft-quoted SZDSZ inheritance. As there seems to factional infighting, verging on civil war, by the time of the next election, LMP might not really be offering much of an actual alternative.

Considering the condition of the MSZP - including their finances - it isn't clear to me if Fidesz will face any serious challenge at all from the current parties in 2014. In such circumstances, a centrist bourgeois organisation, possibly headed by Gordon Bajnai might be the main option. And this, in my view, isn't a good option at all, playing Prodi to Orban's Berlusconi. Bajnai's spelt his ideas out recently, and whilst of course they're preferable to Horthyism, there's a lot missing, and a lot which is simply neo-liberal.

It's not totally hopeless. Solidarity looks very promising, and the MSZP's monopoly on the left is truly broken...

by car05 on Fri Jan 13th, 2012 at 04:31:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic (none / 1)

Among the scenarios I drafted in a comment to my own diary, there was this one:

Maybe the liberal intelligentsia will manage to prop up Gyurcsány or another neoliberal as saviour at least atracting urbanite voters and re-establish the old Republic, repeating Poland's recent history but with greater upheavals.

..but I didn't imagine then that Bajnai will pop up. (For the uninitiated: Bajnai, a financial sector yuppie without 'communist' background whom Gyurcsány knew as business parter, was brought in to be the PM of a fake "expert" and de-facto Socialist minority government in the last year before Fidesz took over, one which conducted yet another austerity programme. He claimed upon taking office that this one year will be all the time he spends in politics; but this week, he released a critique of the Orbán government's one and half years that sounds like an announcement of leadership competition.) Now that he did pop up, I'm not surprised that all the main non-right-wing media are jumping on-board. Paradoxically, Bajnai is less discredited than his predecessor Gyurcsány, which gives me the bad feeling that propping him up as the Socialist-DK-LMP(-IMF-ECB) candidate will be less difficult... Milla and Szolidaritás should strive to outshine him.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 13th, 2012 at 04:45:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The Fall of the Third Hungarian Republic 1989-2011 | 91 comments (91 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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