Hungary

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3

Revolution of 1956

Popular discontent was mounting, however, and opponents of the government drew encouragement from the Polish defiance of the Soviet Union, which manifested itself in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Students demonstrated against compulsory courses in the Russian language and in Marxism-Leninism and, together with the Writers’ Union, expressed their sympathy with the anti-Soviet movement in Poland. Workers joined these groups in demanding the reinstatement of Nagy as Premier. On October 23, Prime Minister Hegedüs, unable to control the demonstrations, called for help from troops of the Soviet occupying force. The Workers’ Party stepped in and replaced Hegedüs with Nagy, and Gerö with János Kádár, who had previously been jailed as a nationalist. Nagy sided with the demonstrators, announcing that the one-party system would be discontinued and free elections held. He promised economic reforms, freed Cardinal Mindszenty, demanded the withdrawal of Soviet forces, and, denouncing the Warsaw Pact and mistakenly confident of Western support, proclaimed Hungary a neutral state. The USSR promised concessions, but demonstrations continued. In early November Soviet troops and tanks brutally suppressed the insurgents, who were sending urgent signals for help to the West. Hundreds of Hungarians were executed, thousands more were imprisoned, and nearly 200,000 fled the country into Austria.

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4

The Kádár Regime

A new Communist dictatorship was set up, with Kádár as Premier and head of the renamed Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP). Moscow promptly promised US$250 million in aid and full support. Punishment of insurgents continued through 1957 and 1958, and thousands were deported to the USSR. Nagy and many of his associates were executed. Cardinal Mindszenty took refuge in the US legation in Budapest, where he remained until he was permitted to leave the country in 1971. Nagy’s promise of free elections was repudiated.

Kádár remained firmly in control for more than three decades, his power base being the general secretaryship of the party, although he held the premier’s office intermittently. The strict controls imposed after the 1956 uprising were relaxed somewhat beginning in 1967. In the general elections held in March that year opposing candidates were permitted to run in certain parliamentary and local contests, although they had to be approved by the regime. The government remained committed to Moscow, joining in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In 1968 the New Economic Mechanism (NEM) was introduced. An important new departure, the NEM called for much less central control of the economy and greater freedom for individual plant managers. Profitability, rather than the attainment of quotas, was made the chief criterion for judging the performance of a factory. After five years the NEM appeared to be a success, although a slight slowdown had occurred in the industrial growth rate.

In the early 1970s Hungary increased its trade and cultural contacts with non-Communist countries. In 1972 Hungary signed a consular convention with the United States, and in 1973 it began negotiations with West Germany that aimed at establishing normal diplomatic relations. Relations with the Roman Catholic Church also improved; in 1974 the Vatican officially removed Cardinal Mindszenty as Archbishop of Esztergom.

Relations with the West continued to improve and trade to increase throughout the 1970s. The economy was allowed to operate partly according to free market forces to the evident gain of the general populace. By the early 1980s, however, inflation was rising, prompting Kádár to express public concern and to effect some changes in the political leadership. The regime remained careful not to antagonize the USSR, however, and fully supported the Soviet hard line against liberalization in Poland in 1981 and 1982. An economic downturn in the mid-1980s led to the imposition of an austerity programme, a mass demonstration for freedom of speech, and civil reforms, and, in May 1988, to the replacement of Kádár as general secretary. The new general secretary, Károly Grósz, had been prime minister since June 1987; in that post he had initiated a tough economic programme that included levying new taxes, cutting subsidies, and encouraging the small private sector. As further signs of liberalization, the government relaxed censorship laws, allowed the formation of independent political groups, and legalized the right to strike and to demonstrate. In 1989 the leadership provided a hero’s burial for Imre Nagy, eased restrictions on emigration, revised the constitution to provide for a democratic multi-party system, and changed the country’s name from the People’s Republic of Hungary to the Republic of Hungary. In March and April 1990 a coalition of centre-right parties won a parliamentary majority in the nation’s first free legislative elections in 45 years. After a referendum providing for direct presidential elections failed because of a low turnout, the National Assembly chose a writer, Árpád Göncz, as head of state.

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Post-Communist Hungary

In 1990 Hungary became the first central European nation in the Eastern bloc to join the Council of Europe, and in 1991 and 1992 the government signed declarations of cooperation with Poland, the Czech and Slovak republics, Russia, and Ukraine. Relations with Romania and Slovakia were strained because of the treatment of Hungarian minorities in those countries, including some 1.7 million in Romania. By mid-1992, about 100,000 refugees from the former Yugoslavia had fled to Hungary, and the government appealed for assistance from Western European nations. In April 1994 Hungary applied for membership of the EU. In parliamentary elections in May, the Hungarian Socialist Party (formerly the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party) regained a majority of 72 per cent of parliamentary seats, and named its leader, Gyula Horn, as its choice for prime minister when the new parliament convened in July. It introduced stringent budget cuts in an attempt to reduce its foreign debt of US$28 billion. A further austerity package was introduced in March 1995, and a law aimed at revitalizing the stalled privatization programme was introduced in May.

In April, Eastern Europe’s first Roma minority governing body came into being in Hungary. The 53-seat National Autonomous Authority of the Romany Minority was given responsibility for the administration of funds disbursed by the central government. A Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation with Slovakia was ratified in June. A bill was passed in November to abolish exchange control regulations, which had been in place for over 60 years, and thus make the forint fully convertible. In the largest privatization programme seen thus far in a former Communist state, foreign consortia took majority holdings in the telecommunications and gas distribution companies, and minority holdings in the electricity, and the oil- and gas-producing industries, in December. Austerity measures continued to be an area of controversy, resulting in the resignation of finance minister Lajos Bokros in February, over attempts to cut the social security deficit. In July 1996 Hungary became the first country in Eastern Europe to acknowledge its role in the Holocaust, when the establishment of a fund to administer confiscated property and compensate survivors was announced. A scandal involving illegal payments resulted in the resignation of the minister for privatization, trade and industry, Tamas Suchman, and the entire board of the Hungarian State Privatization and Holding Company (APV), in October.

In March 1997 proceedings were initiated at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in order to resolve the dispute between Hungary and Slovakia concerning the Gabcickovo-Nagmaros hydroelectric project and diversion of the Danube. In September the International Court of Justice ruled that both sides had been in breach of international law during the project to construct dams and hydroelectric installations on the Danube, and both countries were required to negotiate compensation payments. More than 85 per cent of votes cast in a national referendum on the question of the proposed accession of Hungary to NATO were in favour of the proposition. The two leading opposition parties, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Federation of Young Democrats-Hungarian Civic Party (Fidesz), announced an electoral pact in December, when they pledged to offer joint regional candidates in the 1998 legislative elections. In March 1998 Hungary was one of the ten applicant nations to the EU to benefit from the £1.8 billion-per-annum pool of grants made available to help them prepare for entry early next century. Following the second round of voting in the general election Fidesz-MPP took 147 of the 386 seats in the National Assembly. An agreement was signed in June, to form a coalition of three parties, Fidesz-MPP, MDF, and the Independent Smallholders' and Peasants' Party (FKGP), which between them commanded 213 seats in the National Assembly. Viktor Orbán, the chairman of Fidesz-MPP, was sworn in on July 6, and two days later the new 17-member Cabinet took office. In March 1999, Hungary joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the biggest expansion of the organization's 50-year history. Hungary's participation in NATO was almost immediate: within a month of joining NATO its airspace was being used by alliance planes taking part in air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In the worst environmental disaster since the Chernobyl nuclear leak in 1986, on January 30, 2000, more than 100,000 cubic metres of water contaminated with cyanide burst through a dam at a mining works in northern Romania. The water travelled 1,000 km (620 mi) through Yugoslavia and Hungary where it entered the rivers Danube and Tisza, polluting drinking water in all three countries. A flow of toxic cyanide that measured 40 km (25 mi) in length wiped out the Tisza's entire ecosystem in a matter of days—everything from microbes to otters.

Political, social, and economic strategies in 2000 and 2001 were designed to facilitate Hungary’s prospective membership of the EU. Nevertheless, the country had to struggle with catastrophic floods in both years and with other pressing environmental challenges. Hungary made considerable progress toward recognizing and promoting the rights of disabled people and received, in May 2000, an award of the World Committee on Disability and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. The ongoing goal of endorsing and encouraging reconciliation and cooperation within Hungarian society was reaffirmed by the new president, Ferenc Mádl, who was elected to the post in June 2000 to succeed Árpád Göncz and took office in August. Mádl also pledged to continue to build good relations with neighbouring countries and to support Hungary’s participation in international organizations.

In 2001 a controversial law, granting Hungarians living in Romania and Slovakia special privileges, including the right to temporary legal employment, threatened to block the country’s membership in the EU. Passed in June, the legislation was severely criticized by the EU in November. After the dispute with Romania had been settled and while negotiations with Slovakia continued, the government started implementing the law in early 2002.

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Medgyessy’s Term of Office

A closely contested parliamentary election in April 2002 resulted in a victory for the MSP. The Fidesz-MDF coalition came second . A new government led by Péter Medgyessy, was appointed in May. Shortly afterwards it was revealed that the new prime minister had been a counter-espionage agent in the finance ministry in the 1970s. This revelation was followed by one from the president of Fidesz, Zoltan Pokomi, who announced that his father had been a police informer under the communist regime; Pokomi subsequently resigned his post. Combined, these disclosures led the government to investigate links between Hungary’s communist past and its political leaders of today.

In December 2002 Hungary was formally invited to join the European Union. In a referendum in April 2003, 84 per cent of voters backed EU membership; however, the turnout was very low at 46 per cent. In June 2003 the parliament amended the controversial Status Law, which since 2001 had granted ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring states temporary rights to work, study, and claim health benefits in Hungary. The dispute was further resolved by the signing of treaties with Romania and Slovakia. In May 2004 Hungary became a member of the EU.

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The Gyurcsány Era

Ferenc Gyurcsány became the new prime minister after the resignation of the government of Medgyessy. The Hungarian parliament ratified the new EU constitution in December 2004. In August 2005 the country’s new president, László Sólyom, was sworn in. Gyurcsány’s socialists led the governing coalition back to power in the April 2006 legislative elections, the first time in Hungary’s post-communist history that a government had been re-elected.