Zsuzsanna Clark- Under communism Hungary was a good place in which to live

Goulash and Solidarity

When people ask me what it was like to grow up in Hungary in the‑1970s and 80s most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread cues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one party state. They are dissapointed when I tell them that communist Hungary was infact a good place to live.

Victor Orban the recently defeated ‑. Right wing Hungarian prime minister, described my generation as - those whose fate was sealed by the “failure” of the 1956 uprising ‑ as "the lost generation”. But those such as myself, who grew up in the years of ”goulash communism”, were the lucky ones. The shock waves of 1956 bought home to the leadership, what could only consolidate their position by making our lives, more tolerable, Stalinism was out, "Kadarism" ‑ a unique brand of liberal communism (named after its architect, Jánós Kádár) from which, Mikhail Gorbachev, would draw inspiration for perestroika – was in.

What I remember most was the sense of community, and solidarity. With minimal differences in income and material goods, people were judged for themselves and not by what they owned. I was also privileged to be brought up, in a society, where the government valued education and culture. Before the 2nd World War, secondary education was there to preserve of the wealthy. My parents had to leave school at the age of 11; under the Kádár regime they were given the chance to resume their studies.

A corollary of the government’s education policy was its commitments to the arts. Theatres, opera houses and concert halls were heavily subsidised so that everyone, could afford tickets. "'Cultural houses" in every town and village, allowed working class people,

in the provinces, such as my parents to have easy access to the arts.

Now, 13 years after the “regime change”, museums, theatres and galleries have had to sink or swim in the new economic “realism”. As tickets subsidies have been withdrawn it is once again it is only the rich (and the tourists) who can afford to go to the opera. Art cinemas have closed, while the big Hollywood multiplexes move in.

Television have dumped down too. When I was a teenager Saturday night meant a Jules Verne adventure, a poetry recital and a Chekhov drama; now it means game shows and US action movies.

Reform politicians refer to the so called Kadar’s “velvet prison”, yet they have surely created a prison of their own,

where large sections of the population have been, sold to the foreign‑owned multinationals, which control 70% of the nation's production and threaten to, pull out of the country if wages or workers’ rights are improved. My best friend's husband works for, such a company, and tells how visits to the toilet are, timed and taking a full lunch break is seen as showing lack of commitment to the firm. It is all far cry from the state-owned companies 20 years ago from their nurseries, subsidised canteens, holiday homes and free sport facilities.

Communism in Hungary did have a downside. While trips to other countries were unrestricted, travel to the West was problematic and only allowed every second year. There were petty restrictions and layers of bureaucracy and, of course, we were living in a one‑part system where freedom to criticise the government was limited. Yet despite all this, I believe that the positives have outweighed the negatives.

Today Hungarians are free to travel to the West whenever they like, yet the fall in real wages, means that few of them can now afford even to go to Lake Balaton. The “patriotic politicians who shouted so loudly about Hungary’s “occupation” by a foreign power under communism, are now silent when the country is effectively controlled by New York financial institutions and unselected bureaucrats in Brussels.

As a young adult in Hungary, I grew accustomed to news stories about the "imperialist" West and its plans for global domination and control of the World's resources. We knew that this was the party line, so its effectiveness as propaganda was limited. Now more than 10 years on, with the US (and Germany) having connived in the break of the Yugoslavia, having colonised Afghanistan and now with plans to invade Iraq to control the world's oil supply, it is obvious that is what we were told about Western intentions was true.

I have seen both communist and western news management and, know which is the more devious. I witnessed the way media manipulation works in the "free world", when we were told at the Stop The War march that I went on in London recently, which was attended by only 150,000 people and how the dismissive coverage of the UK's biggest peace demonstration was given in most newspapers.

Education, or rather the denial of it, is the key to all attempts at social control. Gorbachev said that, education, in his view the greatest achievement of 70 years of communism also paradoxically helped bring about its downfall. Put simply the communist regimes educated their people to such an extent that they developed the critical faculty to challenge, and eventually overthrow the system. After three years of living in Britain, I see no danger of that happening there.

Extract from- Guardian Weekly.

November 7^th, 2002