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Political Transition in Hungary in 1989. Selected Documents

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COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN, ISSUE 12/13 73 The Political Transition in Hungary, 1989-90 By Csaba Békés and Melinda Kalmár arking the tenth anniversary of the political DOCUMENT No. 1 transition in Hungary, historians and political Minutes of the Meeting of the HSWP CC M scientists launched several large scale projects Political Committee, 31 January 1989 to locate, assess, and publish documents pertaining to the historical events of 1989-1990. In June 1999, three principal [On 23 June 1988, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Hungarian scholarly enterprises, the Institute for the Party Central Committee established a committee to History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Hungarian analyze Hungary’s political, economic and social Program of the Project on Openness in Eastern Europe and development during the preceding thirty years. The the Former Soviet Union, and the newly founded Cold War panel, headed by Imre Pozsgay,5 a politburo member and History Research Center in Budapest—together with the minister of state, included party officials and social National Security Archive and CWIHP—organized an scientists. After several months of examining pertinent international conference in Budapest on the transition from archival documents, the Historical Subcommittee (one of Communism. four working groups) completed and discussed its final The Hungarian partners in this multi-national effort report at its meeting on 27 January 1989. Most sensa- focused on three important sources: first, on the records of tionally, the report described what occurred in 1956 in the former ruling Communist Party, the Hungarian Socialist Hungary as not a “counterrevolution” (as Moscow and Workers’ Party (HSWP). Critical to the endeavor was the the regime it installed in Budapest headed by János preparation of transcripts of the tape recordings of key Kádár had long insisted) but a people’s uprising. This HSWP meetings, since written minutes of the Politburo very point was announced by Imre Pozsgay in an meetings were kept only up to 1982. Transcripts were interview on both the morning news program and the completed for all of 1989 (and some of 1988), and more than next day, on the most popular political journal of 5,000 pages of this extraordinarily significant historical Hungarian Radio, “168 hours,” without any prior material is being gradually declassified and opened for consultation with the political leadership. The issue research1. A second crucial task was the collection of the triggered a serious crisis in the Party and eventually minutes and memoranda of the meetings of Hungarian served as a very important catalyst in the transition leaders with CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev process. The following excerpt reflects the first reaction of and other Soviet officials, as well as the records of their the Politburo members.] conversations with other Soviet bloc and Western offi- cials.2 (EXCERPT) The third, similarly massive project involved the editing and publication of the minutes of the Opposition Imre Pozsgay: With regard to the specific issue, the Roundtable and the National Roundtable that accompanied subcommittee, headed by Iván T. Berend,6 had a debate the transition from one-party rule to democratic pluralism in Friday morning, on the basis of a 102-page report. 1989.3 The series, consisting of eight volumes, contains I had no chance to read the document before the the negotiations among the emerging opposition parties as debate because it has just been given to me. Nevertheless, they co-ordinated their policies toward the HSWP, as well let me point out only one aspect of the debate, namely that as all the minutes of the tripartite talks held between June six members of the Central Committee were present, and the and September 1989. The talks, in fact, acted as a national leaders of two Party institutions. There was no argument constituent assembly, working out the procedure and the about the incriminating assessment; on the contrary, the legal framework of the political transition, eventually conclusion was drawn that a minimal public consensus—I resulting in free multi-party elections in March 1990. merely interpret this, as I have no right to borrow others’ Thorough investigation of these new materials—as words—so, a minimal public consensus does not harm the well as those becoming available in Russia, the United identity of the Party, nor does it shatter the personal States and other East-Central European countries—will be identity of those who tied their lives, career and behavior necessary to understand and assess more fully the specifically to this struggle. Nonetheless, it can lead to transition process in Hungary. The selection of documents social reconciliation and national consensus on certain published below exemplifies the richness of the new bitter and still all too distressing issues, such as the whole materials and allows a glimpse at the complexity of the situation since 1948-49, and especially its peak—or nadir, events of 1989/90.4 as others believe—the crisis and tragedy of 1956. The committee unanimously agreed on this issue. And finally 74 COLD W AR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN, ISSUE 12/13 we also agreed that this document, even before it is political system is about to be uprooted. Party members discussed by the Central Committee, has to be publicized, feel that our political system is somehow based on 1956. so that scholarly opinion, supported by wide masses of the And now they have the impression that this foundation is Party, can be used to create a political direction. These being pulled out from under them. They think that this were the fundamentals and basic motives of the committee. slice of the past—1956—has to be assessed with subtle In a way it is an answer to the numerous questions, in fact differentiation. But now this assessment shows no sign of asked from many sides, as to why the Central Committee differentiation either. Figuratively speaking, they used to did not discuss the issue first. According to the earlier make a fine cabinet with an axe, and now they are trying to procedure, this would indeed have been the way of do the same. [sic] I don’t intend to be too poetic but I’m handling such questions. However, I am convinced that coming from the office where I got phone calls and letters this procedure is the very reason why the Party has been today, asking what we are going to call the monument on hoisted on its own petard, when it came to discussing Köztársaság Square? Who sacrificed their lives there? similar issues. Defenders of the people’s power? Resistance fighters of As regards further connections and problems that the the people’s uprising, or their opponents? It is all con- issue raises: Certainly, or rather undoubtedly, the ensuing fused. What shall we call the Mezo Imre Street? And so political effect—even if it has the minimal consensus I have on. Because perhaps it was a people’s uprising that started just referred to—is expected to become a bone of the whole thing but it led to something else. Given that, we contention within the Party, something that divides people need at least a subtle, differentiated assessment of the and induces political polemics, although it will not hurt whole period. The present one is not differentiated at all. even those who have won the Honor for the Socialist This is another extreme assessment that sets people far Fatherland for their sacrifices. The committee has been apart. If we start a debate on the issue, which is now, of aware of this fact from the very beginning, knowing that we course, unavoidable, I think it will only result in separating cannot get around this debate, that it has to happen, so in some of the party membership. It is a crude simplification a way the cup of sorrows must be drank. (...) but if we segregate party members into two groups on the Mihály Jassó:7 The vast majority is dumbfounded, basis of this, there would be “pro-uprising” and “pro- and not because they have heard the results of the counter-revolution” members. Obviously I refer to the scholarly research from the Historical Subcommittee, but underlying political content. Perhaps we cannot avoid the because they feel that a pillar of the institutionalized debate, but I am not sure that it has to be induced so A National Security Archive Reader Uprising in East Germany, 1953: The Cold War, the German Question, and the First Major Upheaval Behind the Iron Curtain Compiled and edited by Christian F. Ostermann (Central European University Press, 2001) “The 1953 uprising in East Germany is an insuffi- ciently appreciated turning point, marking as it did the first popular rebellion against Communist rule. It was, in this sense, the beginning of the end. This excellent collection of documents pulls together what’s been learned about this event since the Cold War did in fact end-three and a half decades later, in a manner foreshadowed by what had happened in 1953. It is an indispensable new source for the study of Cold War history.” -John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN, ISSUE 12/13 75 radically at once. (...) Nowhere, absolutely nowhere! And these are matters of Rezsö Nyers:8 The problem is greater, and we have to honor. Rather, he was a sectarian. If he was still among us widen its scope. Is 1956 really the foundation of the now unchanged, he would be more of a Stalinist. His role Hungarian communist movement? If 1956 is our in the 1956 events remains debatable, it cannot be clarified. foundation, I will not expect the movement to hold out very The Soviets were mucking around, which we swept under long, because it is a weak foundation indeed.
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