BUDAPEST SPRING

A vital question for not only the country but our generation as well in February 1988 was whether a new leadership would at long last declare itself and take over. The party conference of May 1988 was still to come at that time. It was in the ethical interest of the various members of our generation to help with the preparations and endeavour to bridge over the occasional wide gaps between the approaches of the future leadership's individual members. Rather than seductive personal persuasion, such mediation can and should be conducted along the lines of program that, beyond creating an election coalition among them (which seemed to be a pipe dream even in the February-March period) would also provide guarantees for a future governing coalition.

Since the very beginning of 1988 we had known that the old guard was no longer acceptable, having lost the people's trust and following. Meanwhile, the country was sliding towards an abyss and the press was reinforcing the sense of doom. The January 1988 issue of "Mozgó Világ" presented, consistently and thus probably deliberately aiming at deepening the sense of crisis, an image of a totally broken nation and land of Hungary, doomed to fail in all respects. The magazine said no more than that. Our question to the spirit of "Mozgó Világ" was: shall we now retreat or move forwards?

Who, then were the persons who could show the way out? The names below were far from being obvious in the beginning of 1988, with the helm of politics still firmly held by János Kádár, Károly Németh, Ferenc Havasi, György Aczél and others. It was difficult to complete the list and especially to replace it with the following one: Károly Grósz, Imre Pozsgay, János Berecz, György Fejti, Miklós Németh, Sándor Nagy, Mátyás Szűrös and later, when the process was near completion, Csaba Hámori whom, according to the rules of fair play, I had to inform in his capacity as First Secretary of the Communist Youth Union's Central Committee, the organization in control of our weekly.

The sequence of these names was not random. It seemed obvious that Károly Grósz might be the leading figure of this team and later of the Party as well.

But we would approach him not to avail if we did not bring him first of all the supportive statements of Imre Pozsgay and János Berecz who should declare that, along the lines of the rallying outlined by us, they would put aside their strong differences of opinion and the very diverse factors of their characters . And naturally, we could go to the Prime Minister of the time only if we had the similar agreements, promises and program-oriented

commitments of Miklós Németh, István Horváth, György Fejti, Sándor Nagy (and we hoped to bring in Mátyás Szűrös as well. In point of fact, Mátyás Szűrös had his doubts concerning these talks conducted mostly in secrecy and indeed, he stayed out of them. We informed him post facto, following the party conference held in May).

What was the line of thought for which we were seeking acceptance and for which we wished to gain the consent of Imre Pozsgay and János Berecz in particular? I would rather not recall here how we regarded the insufficiency of the old leadership. Let me add: it was far less simple than that, for there were those who thought János Kádár, György Aczél and Károly Németh would still play a leading role at the party conference. Later, at die end of March Károly Grósz supposed (and that was the only point over which we disagreed during the conversation in his Parliament office) that the party would still need János Kádár as No. 1 leader, mainly because his person meant a guarantee for both our socialist allies and Western partners now that Hungary's economy was in deep trouble. With imposing honesty, Károly Grósz also stated that he did not know any politician, himself or enybody else, capable of achieving the respect enjoyed by Kádár, and such a change would take years.

So what was the connecting link that we offered?

1.) The group of leaders indicated above would put aside their personal reservations towards each other and create an alliance. Not only in promises

but on the basis of political and economic programs, by stepping forward in public (and we insisted) rather than in behind-the-scenes secret conversations, they would guarantee the contents, durability and purety of their alliance. That public appearance had to take place in early May. And since we knew that Political Committee members and Central Committee secretaries must not attend any major public forum without prior announcement (and we also knew that our action had been reported by the appropriate persons to the appropriate persons), we suggested to hold a

"Magyar Ifjúság meeting" at the conference room of the rector of the economic university. (M. I. was our newspaper). The event would be attended by the above team of politicians and we would invite 60 to 70 "listeners"

representing in our opinion Hungary's intellectuals who would participate in the dialogue and, like a computer's memory, record what they hear and recall it later. Csaba Csáki, the enterprising rector of the university, was quite willing to house such a "meeting".

(Indicating now that in Appendix 1 we are publishing the list of intellectuals compiled by ourselves—and please note that we were far from meaning those Budapest-based representatives of intellectuals regularly invited for decades during party congresses by György Aczél to attend friendly chats with János Kádár—I was also to apologise to the bearers of those names. For, as it will turn out later, the meeting did not take place after all, so our list remained privated, reflecting our intentions rather than the assent of those concerned.) When Imre Pozsgay and János Berecz, later others, and finally even Károly Grósz had accepted this criterion (that is, our insistence that it was not only an election alliance we expected them to create but also a co-operation in controlling Party and government on the basis of a solid and clear division of work) we could assume we were representing the nation's interest.

To each of them we stressed that even our generation would remain broken and divided if they went on practising the same discord on the principle of

"divide and rule" as the previous leadership. The young generation thus needs a focal point which sustains their faith that if they undertake to participate at full steam in the work facing us for the next decade or two, they can contribute to overcoming the crisis and later to the country's advancement.

This is why we believed so fervently that, understanding this, the above group of leaders would rally.

2.) And if they did so, our second offer to them would stand, too. We were of the opinion that, apart from their narrow management teams, they should not bring their individual staffs of sometimes enticingly sweet-mannered people who previously had been good mainly at holding their bosses apart and supporting them in their battles against each other, displaying little expertise in how to forge the leaders into a joint force.

So we suggested that, with the help of ourselves and others of our generation, at lightning speed they should form a 600-800-1000-strong force of highly qualified members of the young and middle generation (that is, people in their 30s and 40s) who would not only carry out a generation change but also surpass their predecessors structurally (we gave special emphasis to that) as well as professionally. Harmonized by those very leaders, capable of co-operating at every point, they would provide a control basis behind the leaders. And the members of this control basis would know where their fellows were working on what. Moreover, they would all be able to form

circles of influence around themselves, multiplying the numbers and force of the second echelon s leadership team. The names we brought up included Imre Tarafás, Ferenc Vissi, Péter Balázs, Imre Boros, István Pálfy, Jenő Kovács, Imre Nagy, Ferenc Glatz, Sándor Szórádi, László Varga, and many

others. Rather than going on with that list, we apologise to them for using their names without their consent.

We also added that this structure must be so comprehensive and obvious, that, for instance, a provincial council chairman in Zala should know about the plans of the National Theatre's manager—I might have used any other symbolic example but we happened to mention that one then.

3.) Third, we said: if this able mass structure lines up behind the leaders' visible coalition and program, it must be shaped in such a conscious way, as to provide a readjustment of proportions by its composition in those fields where certain narrow interests had an almost exclusively powerful monopoly of influence. We had five such monopolised spheres in mind: the press; the foreign trade and international finances; such important workshops of

domestic economic control as the National Bureau of Planning, the National Bank of Hungary and the Ministry of Finance; the ideology workshops controlling the interpretation of social processes; and finally, the controlling bodies of art and culture.

We suggested a readjustment of proportions since we thought that, should the above spheres maintain their almost exclusive power and their very well organized, systematically and minutely "harmonized" groups in top positions remain interested in defending and protecting their own needs and

interests, then the leadership pivot mentioned in Point 1 would for a very long time remain unable to see things in depth and make decisions for the nation s benefit.

The above politicians received all these proposals with more or less sympathy and assent. Some of them, including Imre Pozsgay and János Berecz, actually entrusted us to start building bridges betweem them on that basis. Others were more cautious, saying such an experiment might bring little results in their opinion. Those showing such caution included, for instance, Sándor Nagy, György Fejti, Miklós Németh and, towards the end of April when he first heard about our almost completed scheme, even Csaba Hámori warned us to be careful.

It was obvious that, for some of them, the whole business was rather unpleasant in a way. The lack of enthusiasm in some cases was perhaps partly due to their aversion for each other, the rigour of party discipline in the leadership or the frustrating experience of the previous years.

Nevertheless, we were enthusiastic, for nobody said no to us. Even Károly Grósz dissented only in the problem concerning János Kádár's replacement and in that the first and most important of the five areas suggested by us was for him the shift of proportion in the external economy, rather than that of

the press.Finally, the last objective of our talks and mediation was to make everyone accept Károly Grósz's absolute role of leader and coordinator until the May party conference, including the condition that he could stop the organizing of such a team at any moment before the conference; the prospective leaders (Grósz, too) also undertook to start governing the country and party in a clearly formed division of work rather than such centralization around one man.

On March 31,1988 when Károly Grósz honoured me by allowing me to report to him about the results achieved until then, he gave me his consent.

Following that, we sent each of the future leaders that list of 60-70 names (and for us as well as for these leaders a co-operative's president and a factory manager are also intellectuals, and so are a small town schoolmaster and a physician) with the note that we would hold the "meeting" in May.

The most important negotiation, a coordination meeting between Károly Grósz and Imre Pozsgay took place in mid-April. Do not misunderstand me:

I am well aware that it would have taken place even without our help. This meeting may have been the most important guarantee for the will of the nation (Pozsgay) and of the party members' delegates (Grósz) to flood the party conference in May. (And so it happened. With the almost identically long bursts of applause following their speeches, Károly Grósz and Imre Pozsgay could rest assured in the knowledge that the country's most representative political force was behind them.) But let us return to two more thoughts.

First: some of my readers may have fleetingly thought by now that we organizers and myself personally were hunting for future gratitude in the shape of top political posts.

Please silence that thought: reality refutes it. In fact, as far back as in early February when our planning and organizing work had not yet started but we were already inhaling the disturbing influence of nihilism pouring from

"Mozgó Világ", Prime Minister Károly Grósz asked Central Committee Secretary János Berecz and Communist Youth Union First Secretary Csaba Hámory who supervised my work as editor-in-chief for my transfer to him, offering me the post of Deputy Minister of State. And both of my superiors made supportive statements to both the PM and me.

On March 31 when he received me in the Parliament Károly Grósz started our discussion with his natural heartiness, reminding me that he had requested my transfer as deputy of the future Minister of State... and before he could go on, I politely interrupted him, asking him not to continue, as this subject was not and should not be on the agenda now, as it would disturb what I

intended to say. And that was a grave public matter which should have nothing to do with my career, as misunderstandings might arise if it did.

We left it at that.

Second: I left after two hours of talking in the reassuring knowledge that there would be a pivot.