10.) ECHO III

October 9,1989. MTI/Reuter/AFP/AP:

Hungary's reformist leaders Monday were engaged in' a fierce batüe for maintaining the unity of their newly-founded Socialist party, Reuters reported. In.their evaluations of the previous day of the Congress, Western papers and news agencies found that the patched-up and fragile compromise that had facilitated the new party's founding was in danger as dissatisfied reformists, having wanted more, started quarrelling with the conservatives.

Hardly 24 hours after changing its name and denying its Communist identity, the new Hungarian party was already crumbling, reports the Monday issue of The Daily Telegraph which (together with a number of other Western papers and several news agencies) gives an account on the vote concerning the factory-floor party organs and bringing a crashing defeat to the front-line reformists.

According to several British papers, the quarrel was started by the reformists who assumed that the compromise was insufficient for drawing a clear line to force Conservatives outside the party. Fighting for their political future, the Conservatives followed the changing winds and joined the HSP in a move that actually shocked the reformists who were afraid that the new party would

be dominated by the faithful cadres of Communist times, the Financial Times suggests.

Western papers and news agencies quoted Deputy Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy who found the compromise disappointing and noted, "now everybody poses as a reformist" His interview prompted The Daily Telegraph to suppose that the cabinet would soon start negotiations with moderate opposition parties on forming a coalition "experts' government".

Nevertheless, the British daily notes that, in his Saturday address, Party President Rezső Nyers explicitly condemned that idea and called on the government not to let the party down.

\Having tried in vain to push through with sanctions aiming at expulsions, the reformists tried to trample on their adversaries by personal insults: their rebukes' main targets were Secretary-General Károly Grósz and former chief ideologist János Berecz, The Independent writes on Monday.

On the same day The Times considers the Congress vote sealing the new party's creation to be a shining victory of leading reformist Imre Pozsgay. At a discussion behind closed doors Pozsgay urged Rezső Nyers to firmly stand up for the accepted standpoint, to prevent a protest by hardliners, the paper reveals. It also notes that Pozsgay's candidacy was strengthened by his excellent management of the reformist wing's victory march and the quick collapse of his conservative opponents.

Several authoritative West German papers use Hungarian reformist politicians' photographs to illustrate their reports on the founding of the new Hungarian Socialist Party. The Munich daily Süd-deutsche Zeitung writes that the greatest sacrifice on the altar of reforms has so far been made by the Hungarian Communists: they sacrificed their party for at least a fighting chance at the forthcoming free elections.

Reformist politicians found this move to be their only chance to play any role in the future. The General-Anzeiger, a daily close to the Bonn cabinet is certain that there will be a non-Communist government formed in Hungary after the elections. Reuters' Monday report summarizes the essential elements of the HSP's Manifesto: 1. A multiparty system (in case of losing the elections, the ruling party will concede power). 2. Government is responsible to the elected Parliament (and not a political party), the institution of plebiscite is to be introduced as a means of direct democracy, local self-government. 3. The status of President of the Republic to be established in order to solidify the balance among branches of power. 5. Constitutionally guaranteed legal defence of ethnic and religious minorities. 6. A welfare state based on market economy: the government is to encourage private enterprise, using taxes to aid the poor and needy and to improve the level of education, health care and environmental protection.

The Japanese paper Jomiuri Simbun regards the founding of the Hungarian Socialist Party to be a contribution to the disintegration of the post-Jalta situation. It quotes Foreign Minister Roland Dumas of France as saying that the French Socialist Party is ready to support the HSP, should the latter apply for admittance to the Socialist International and "meet the demands of Socialism and freedom."

***

They should not have found themselves in such a fix. It was unworthy of the Hungarian reformist movement's three most dedicated leaders to listen in humiliation to Rezső Nyers's unexpected comment on late Sunday afternoon.

And despite Imre Pozsgay's explosive march out of the hall, despite my opinion that they were right, they were badly beaten—and deservedly.

Their followers, however, did not deserve the senseless and decisive compromises that these three leaders, in a somewhat defenseless position, had to make against the superior force lined up in mood behind Rezső Nyers and blown up into a phantom power by those half dozen "people's democratic"

leaders.

Let us see then Rezső Nyers's comment of presidential authority. (24 hours after the victorious clasp of hands by Pozsgay and Nyers on the stage, and the joy expressed by that handshake, I wonder if they could have done so now. And how strong is a compromise if its participants make a 180 turn before the small hand of the clock goes round once? "Our life is sign language," as put by János Bródy, an early Hungarian rocker.

As I was unable to get the text of the otherwise public speech (delivered before live TV cameras) from differenct CC officials in charge, though I still do not know why, I must apologise now for having to resort to the short summary published in the "Népszabadság":

"In the late evening round of the Statutes debate, the issue of liberty or banning of organizations in factories and offices created a heavier storm than anything so far. Following a lengthy conflict concerning the agenda, the disturbance was quelled by Rezső Nyers's comment I do not want to live in a democratic system that accepts more reactionary laws than those of the Horthy era, he recalled his organized Socialist past. We will accept the law passed in Parliament but nevertheless ask the MPs belonging to our party not to make the party's shopfloor operation impossible. At the same time, he added, we will strive to organize ourselves in residence districts. The vote produced an overwhelming majority for this standpoint. There were 107 votes

against it, including those of Miklós Németh, Imre Pozsgay and Gyula Horn (and mine). 34 delegates abstained.

In the hours of late evening the debate was still continuing on matters of wording and even almost punctuation. True, some seemingly negligible changes might mean a basic modification of the contents of the Hungarian Socialist Party's constitution, the Statutes.

Late on Sunday evening, after a several hours' voting procedure, the Congress suspended the debate on the new party's statutes. The two last proposals aimed at discussing vital issues. One of them wanted the Congress to debate the Workers Guard. The other suggested that the debate on the liberty of shopfloor Party organizing should not be considered as closed yet.

According to the delegate bringing it up, the NO voters should be given the chance to explain their wiews. A decision on whether to restart debating the issue was put off by the Congress until next morning.

And since many of the events took place outside the congress hall, while the delegates inside were far late in comparison with their own work schedule, on Sunday evening it was still impossible to tell how long the Congress would last and what the consequences of Saturday s historical resolution will be after all."

There is uncertainty, desperation, a lack of perspectives. All that cannot have been caused by the economic crisis, the falling living standards hitting a quarter of the population, or the huge holes yawning in the social protective net. The tensions are being oreated, generated, hinted at subjectively as well, and the visible crumbling on the top creates a lack of integrity down here.

Naturally, individuals are also responsible for their inner uncertainty. We have not learnt to draw up an inner balance, especially not in hard times when we have no words to answer the challenges of unexpected force and multitude.

The country's ruling party was to blame for that, too—and I believe that, though it will be certainly unable to keep its dominant position, its leftist and humanist character will be strong enough to keep on a considerable part of its members and attract others—for otherwise, if it must withdraw to the outskirts of politics (and the signs pointing that way are increasing, as it was expected), then its leading figures of the last year and a half: János Kádár, Károly Grósz, Rezső Nyers and many others made a hardly pardonable error.

Each of them had the key of our history, their history, History, in his hand.

They locked it up like Bartók s Bluebeard did. In one of the Congress This is why I call your attention to the tolerant Tolstoy. Relying on Zsigmond This is why I call your attention to the tolerant Tolstoy. Relaying on Zsigmond Móricz's enlightening discovery regarding Tolstoy, György Száraz writes in

Rezső Nyers had a Pyrrhic victory on Sunday—and the others suffered an even worse loss of face. Ten days later in the Parliament where two thirds of the members were HSWP card-holders when they were elected in 1985, well, now an unpleasandy small number of these same legislators voted in favour of allowing parties to organize themselves on the shopfloor, when the parties' Act was debated. That is, they rejected the enthusiastic resolution of their own party's congress. And likewise, only a fragment group of those members of Parliament has joined the new Parliament faction of the new HSP. All that is most unprecedented in the lands of existing Socialism. We know who has lost

But then, who has won?

The closed session—a trap?

I do not have the right to pass judgement on the phase of the Congress that almost exploded into a scandal: the closed session. I do not, for, according to the traditions of our old Party ethics, if something is closed, then that's why it is closed.

I have not the moral right either: in about the 40th minute of the closed session I returned my mandate and ended my activities pursued for exacüy a month in my capacity as a delegate to the Congress.

But I do have the right to quote my own short comment in this passage.

It was a per se anachronism that I—or anyone else—was allowed to make comments. The essence of the closed list is, you see, that it is untouchable.

It is submitted on behalf of the President, and one can do one of two things to it. Drop one or the other or the third list in the polling box. Provided there are two or three lists.

Provided there is no trap.

But at this Congress it turned out that there is not only a situation but a trap as well. And the good delegates walked straight into it all right. And when they were already in, it was no use reminding them of what I had collected their signatures on Saturday for, that I had said, "it would be too late and too painful when they realized they were cornered" in case of a closed-list system. I suspect I was the most deeply hurt by my forecast coming true.

They were cornered. They, the mass that was willing even to fight for democracy!

It could all be seen well in advance, weeks in advance. But in the days of the Congress it knocked your eyes out.

But I can quote myself, at least myself, from the closed session. The case is

a textbook one. If there is only one list, and one list is just like the Indian shudras: untouchable, then there is absolutely nothing to talk about: the list must be dropped into the box or thrown away. Or you can do as some sophisticated delegates, forced to become ironic and cynical: they did neither drop in, nor throw away the list but took it home as a souvenir—and a gilt-edged proof for posterity to see that they sabotaged the vote. Even if late, even if painfully, they still proved in a credible way that they had found out the trap and avoided it in their way: or at least tried to climb out morally.

So, terribly bored with the number of my appearances and the tension I was creating, I demanded the floor after Rezső Nyers had asked the Congress, as he put it, for the first and last time, to raise the number of Presidium members to 25, even though the day before we had passed the Statutes that limited that number with a permanent authority to between 17-21. The Statutes are the party's constitution. Within a week the Parliament would modify the constitution of the country anyway, why shouldn't we do likewise to ours in 24 hours? A flexible method. Or, rather, despotic. But by this time this Congress accepted anything. They just wanted to go home.

I did not want that to happen. I had suffered catcalls in peace but now, after András Bárd's impatient, high-pitched sentences rebuking the uncomprehending delegates in the name of unity and efficiency, I at least had to ask: let us not accept the President's proposal and let us at least vote about i t I do not know if a vote was called after all.

I do not think it was. In the above-mentioned 40th minute, when the straight, frank young miner László Ádám whom I have long considered a friend, was choking with emotion while asking the delegates appointing him on behalf of the youth platform for a post in the Presidium to please reconsider h i s , nomination and accept that of the youth association's President, Imre Nagy;

and as I heard the last words of Imre Nagy saying he would gladly resign his candidacy in favour of László Ádám: when, in that 40th minute I witnessed this as yet another futile attempt to tear apart a mercilessly single one and only üst—well, when my ears were hit by the outward expression of the obvious inner drama raging in the two young men who were very close to me, and the reverberations reached far deeper in me, around my heart, I made up my mind. And though my fellow delegates from Zala county suspected and perhaps even saw what I decided to do, by that time I was fully dominated by what I had resolved in myself long before, during the summer, in the weeks of my physical and mental collapse and in the months of systematic self-development; what I had suggested to others for several months had become my very self: in these decisive months, days, hours and minutes, and the forever most decisive Current Second, in that very Time and very Space, one must remain sovereign, self-reliant, independent

In order to remain calm even if one was mistaken. In order not to be able to blame others. Thus, I wrote down my reasons for resigning my mandate and left the Congress hall that I had entered with so much hope, after 19 years of Party membership. And that was the four days. I may be the only one to have been shaken by those four days: it is all right then. I will get over them easier than the counrty would. But until the latter gets over it, I hardly can. All the same, I had to write my letter, (see App.6.)

***

IV.

CONCLUSION "A"

1.) Tolstoy's tolerance

In the dawn of October 10 the buses left for home, towards the countries.

Many of the passengers had a strange feeling: they had arrived from their border casdes full of vigour five days before, and now they were not sure whether their casdes were still standing, waiting for the border patrol to return from inland. And will they find faithful soldiers? Or at least mercenaries?Since the beginning of the Congress, and even more in the last phase of the four days that shook the Party, I felt that, of the coundess mistakes made there, one of the worst concerned the handling of non-Budapest delegates. 90 per cent of the delegates were more or less left out of the most dramatic, closing phase of the nomination—they would take home nothing but a few stale sandwiches to their electors and people—the countryside failed again, as so often before, to break through the forty years of Budapest's political and economic monopoly, even though for the first and probably last time it had the necessary desperation and strength to do so within the Party—and now, lacking an overwhelming conviction, how can they supply their environment, their Party member friends and allies with those impulses, that invisible strategic mental weapon of intercontinental range that the country expected the Congress, This Very Congress, to radiate?

The country still did. It did—yet

I have already spoken about how worrisome I consider the creation of a vacuum.

A vacuum is never too permanent. New players will come out in the deserted field and a new crowd of spectators will root on the stands. In this mood, threatening even to turn dramatic, will my fellow members, friends and unknown comrades find their own integrity? And will they be able to radiate it over their environment? If they are not, that will mean Hungary is as badly shaken as the Party. Our world has gone into a spin, and our thoughts are spinning, too. Now one, now another factor of the human characater surfaces:

less and less of us can maintain the undisturbed unity of our character.

There is uncertainty, desperation, a lack of perspectives. All that cannot have been caused by the economic crisis, the falling living standards hitting a quarter of the population, or the huge holes yawning in the social protective net. The tensions are being oreated, generated, hinted at subjectively as well, and the visible crumbling on the top creates a lack of integrity down here.

Naturally, individuals are also responsible for their inner uncertainty. W e have not learnt to draw up an inner balance, especially not in hard times when we have no words to answer the challengs of unexpected force and multitude.

The country's ruling party was to blame for that, too—and I believe that, though it will be certainly unable to keep its dominant position, its leftist and humanist character will be strong enough to keep on a considerable part of its members and attract others—for otherwise, if it must withdraw to the outskirts of politics (and the signs pointing that way are increasing, as it was

The country's ruling party was to blame for that, too—and I believe that, though it will be certainly unable to keep its dominant position, its leftist and humanist character will be strong enough to keep on a considerable part of its members and attract others—for otherwise, if it must withdraw to the outskirts of politics (and the signs pointing that way are increasing, as it was