BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS
In my paper, I wish to briefly describe a specific aspect of Portuguese-Hungarian relations, namely the impacts that the political reforms carried out in Portugal in the 1930s had on Hungary during the Horthy era. Relations between these two countries do not have a long-standing history due to their different cultural orientation, significant geographical distance and differences in the historical challenges they encountered. However, in the course of their histories, there were periods when the inhabitants of these two countries started to show increased interest in each other – this mainly applies to Hungarians, who showed interest in the Portuguese. However, this attention was not permanent, but one with specific fluctuations; during the 19th and 20th centuries there were periods when this interest grew, and then waned after a certain time. Of these periods, the timespan between the two World Wars stands out as one when Hungarians started to show increased interest in developments taking place in Portugal.
This interest in Portugal is inseparable from the changes in political, economic and social ideologies in Europe following World War I. During this period there was mounting criticism of the major, dominant ideologies of the 19th century such as liberalism, individualism and the democratic and parliamentary political regimes, as attention was called to their disadvantages,1 the increasing
1 Bertényi 2000, p. 237.
economic disparities and the anarchic character of parliamentary governance.2 In this situation, several attempts were made to tackle the problems, and there were also attempts to avoid the imminent social explosion by redefining the role of the state and the relationship between employers and employees.3 According to some, the earlier liberal ideas were essentially correct and did not need to be fully discarded; it would suffice to make efforts to renew them.4 Others, such as those believing in communism and socialism, made efforts to build a society based on full-fledged egalitarianism,5 whereas, in response to this, the right-wing experimented with placing the primary emphasis on the community and authoritarianism in the form of fascism or Nazism.6 The resurgent corporatist teaching of the Catholic Church described in the papal encyclical entitled Quadragesimo anno of Pope Pius XI published in 1931 appeared against this background as a half-way house solution, recognising the problems and trying to reconcile various solutions.7 It aimed to promote reconciliation between different classes, accepting the mutual dependence of the owners of capital and workers, to establish the harmony between property and work by reorganising social order in a way that prevents class struggle and is based on orders.8
Although this idea was never translated from theory into practice,9 there were still some states which referred back to it when transforming their political and social landscape. Portugal was one of them. The smaller country on the Iberian Peninsula abolished the monarchy in 1910, and then the republic was proclaimed. However, for the two and a half decades of its history the First Portuguese Republic was confronted with permanent crises: it did not manage to stabilise its finances and put its economy on a sustainable trajectory,10 and the exaggerated powers of the legislative body and the ensuing obstruction
2 Zachar 2014, pp. 21–30, 120.
3 Strausz 2010, p. 89.
4 Lackó 1975, p. 318.
5 Szalai 2002, p. 54.
6 Ibid.
7 Gergely 1977, p. 149.
8 Strausz 2011a, pp. 108–109.
9 Ormos 2009, p. 201.
10 Szilágyi 2015, p. 23.
practised by parties rendered the Parliament inefficient.11 While several attempts were made to transform and renew the regime, these only brought limited results. Finally, the republican period was put an end to by a military coup: the right-wing opposition decided to topple the governing regime in 1926 and save the nation. The military coup started in the city of Braga, and only limited fighting was needed to take over the whole country, even though Lisbon did not join in.12
With the situation stabilising, a military officer named António Óscar Fragoso Carmona managed to seize power. However, it was not long before he had to realise that – apart from plans of saving the country – the military did not have a coherent programme to manage the daunting challenges facing ailing Portugal and to remedy the increasingly severe economic problems, and thus it was necessary to involve civilians with proper expertise in legal, financial and public administration matters in the government in order to normalise the situation. He thought that, although the representatives of the conservative bourgeois circles would be invited to participate in government, the military would be able to keep the governance of the country under control by retaining the presidential function, among other things.13 In order to implement his ideas, he involved the members of the Catholic Centre Party (in Portuguese: Partido do Centro Católico, PCC), predominantly university professors from the University of Coimbra, in governing the country. This is how one of the outstanding figures of the party, already an acknowledged financial expert at that time and a university professor,14 António de Oliveira Salazar became the country’s finance minister.15 Salazar, however, set various conditions for accepting the position,16 through which he managed to establish a sort of “financial dictatorship” around himself. His measures, however, did not remain unsuccessful, and through the stringent control and reforms of
11 Szilágyi 2008, p. 10, and Afonso 1972, p. 164.
12 Georgel 1985, p. 78.
13 Szilágyi 2008, p. 31.
14 Carvalho 2008, p. 101.
15 Kay 1970, p. 41.
16 Henriques & Sampaio e Mello 2007, pp. 111–112.
central government expenditure, he soon managed to establish budgetary equilibrium. As this period was deemed a sort of miracle in Portugal at that time,17 this success further enhanced the recognition of Salazar, and his influence as a politician became increasingly dominant outside his ministry as well. Thus, in 1932 he managed to have Carmona appoint him as Portugal’s prime minister. Following this, a broad space opened up for the ambitious politician to implement social and political reforms. Though contemporary right-wing regimes, predominantly fascism, are likely to have had an impact on these,18 Salazar, when defining the grounding principles of his regime, placed emphasis on the previously mentioned papal teachings,19 and he was always careful not to identify with Nazism and fascism;20 as for the strong state, he was of the opinion that it cannot subordinate everything to the ideal of the nation or the race,21 and must operate within the boundaries of Christian morals and law under all circumstances.22
However, in addition to emphasising the principles of the Christian faith, with the constitution adopted in 1933 – i.e. one year after being appointed prime minister – Salazar established a regime which in nature was a right-wing, authoritarian, nationalist regime,23 but it was by no means similar to the totalitarian regimes which he rejected. Soon, his success attracted attention domestically as well as abroad. This is very well justified by the reports sent home to Budapest by the Hungarian embassy in Madrid, in which Salazar’s activities were described in a tone similar to the following report dated from 1932:
“During my career in foreign policy over the past twenty-five years, I have hardly met a person more valuable and more interesting than him.
A university professor and a man of science. He has worked miracles as finance minister /since 1928/ […] A modest, introvert, absolutely
17 Afonso 1972, p. 168.
18 Torgal 2009a, p. 206.
19 Kay 1970, p. 63.
20 Szilágyi 2009a, p. 80.
21 Braga da Cruz 1988, p. 49.
22 Duarte Silva 1989, p. 62.
23 Szilágyi 2009b, pp. 27–28, 34.
honest, deeply religious person, the leader of the clerical party. In his role as finance minister, he transformed a deficit of hundreds of millions into a major budgetary surplus like a magician, and all this took place amidst the economic and financial crisis.”24
Unsurprisingly, not long after this, not only diplomats, but the Hungarian public also started to pay attention to the changes taking place in Portugal. In Hungary during the first decade following World War I, it was István Bethlen who made an attempt to restore the old regime and conventional political ideology while introducing moderate reforms, but during the Great Depression, after the failure of his policies, the prevailing atmosphere of disappointment in parliamentarism, liberalism and capitalism became more and more tangible.25 Owing to their unpleasant memories of the left-wing experiences after the end of World War I, members of the Hungarian political elite were more open to reforming the regime from the right,26 and due to this, Gyula Gömbös had already made attempts at the corporative transformation of the country’s political regime.27 However, the leadership of the Hungarian Catholic Church did not seem to be particularly open to the social teachings enshrined in the encyclical letters of Pope Pius XI.28 Instead of renewal, a group emerged in opposition to the pro-government Catholic party, and in opposition to the Church leadership, and this group thought that the official Catholic politics of past years had failed and that something new was needed. The members of this group were largely influenced by the papal teachings: in line with these, Actio Catholica and other organisations promoting corporatism were established at the beginning of the 1930s.29 In the meantime, György Széchényi and the group of young Catholics centred around him welcomed the above ideas both politically and ideologically:30 they founded their own paper in 1931 titled
24 MNL OL 1932.
25 Ormos 2004, pp. 207–208.
26 Békés 2006, p. 108.
27 Szalai 2002, pp. 66–68.
28 Gergely 1997, p. 6.
29 Idem, p. 155.
30 Hámori 1994, p. 56.
Korunk Szava,31 in which they tried to represent a more progressive Catholic standpoint than that taken by the conservative clerical press.32
In their paper, they provided ample room for articles and discussions on corporatism. The staff of the paper seemed to have followed European examples and experiments with great interest, since presumably they would like to have proved that the principles advocated by them do not only have a theoretical appeal, but are also feasible in practice. This is how the Salazar regime in Portugal came to the forefront of their attention. The first articles discussing the country and Salazar himself were published in 1934, i.e. two years after Salazar was appointed and one year after the introduction of the new constitution, and after this the authors regularly brought up the topic in the following years. Among many other things, the articles discussed Portugal’s new constitution,33 the characteristics of the Portuguese regime,34 and Salazar himself.35 When describing the politician, they were not sparing with positive adjectives, underlining his deep Catholic faith penetrating even his work as the prime minister of the country,36 his scientific meticulousness, expertise and the distance he keeps from dictatorial or authoritarian solutions37 – as they did not have any personal experience, most probably they were not uninfluenced by the Portuguese propaganda machinery, increasingly active abroad as well, and the toposes suggested thereby.38 After the publication of writings in Korunk Szava, other Catholic publications also started to show interest in the topic, including Katolikus Szemle,39 and Magyar Kultura40 also published articles on the reforms introduced by Salazar. In addition, the author of the latter article started to touch upon an issue which became rather popular only in a few years’ time,
31 Békés 2006, p. 109.
32 Gergely 1977, p. 155.
33 Anonymous 1934, p. 241.
34 Müller 1934, pp. 479–480.
35 Nyisztor 1935, p. 88, and Neller 1935, pp. 243–244.
36 Nyisztor 1935, p. 88.
37 Neller 1935, p. 244.
38 Janeiro 2004, pp. 46–49.
39 Csiszár 1935, pp. 543–549.
40 Fábián 1935, pp. 87–92.
namely the parallels that can possibly be drawn between Hungary and Portugal in some respects,41 and the idea that the country on the Iberian Peninsula could serve as an example to follow for Hungarians: “We, Hungarian Catholics read this book on Salazar with envy, because the ideology therein has already taken shape and the laws of Salazar are already applied. Happy small Portugal!”42
After Gyula Gömbös came to power in 1935, the editorial board of Korunk Szava split into two, and the advocates of corporatism and its implementation even through authoritarian means centred around Uj Kor and Vigila,43 whereas the original paper was the place for those who from then on distanced themselves from authoritarian regimes and methods.44 Understandably, the enthusiasm for the state of Salazar of the journalists working for the paper also shrank and they tried to shift emphasis on messages of other character in relation to the activities of the Portuguese politician:
“The lesson to learn is the following: the way the small Portugal progresses bravely and with determination on its own path in between the temptations of foreign powers and ideologies may be worth recommending to our small country as an example to follow […]
amongst the clashes of foreign powers and intellectual interests small nations need to be particularly careful to preserve their own existence, which they can only do with their own methods and devices.”45
As opposed to this, those at Uj Kor which still maintained their support for the corporatist ideology, made efforts to prove that authoritarianism is not identical to dictatorship: although Portugal is also often accused of building a dictatorship, an authoritarian government led by Catholic politicians according to Catholic principles of state administration and social sciences was established there, and the country managed to establish a corporatist state without using dictatorial means.46
41 Idem, p. 87.
42 Idem, p. 92.
43 Hámori 1994, p. 58, and Vásárhelyi 2002, pp. 133–135.
44 Vásárhelyi 2002, pp. 137–138.
45 Anonymous 1938, p. 507.
46 Anonymous 1935, p. 22.
Thus, Korunk Szava, which was the first to show interest in Salazar’s activities, turned its back on attempts to renew Catholic politics on a corporatist basis, but this did not mean that the changes in Portugal went unnoticed by Hungarian intellectuals. The number of articles on this issue started to increase especially from 1938, perhaps not independently from political changes in the country, primarily not independently from the appointment of Béla Imrédy as prime minister in May. He was expected by many abroad and domestically as well to clamp down on Arrow Cross fascist propaganda.
In the beginning, the politician did meet these expectations,47 because as a religious Catholic, he announced a reform programme based on the social teachings of the Church, primarily on the encyclicals Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno,48 which was capable of restricting the popularity of fascists through the corporatist, collectivist reform of the outdated social structure, closing the gap between social classes and a bigger role played by the state in economic governance.49 His appointment as prime minister also helped Christian religious intellectuals who believed in the feasibility of the neo-conservative political ideas of the organic model of social organisation come closer to power.50 When elaborating his reforms, Imrédy may have had the economic and social solutions of the then-authoritarian regimes in sight – of which he arguably found the Italian and Portuguese measures the worthiest of studying and transposing.51 His interest in the Salazarian regime is also proved by the fact that he did talk about it when the newly appointed ambassador of Portugal to Hungary, José da Costa Carneiro, made his debut visit to him in 1938. During this visit, Imrédy told him that he knew Salazar’s works written in foreign languages and he himself would like to have visited Portugal in order to take a closer look at the political system of the Portuguese politician, but as the governor of the National Bank he had not had the time to do so. During their conversation, he also asked the ambassador to send him
47 Szalai 2002, p. 82.
48 Gergely 1983, p. 416, and Sipos 1970, pp. 40–41.
49 Sipos 2001, p. 23, and Ungváry 2002, p. 4.
50 Lackó 1975, p. 335.
51 Ungváry 2002, p. 11.
further literature on the Portuguese system.52 In several of his reports Costa Carneiro expressed his view that in his programme Imrédy was following the Salazarian example and after the Hungarian prime minister announced his programme, the ambassador drew the conclusion: “this programme fits with the general direction of the current Portuguese reconstruction and certain details seem to be under the direct impact of his Excellency’s [i.e. Salazar]
governance.”53 He shared this observation of his with Imrédy during the visit mentioned above, adding that he had followed the work of the Hungarian prime minister with interest and due to the similarities in their reforms and ideological convictions, he also reports in detail on it to Salazar.54 The idea that the former leader of the National Bank of Hungary might become a sort of Hungarian Salazar was cherished by many of his Hungarian compatriots due to his competencies, which resemble those of the Portuguese scientist-politician, his financial insight, deep Catholic faith and planned reforms, and there were many who did try to draw a parallel between them.55
Despite his interest in the Salazarian regime, Imrédy – as he himself mentioned to Costa Carneiro – was unable to travel to Portugal to gain first-hand experience of the reforms and transformation; however, as the governor of the National Bank, he played a very important role in supporting the study trip made to Portugal in 1937 by Vid Mihelics, the renowned social scientist of those times belonging to the initial circle of Korunk Szava and the circle of the young Catholics, who later joined the editorial board of Uj Kor.56 Accordingly, Imrédy contributed significantly to the first book written in Hungarian on the reforms introduced in Portugal.57 Mihelics gave an account of his study trip in several articles written for Nemzeti Ujság, and
52 Arquivo Histórico-Diplomático 1938b. In any case, from the internal correspondence of Portuguese departments we know that Imrédy’s request was taken seriously, and the ambassador was soon sent a list of recommended literature, which Costa Carneiro received with thanks. See Arquivo Histórico-Diplomático 1938c–d.
53 Arquivo Histórico-Diplomático 1938a.
54 Arquivo Histórico-Diplomático 1938c.
55 See MTI 1938, Sipos 2001, p. 28; Képviselőházi napló 1938, p. 746.
56 Frenyó 2002, p. 24.
57 Mihelics 1941, p. 8.
he managed to have personal meetings with several leading officials of the system, including Salazar himself.58
Nevertheless, he was not the only journalist who decided to visit Portugal to collect personal experience on the regime being built there. György Oláh, a sociographer, author of Three million beggars and later member of the circle of Imrédy, sent home his reports in the summer of 1938 to Uj Magyarság, a journal which was established as a paper supporting Gömbös, which then gradually radicalised.59 Hardly had he arrived home from Portugal, when another major contemporary social scientist and author60 Béla Kovrig – who also published his articles in Nemzeti Ujság just like Mihelics and who also had an interest in the corporatist regime – arrived in Lisbon and later wrote about his experiences.61 He was appointed by Imrédy as head of the Social Policy Department 5 established at the Prime Minister’s Office and mostly in charge of the governmental propaganda, which on paper was responsible for drawing up social policy recommendations. Later, during the Teleki period, Kovrig continued to work at the Prime Minister’s Office and participated in the establishment and governance of the National Policy Service, established to accomplish similar objectives.62
A major feature of the New Portugal, a book by Mihelics written with scientific detail but permeated with sympathy for the system, is that – in addition to a detailed description of the Salazarian regime – it also raises the idea of the regime being worth following as a model and drew the following conclusion:
although the solutions and examples applied in Portugal might be useful for
although the solutions and examples applied in Portugal might be useful for