Kádár era

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The Kádár era shaped the Hungarian People's Republic between 1957 and 1989.

The name goes back to the politician János Kádár , who de facto headed the country under various political titles from November 7, 1956 until his resignation on May 20, 1988 . Its influence on the country's as yet little-explored recent history is immense; He had already given the regime his name during his lifetime.

In addition to the term Ära Kádár ( Kádár-korszak ), the terms Kádárism ( kádárizmus ) and Kádár system ( Kádár-rendszer ) are used as synonyms. On both sides of the Iron Curtain , the term goulash communism was also used .

Consolidation between 1956 and 1963

After the suppression of the Hungarian uprising , during which Mátyás Rákosi resigned from office, Kádár was installed by Moscow as the political leader of Hungary. With cruel retaliation, he restored the institutions of the dictatorship and founded the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP). In this way he also succeeded in keeping the newly formed Stalinist opponents in check.

The policy of the United Nations and Western Europe was clear on the so-called "Hungarian question". There should be no return to politics before 1956 and Rákosi, Ernő Gerő and their comrades should no longer have any influence in Hungary. The legitimation of Kádár, and thus of the regime, was tied to UN membership. However, the United Nations condemned the system in its statement and the "Hungarian question" was on the agenda until the Kádár compromise.

The ÁVH State Protection Agency - the department of the Ministry of the Interior founded on September 6, 1948, the successor organization to the former ÁVO ( Magyar Államrendőrség Államvédelmi Osztálya , "State Protection Department of the Hungarian State Police") - was not reorganized after the 1956 popular uprising. The former members of the ÁVH could report to other executive state organs. They were often taken over by the newly formed police. At the beginning of 1957 a new, paramilitary structured armed organization was founded. It is a unit called Munkásőrség (Workers' Guard ). It was independent of the military and police and was directly subordinate to the party's central committee. Its members were mostly factory workers who received ideological and practical training, a gun license and handguns, and who, in gray uniforms, were tasked with maintaining public order at mass events alongside the police. The Munkásőrség organization soon had 60,000 members; there has never been an order to use their weapons.

In the interests of compromising with the UN, Kádár issued a general amnesty for those convicted in 1956. However, it was not until March 15, 1963 that about 80% of the prisoners were released. In exchange, Hungary was recognized internationally and the delegation and reception of ambassadors was made possible. The system allowed more private freedoms and career opportunities, but the strict barriers to political activity were retained. Nevertheless, the "Hungarian question" was removed from the agenda of the United Nations in exchange for extended freedoms.

Late Cadarism 1963 to 1979

The party leadership adopted an authoritarian style by 1963 and no longer sought totalitarian dictatorship and complete surveillance. Kádár proclaimed “whoever is not against us is with us” ( “aki nincs ellenünk, az velünk van” ). It was no longer compulsory to believe in the system, but oppositional actions, whether verbal or otherwise, were still prohibited.

Some topics were taboo in the controlled public: the legitimacy and ideological foundations of the system could not be questioned, for example the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat or the Soviet occupation. The existing unemployment within factories, the persistent poverty, the assessment of Kádár's hard line in 1956, and the person of János Kádár himself were also out of the question.

In practice, however, most of the issues could be discussed controversially by sections of the intellectuals in the party-influenced press. On the other hand, surveillance by the Hungarian state security apparatus spread among the population and the network of informers grew, but did not reach the same proportions as in the GDR .

Since the beginning of the 1960s, the economic politicians of the Kádár regime were concerned with converting production from the extensive to the intensive phase, i.e. increasing efficiency, improving quality and adapting to the market. The economic politician Rezső Nyers was charged with planning the reforms . His reform plans were recognized in May 1966 and introduced at the beginning of 1968. Similar reform ideas preoccupied the leadership of the socialist brother countries GDR ( New Economic System of Planning and Management ), Czechoslovakia ( Ota Šik : The Third Way ) and Bulgaria in the 1960s ; there, however, a radical transformation of the planned economy was not put into practice.

The economic reforms under Kádár ( új gazdasági mechanizmus ) brought three decisive changes with them: 1. Reduction of state planning, more autonomy for companies; 2. Reform of price origination (free price development within state-determined maximum and minimum prices); 3. Modification of wages and salaries. Against the background of the restalinization policy of Leonid Brezhnev , however, the influence of the Hungarian reform socialists Rezső Nyers, Lajos Fehér , Jenő Fock and György Aczél was limited from 1972 and Kádár's zeal for reform was put into perspective.

The late Kádár regime was characterized by a rising standard of living, for example it was allowed to travel to the west up to three times a year with reservations, support was paid for housing construction and health care was improved. The source of growth was production, which flourished in the agricultural sector but was slow to develop in other areas.

The country became more and more economically dependent on the West. Up to and including 1973, the Mutual Economic Assistance Council was unable to provide sufficient assistance. Although it was in contradiction to the system, from 1973 the party leadership began to regularly take out western, mainly Japanese, loans to make up for the economic shortage. This dichotomy was maintained until the fall of the Kádár regime. Western journalists described the atmosphere of these years as “the happiest barracks” of communism ( a legvidámabb barakk ).

The decline of the Kádár system from 1979 to 1989

The explosive nature of the economic problems, the indebtedness and the increasing dependence on Western imports increased the feeling of insecurity of the communist leadership. An important lesson from the popular uprising of 1956 was not to lower the standard of living, even if the economic basis for this standard did not exist.

In 1982 the state was close to bankruptcy. A way out offered loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank , which meant that Hungary had to join the two largest capitalist organizations. Accordingly, the country became a member of the IMF in 1982 and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development a year later . The foreign debt of $ 9 billion in 1982 rose to 20 billion by 1989.

The government remained subordinate to the party and parliament remained in the same formation until the first free elections. After 1979, however, the first opposition group appeared, and the first reforms began within the party. The democratic opposition slowly expanded. Its two large wings were the rural-oriented and the urban-liberal groups, which reflects a traditional line of conflict in the Hungarian political landscape. In 1981, the Beszélő, an opposition magazine, was founded. It was followed by the magazines Hírmondó in 1984, Magyar Demokrata (1986) and Hitel (1989). From 1985 the policy of the new Soviet party secretary Gorbachev paved the way for a peaceful change of system.

On July 1, 1988, the Hungarian government and the World Bank signed the ISAL agreement ( Ipari szerkezetátalakítási kölcsön , “loan for industrial restructuring”), under which, among other things, socio-political laws were accepted. This made it possible to convert state-owned companies into stock corporations, natural persons could buy shares and had voting rights. It was also possible to set up small businesses such as Korlátolt felelősségű társaság ( Kft. , Roughly equivalent to the German GmbH ). The income tax was restructured, reduced subsidies to the steel industry and coal mines as well as price supports for producers and consumers.

In 1987 the first opposition party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum ( MDF ), was founded in Lakitelek . The party was not persecuted by the regime as it enabled the round table negotiations to be held with a legal interlocutor. In 1988 so-called "Fachwohnheime" ( Szakkollégium ) were founded, in which students were politically active. Well-known colleges are the István Bibó Szakkollégium of the ELTE and the László Rajk Szakkollégium at the Corvinus University . Some of its members ran for the so-called "intellectuals of the review boards " ( szakkollégiumi értelmiség ), including Viktor Orbán , Gábor Fodor , László Urbán and some lecturers such as István Stumpf . Most of them are still represented in political life today.

Kádár's grave

On October 23, 1989 , Mátyás Szűrös proclaimed the Republic of Hungary , which finally ended the previous form of government. Kádár never lived through this event. He died on July 6, 1989.

literature

  • Tibor Huszár: Kádár János politikai életrajza . tape 2 . Szabadtér Kiadó-Kossuth Kiadó, Budapest 2003, ISBN 963-09-4444-8 (Hungarian).
  • Ignác Romsics: Magyarország története a XX. században . Osiris Kiadó, Budapest 2005, ISBN 963-389-719-X (Hungarian).
  • Andreas Schmidt-Schweizer: Kádárism - the "long aftermath" of the Hungarian popular uprising . In: Rüdiger Kipke (Ed.): Hungary 1956. On the history of a failed popular uprising . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-15290-4 , pp. 161-187 .
  • Tibor Valuch: Hétköznapi élet Kádár János korában . Corvina kiadó, 2006, ISBN 963-13-5410-5 , ISSN  1787-4076 (Hungarian).
  • Tibor Valuch: Magyarország társadalomtörténete a XX. század második felében . Osiris kiadó, 2005, ISBN 963-389-813-7 , ISSN  1218-9855 (Hungarian).
  • Tibor Valuch: A lódentõl a miniszoknyáig. A XX. század második felének magyarországi oil tözködéstörténete . Corvina kiadó together with 56-os alapítvány ("Foundation 56-er"), 2005, ISBN 963-13-5363-X (Hungarian).
  • Tibor Valuch: Múlt századi hétköznapok. Tanulmányok a Kádár-rendszer kialakulásának idõszakáról . 1956-os Intézet Közalapítvány, 2005, ISBN 963-210-508-7 (Hungarian).
  • Thomas Ross: No hatred of Janos Kadar. In: Die Zeit , No. 51/1962

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ignác Romsics: Magyarország története a XX. században. P. 404.
  2. ↑ Ignác Romsics: Magyarország története a XX. században. P. 439 f.
  3. ^ Tibor Huszár: Kádár János politikai életrajza. P. 246 ff.