From the archives: Reformers Win 1st Vote for New Hungary Party

BUDAPEST -- Reformers in Hungary’s ruling party moved Saturday to leave hard-line Communists behind and form a new “socialist” party, committed to broad economic and political reform.

Under pressure from the reformers, delegates at the party’s congress voted Saturday to change the party’s name from the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP) to the Hungarian Socialist Party, but it was unclear whether the name change, included in a package of compromise proposals, would satisfy the campaign by the reformers to consign the party’s Communist history and ideological trappings to the ash heap.

Steps Toward Free Election

In the midst of the most open and bitter debate in the history of East Bloc communism, the reform movement’s leader, state minister Imre Pozsgay, said that the “new” party he intends to lead would exclude “those with blood sticking to their arms,” and concentrate on preparing for the first free elections in 40 years, now expected in the spring.

It was a bitter and traumatic fight, undertaken only because the party’s leading figures are facing a desperate fight to hold onto power in a system whose impending changes threaten to sweep them aside.

Pozsgay’s followers began Saturday to dominate the congress of the HSWP, which has been the guardian of Communist ideology in Hungary since the abortive public uprising against the Communists in 1956.

“We are no longer a platform,” Pozsgay said. “We are a party.”

It was not immediately clear, despite Pozsgay’s assertion, whether the party is indeed new, or simply reconstituted under a new name. The semantic distinction could take days to unravel, depending on whether the reformist forces bar the old party’s conservatives from membership by adopting a platform too radical for them to accept. It was clear, however, that the main force of the reformers wants the old order kept out.

The split by the reformers--and their defiant rejection of traditional Marxist ideology--marks the first such transformation of a Communist party in the Soviet Bloc.

Party sources said that the reform wing appeared to control at least 700 of the party’s 1,279 delegate votes, and a strong behind-the-scenes fight was going on to capture the party’s centrists and moderates. In the fierce tug-of-war, they said, the hard-line Communists were in a steadily weakening position.

The party has been split by dissension for the last year, and pressure for a decision over the party’s course has mounted as the prospect for free elections looms closer. The party’s losing performance in four recent by-elections, coupled with the poor showing at the polls by Communists in Poland, have suggested to reformers that the party cannot survive without distancing itself from the Communist label and its abysmal economic record.

Public Confidence ‘Eliminated’

“There are certain realities which inform us that the HSWP has finished its history,” Pozsgay told reporters Saturday. Public confidence in the party, he said, had been “eliminated.”

“As the HSWP,” he said, “they have no chance whatsoever to win an election. As the Hungarian Socialist Party, with its program, they have a chance.”

Pozsgay’s assertion amounted to an announcement of the birth of the new party, one that would have to fight its way in the future against stiff competition from newly emerged non-communist parties. Political observers say Communists--or ex-Communists, under the new arrangement--have little chance of winning more than a 20% share in a freely elected Parliament.

“Today,” he said, “it can be seen that there is an explicit, strong majority supporting reform.” It was a triumphant moment for Pozsgay, who has already opened his campaign to become president, in a national election he hopes will be held in late November.

However, an intensive fight looms at the congress over control of the party’s considerable capital assets--buildings, bank accounts, cars, holdings in business enterprises, holiday camps--and how they should be allocated or turned back to the public domain.

No Right to Party’s Property

Janos Berecz, one of the party’s conservative figures, warned that no new party would have the automatic right to assume control of the party’s property, funds or employees.

A party position paper, adopted with the name change, avoided mentioning a “cleansing of the ranks,” as some reformers had suggested. Instead, in an attempt to broaden support, it “called into its ranks all those who agree with its platform, who accept the ground rules.” But the document also provided that members of the old party would not automatically be members of the new one by calling for new membership cards to be issued.

Some of the reform forces watered down the document Saturday in order to pull in the support of the People’s Forum, a less radical body than the Reform Union but more liberal than the conservative groupings.

The document declared the new party would support the concept of private and state property, calling for “a mixed property social market economy,” and “the development of . . . a multi-party parliamentary democracy.”

Party sources said the sharp swing toward the reform side came in a midnight meeting between Pozsgay, Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth and longtime party reformer Reszoe Nyers, who had been trying to hold some of the party’s more conservative figures in an alliance with the reformers. This alliance represented about 100 votes and, in the view of the reformers, had the effect of weakening the clear-cut reform position by including old-line party figures, whose record they regard as a liability.

Business Under a New Name

With such figures as Berecz and former party leader Karoly Grosz aboard, they argued, the new party would be perceived as the old organization, simply doing business under a new name. Nyers was also faced with the possibility that the reformers would abandon him, leaving the veteran reformer alone with a motley company of conservatives.

Under intense persuasion from Nemeth and Pozsgay, Nyers--sometime in the early morning hours--gave up his effort to include the HSWP’s old-line authorities in the new party.

The shift by Nyers, party sources said, sealed the certain victory of the reform forces.

Economic Changes Sought

The new party, Pozsgay said, would advocate continued and accelerated economic changes, many of which would be socially “painful and tormenting,” and would include, inevitably, higher unemployment.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we cannot avoid this road. Any government that lies about this will be condemned to be toppled. We need a government, with strong parliamentary support, (possibly) in a national coalition” capable of generating public support for continuing reform programs.

“At the same time,” he said, “the toleration of people has a limit, and we should not go beyond that. We cannot pull the string any tighter than that.” He added that “without the participation of foreign capital,” Hungary’s reform has a poor chance of success.

“We want to invite venture capital,” Pozsgay said. “We want to invite entrepreneurs, and we are encouraging the whole country to start with new enterprises and new types of management,” he said.

The reformers have abandoned the idea--long cherished in the communist world--of the party as the dominant force in the state. In the new political reality of Hungary, they say, the party will have to learn to accept a radically reduced role and accept the necessity to join non-communist coalitions--if it is to survive at all.

In a speech Saturday, Nemeth said the new party “must no longer be a state party. It will be a governing party, in the best sense of the word. A new name is needed. We need new structures, new membership, new staff. . . . The party membership will not be a flock of sheep following old rams. . . .”

The HSWP’s sizable apparatus, however, is likely to find traumatic this drastic reduction in its horizons. Of the 1,279 delegates to the party congress, 85% make their living from party positions. Only 43, or a 3.3%, were described as actual “workers,”