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THE REUNIFICATION OF EUROPE
XI. THE CRUMBLING OF COMMUNISM Furthermore, these rulers were incapable of renewing their legitimacy, not least
THE REUNIFICATION OF EUROPE
and anti-Communist revolution. Though the 1956 revolution was put down by force and in that sense only it failed, it lives on in various complex, indirect and sometimes distorted ways.
because they could not even see the problem. Equally, renewed activism to relaunch an
This system proved to have considerable staying power and remained largely unchanged
ideological party would breach the barriers set 30 years previously, for fear of disturbing
until its disintegration in 1989. It provided Hungarian society with a tolerable way of life,
the stability of the regime. The Moscow connection also proved to be broken reed once
stability and was successful able to incorporate the great majority into its functioning.
the Soviet leadership embarked on a renewal process, for that necessarily removed
The instruments of coercion operated within limits, though the activities of the secret
the so-called Soviet pretext, to the effect that ‘we would love to reform, but the Soviet
police were very far-reaching; if one stayed out of active politics, one was largely left
comrades would look askance at that’.
alone, albeit the threat of coercion was there all times.
Thus failed revolutions never fail completely, but invariably have unintended
Logically, therefore, from 1988 on the system began to crumble, leaving behind a society
consequences. In the case of Hungary, it resulted in a Sleeping Beauty society that
that had become accustomed to a stability that looked more like changelessness, that
actually came to like its somnolence. It is from this perspective that 1956 had and has
was politically very inexperienced, had no real knowledge of market conditions and only
delayed effects that have shaped both rulers and ruled in the years of post-communism.
the vaguest sense of the relationship between democracy and freedom. The memory
The particular way of leaving communism, and it really was more like a quiet farewell
of 1956, then, was the central focal point as a symbolic event around which all could
than anything more dramatic, had virtually no popular input, quite unlike Czechoslovakia,
organise against the Communist regime, and that included the reform Communists. It
say, or Estonia. The reinterment of Imre Nagy on the 16 June 1989, the nearest to a
is important to stress that this was exclusively symbolic. The trauma of remembered
popular event, was carefully monitored, supervised and choreographed.
violence and devastation was alive and well in 1989 and acted as a severe constraint
There existed a politically rather inexperienced counter-elite and a society that had very little understanding either of power or of governance. I suspect that many believed at the time that the end of communism as a system and mode of legitimation would bring with it a thoroughgoing transformation, in which those who had been excluded
on action. There was a kind of fearful determination that there would no revolution in the sense of 1956. This also had the result that, as so often with a struggle for symbols, once the initial aim was gained, after that, unity disintegrated and thereafter 1956 was contested between left and right.
from power would now be able to exercise it. This assessment failed to reckon with the
The weaknesses of the system, however, meant that it had no long term future. In the
far greater political experience of the beneficiaries of the previous system, with their
first instance, its stability depended on Kádár remaining in power and once his age
determination to preserve their privileges and to make their grab for state property,
began to be a factor - he was born in 1912 - the problem of succession became visible on
to maintain their networks, resources etc., as well as their complete unwillingness to
the horizon. Second, there was the Soviet factor already noted. As long as the Kremlin
accept any form of democratic self-limitation or ethical constraints on action. They
remained a captive of its conservatism, Kádár and Kádárism were safe, but with the
accept only the minimum - the results of elections, the Constitutional Court and, to some
rise of Gorbachev, who understood that change in the Soviet Union was unavoidable, a
extent, European disapproval.
question mark was raised over Kádár’s position too. Third, was the system’s commitment
From this perspective, it becomes understandable why 1956 is contested and why both left and right seek to own it. The left would like to derive its legitimacy from it for the present, as the heirs of a social revolution, and the right sees it as a democratic, national
to stability, which after a while become stagnation, essentially because it did not have, indeed could not have a theory of change. Fourth was Hungary’s dependence on the outside world - given its trade-dependence this was unavoidable - hence the oil shocks were traumatic. By the 1980s, it was clear from international comparisons that even
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