The long-serving Hungarian leader practiced what he preached, says zsuzsanna clark
|
 |
|
|
What's your idea of a typical Cold War eastern European communist leader? A corrupt egomaniac who orders that pictures of himself are hung in every public building? A dour functionary who rules his country with a rod of iron?
Very few would talk of a self-effacing man who lived simply, eschewed any cult of personality and who never stole a penny from state coffers.
My country, Hungary, had such a leader. Unlike his counterparts in Romania, East Germany and elsewhere, Janos Kadar was a man who not only preached solidarity and comradeship, but practiced it too. The subject of new biography, The Good Comrade by Roger Gough, Kadar came to power 50 years ago this autumn, in the aftermath of the Hungarian Uprising.
Then reviled as 'Moscow's Man', Kadar gradually won public support with a
|
|
 |
 |
|
| By the 1970s, Kadar’s Hungary was ‘the happiest barracks’ in the Communist camp |
|
|
|
liberalising agenda which by the 1970s made Hungary 'the happiest barracks' in the Communist camp.
In return for loyalty to the Warsaw Pact, Moscow allowed Kadar considerable latitude in domestic policy - arguably more than the present Hungarian government enjoys under constant pressure from the IMF and EU to 'reform'.
Kadar reversed the Stalinist dictum 'whoever is not for us is against us' to the more liberal 'whoever is not against us is for us' - meaning that although a one-party state operated, the government did not go out of its way to look for enemies. In this more relaxed climate, arts and culture flourished, helped by generous support from the state.
Eighteen years on from his fall from power, even anti-communists now acknowledge Kadar's achievements, with conservative opposition leader Viktor Orban voicing a truth which some may find shocking. Namely, that for many Hungarians, even allowing for the restrictions on foreign travel and other inconveniences, life was better under Kadar's 'goulash communism' than it is today.
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 18, 2006
 Also by Zsuzsanna Clark: Communism was good for us
|
