Gavrilo93
17th January 2017, 00:35
Hello guys, I promised yesterday to some of you that I would tell you about the political situation, and especially about the left side in my country, Hungary. I hope that that you will enjoy this writing. As I mentioned earlier I'm thorougly disappointed in the situation of the Hungarian left.
My experience is that when I talk with foreigners about Hungary for some reason there are two things everyone knows about our history: The first is Austria-Hungary, and the second one is our rather negative role in WW2. But what is more interesting in connection with the topic is our history after WW2. Namely that we were liberated from Nazi rule by the Soviet Union and made a Soviet satellite state afterwards. Naturally, their Stalinist way or organizing society was adopted. I guess I don't have to introduce Stalinism to you either.
In 1956 there was a revolution against this oppressive kind of communism. It was defeated eventually, but in fear of an uprising happening again a benevolent dictator was installed to be the leader of the country, named János Kádár. He introduced a welfare state with free healthcare and education. Everyone had the opportunity to do some kind of job. Sometimes that job only consisted of bringing a cup of coffee each morning to the boss. But the point was that everyone would earn a certain amount of money in a regular manner. Even though Kádár's system was reactionary in many ways (with which I don't want to bore you right now) we may claim that workers lived pretty good under his rule.
Despite this, now that the Soviet Union has fallen people rather remember the terror of the period before 1956, and communism has been discredited among the people as an ideology which is against human life. So communists here have a lot of work to do. Interestingly, the term of communist (in a similar manner to McCarthyism in the USA) is now used as an insult. Mainstream politicians really like to call each other communists even if that given individual has nothing to do with the ideology.
There are three groups on the left side (or claiming to be on the left side) with whom I have first hand experience, and would like to share with you.
The first of them are the mainstream parties and groups. The most significant among them is the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) which is actually the same party to which Kádár belonged. They are the biggest left-side party. However, despite their name they are not actually socialists. When they ruled the country between 2002 and 2010 they wanted to privatize healthcare and education. If anything, they are libertarian. Obviously, no people on the left side would vote for them. Less and less people do it actually. Most of the voters of the biggest far-right party in Hungary are former socialists who were disappointed by the MSZP. Since neither did I want to vote for them, nor to switch my allegiance to the far-right, I started to look for other left-side groups.
The second group are the smaller left-side, mainly communist parties and groups. I have to give them credit because their heart is in the right (or left, haha) place. They indeed believe in socialism, communism or other left-side ideologies. Yet I was disappointed in them too. I participated in one. A few years ago there was a series of major protests against Hungary's conservative government. I told the leader of this group that we should go there and distribute propaganda or something. He told me that we shouldn't bother because these people are angry only with the current government and not with the system itself. Can you believe this? How can a self-proclaimed revolutionary be so lazy? If you go there, and talk with the people you may actually turn their anger against the current government to an anger against the whole system. I still cannot believe how could we miss this opportunity. There is also another problem with these small groups. There are many of them. Which seems to be a good thing at first glance. However, there are many of them because they always argue with each other how their revolution should be done. (Towards which they are too lazy to do any steps as I already described) It is literally like this: There is a communist group of 5 people, and they split into two because they don't agree in some marginal detail. They cannot realize that we should rather stand together so that we may actually achieve something. Oh wait, I didn't tell you the best yet: There was an event a few years ago to which all the underground left-side intellectuals were invited. You won't believe how did they start the debates. By voting on the question whether during the evening questions should be decided by voting.... Seriously? I'm not against democracy but there is a fine difference between democracy and a farce. Everyone laughed at the underground left-side, especially the mainstream left side (of course) who does not like competition.
There is also a third group which I haven't discussed yet. Trade unions. I'm an English as foreign language teacher and I also do translations. A leader of a trade union hired me to translate a contract for him. He said that I did in such a quick and precise manner that he has another offer for me. I should teach the members of the trade union to English, since most of the proletariat can obviously only speak in Hungarian. I told him that I would do it for Hungarian currency equal to two dollars per person/hour. Normally, under a capitalist environment I ask for ten dollars, but I thought that since I would teach these workers in groups I could still earn a pretty good salary. Why should I make such a huge profit on poor workers? You may think that it would be a good opportunity to any trade union to strengthen its fame as a real trade union which cares about the workers so much that it provides them such a good opportunity to acquire a skill. Well.... no. They didn't even send the newsletter about the opportunity to the members. It took them weeks to reply to my e-mails in which I inquired about the developments. Of course this English class could never be realized. What I can guess is that the other leaders of the trade union told the guy that it's a bad idea because even if the members pay my salary there would still be some costs. (Such as renting a room, and the electricity we use.) Also it would be so much work to organize it. It it clear to me that Hungarian trade unions only collect the membership fees and then all they do is sitting in a comfortable office doing nothing. A friend of mine also strenghtened my viewpoint: She quit a trade union years ago, yet they still send her e-mails. They really don't care about anything.
This is how the left-side looks like in a former communist country. The mainstream left-side parties are not really left side, the underground groups are either too resigned or just lazy and the trade unions are either too bureaucratic or corrupted. What a left-side guy like me can do is either enduring the conservative party in power or switching his allegiance to the far-right. Or move abroad. Or write this post to random foreign communists on the internet and hope that one day there will be a genuine left-side movement which will bring actual change.
My experience is that when I talk with foreigners about Hungary for some reason there are two things everyone knows about our history: The first is Austria-Hungary, and the second one is our rather negative role in WW2. But what is more interesting in connection with the topic is our history after WW2. Namely that we were liberated from Nazi rule by the Soviet Union and made a Soviet satellite state afterwards. Naturally, their Stalinist way or organizing society was adopted. I guess I don't have to introduce Stalinism to you either.
In 1956 there was a revolution against this oppressive kind of communism. It was defeated eventually, but in fear of an uprising happening again a benevolent dictator was installed to be the leader of the country, named János Kádár. He introduced a welfare state with free healthcare and education. Everyone had the opportunity to do some kind of job. Sometimes that job only consisted of bringing a cup of coffee each morning to the boss. But the point was that everyone would earn a certain amount of money in a regular manner. Even though Kádár's system was reactionary in many ways (with which I don't want to bore you right now) we may claim that workers lived pretty good under his rule.
Despite this, now that the Soviet Union has fallen people rather remember the terror of the period before 1956, and communism has been discredited among the people as an ideology which is against human life. So communists here have a lot of work to do. Interestingly, the term of communist (in a similar manner to McCarthyism in the USA) is now used as an insult. Mainstream politicians really like to call each other communists even if that given individual has nothing to do with the ideology.
There are three groups on the left side (or claiming to be on the left side) with whom I have first hand experience, and would like to share with you.
The first of them are the mainstream parties and groups. The most significant among them is the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) which is actually the same party to which Kádár belonged. They are the biggest left-side party. However, despite their name they are not actually socialists. When they ruled the country between 2002 and 2010 they wanted to privatize healthcare and education. If anything, they are libertarian. Obviously, no people on the left side would vote for them. Less and less people do it actually. Most of the voters of the biggest far-right party in Hungary are former socialists who were disappointed by the MSZP. Since neither did I want to vote for them, nor to switch my allegiance to the far-right, I started to look for other left-side groups.
The second group are the smaller left-side, mainly communist parties and groups. I have to give them credit because their heart is in the right (or left, haha) place. They indeed believe in socialism, communism or other left-side ideologies. Yet I was disappointed in them too. I participated in one. A few years ago there was a series of major protests against Hungary's conservative government. I told the leader of this group that we should go there and distribute propaganda or something. He told me that we shouldn't bother because these people are angry only with the current government and not with the system itself. Can you believe this? How can a self-proclaimed revolutionary be so lazy? If you go there, and talk with the people you may actually turn their anger against the current government to an anger against the whole system. I still cannot believe how could we miss this opportunity. There is also another problem with these small groups. There are many of them. Which seems to be a good thing at first glance. However, there are many of them because they always argue with each other how their revolution should be done. (Towards which they are too lazy to do any steps as I already described) It is literally like this: There is a communist group of 5 people, and they split into two because they don't agree in some marginal detail. They cannot realize that we should rather stand together so that we may actually achieve something. Oh wait, I didn't tell you the best yet: There was an event a few years ago to which all the underground left-side intellectuals were invited. You won't believe how did they start the debates. By voting on the question whether during the evening questions should be decided by voting.... Seriously? I'm not against democracy but there is a fine difference between democracy and a farce. Everyone laughed at the underground left-side, especially the mainstream left side (of course) who does not like competition.
There is also a third group which I haven't discussed yet. Trade unions. I'm an English as foreign language teacher and I also do translations. A leader of a trade union hired me to translate a contract for him. He said that I did in such a quick and precise manner that he has another offer for me. I should teach the members of the trade union to English, since most of the proletariat can obviously only speak in Hungarian. I told him that I would do it for Hungarian currency equal to two dollars per person/hour. Normally, under a capitalist environment I ask for ten dollars, but I thought that since I would teach these workers in groups I could still earn a pretty good salary. Why should I make such a huge profit on poor workers? You may think that it would be a good opportunity to any trade union to strengthen its fame as a real trade union which cares about the workers so much that it provides them such a good opportunity to acquire a skill. Well.... no. They didn't even send the newsletter about the opportunity to the members. It took them weeks to reply to my e-mails in which I inquired about the developments. Of course this English class could never be realized. What I can guess is that the other leaders of the trade union told the guy that it's a bad idea because even if the members pay my salary there would still be some costs. (Such as renting a room, and the electricity we use.) Also it would be so much work to organize it. It it clear to me that Hungarian trade unions only collect the membership fees and then all they do is sitting in a comfortable office doing nothing. A friend of mine also strenghtened my viewpoint: She quit a trade union years ago, yet they still send her e-mails. They really don't care about anything.
This is how the left-side looks like in a former communist country. The mainstream left-side parties are not really left side, the underground groups are either too resigned or just lazy and the trade unions are either too bureaucratic or corrupted. What a left-side guy like me can do is either enduring the conservative party in power or switching his allegiance to the far-right. Or move abroad. Or write this post to random foreign communists on the internet and hope that one day there will be a genuine left-side movement which will bring actual change.