At 04:06 PM 11/21/96 GMT, Sam Stowe, this lists' gifted wordsmith, a
"master" of the cheap shot, a veritable idiot savant of the English
language, wrote:

<snip>
>You're not an iconoclast. Your world view is entirely predictable and
>regular, like trains timetables or bowel movements.

So's your reaction to my posts.  Entirely predictable!  So where does that
leave us?

Now, it's true that I criticize "existing capitalism" a lot, but that's only
because "existing socialism" is dead, and although beating a dead horse has
some appeal to some people, including Sam, and many others on this list, it
doesn't really turn me on.  Unfortunately for me, criticizing capitalism
when most of you still live (intellectually) in a dichotomized East-West,
Capitalist-Communist, Good-Bad world, means that I'll have to be more clear
in what I'm trying to say.  If I'm not, then it's my fault if some of you
think I'm a commie.

So, are you all ready for a good debate?  Can you let go of your ideologies?

Joe Szalai

test

At 12:26 PM 11/22/96, Zimanyi Magdolna wrote:
>Eva S. Balogh > wrote Re: the nasty Orban Nov 14 in
>HUNGARY #847 a letter. I would like to comment on her remarks about
>the reasons why many Hungarians joined the Communist party.

>
> So most people did not join the party because of sheer opportunism.
>
People in Hungary who joined the communist party (MKP) in 1945 had many
options. One could join the social democrats, the smallholders etc. These
parties also distributed jobs, provided protection, etc.The future of
Hungary was not decided and not even Stalin made plans for a coup at this
time. In fact many arrow-cross criminals joined the party in addition to
those who believed that the future belonged to the communists. Young
idealists, opportunists, old communists, grateful poor farmers and many
other people joined the MKP or voted for them; 17 to 20% of the electorate.
Two years later opportunists flocked to the party, the new party in power.
Eventually about 800,000 persons became card-carrying communists by 1956.
That might partially explain why there are no purges in Hungary today.

Peter I. Hidas

Mrs. Gati, 50, a political appointee and friend of first lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton, allegedly improperly provided information to
Russia's former foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, and other Russian
officials. Regarding the documents allegedly naming Charles Gati, the
Times story cited testimony of Frank Foldvary, a U.S. State
Department intelligence analyst, who claimed that in August 1993
Charles Gati requested to see a list of Hungarian intelligence officers
posted to the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, which Foldvary had
obtained in 1990. Foldvary said he refused to show him the list,
saying it was too sensitive, but warned Gati that a family friend of
theirs was linked to Hungarian intelligence.

The article cited other sources as saying the family friend was Ivan
Volgyes, a Hungarian-born U. S. citizen who was a political science
professor at the University of Nebraska until 1995, when he
returned to Hungary to become chief adviser to General Electric.
Foldvary told The Budapest Sun he was "not in a position to respond"
to questions about the affair.

Hungarian National Security Office cabinet chief Tamas Somogyi said
that even though Foldvary and Volgyes are of Hungarian origin, they
are now U. S. citizens and therefore the case has no Hungarian links
or ties. "The Hungarian services don't investigate American citizens.
Our American colleagues have not turned to us so far" for help
investigating alleged Hungarian ties, Somogyi said.

The U. S. Embassy in Budapest also declined to comment on the issue.

In article >,
 says...
>
>Eva S. Balogh > wrote Re: the nasty Orban Nov 14 in
>HUNGARY #847 a letter. I would like to comment on her remarks about
>the reasons why many Hungarians joined the Communist party.
>
>EB>  (3) There were relatively few home-grown Marxists, but the MKP,
>EB> thanks to people who sensed that the future belongs to the
>EB> communists, joined the MKP in hordes.  A few figures: by February
>EB> 1945 the MKP had 30,000 members, by May 150,000 members, and by
>EB> October there were half a million communist party members; (4) the
>EB> Hungarian communist party--then named Magyar Dolgozok
>EB> Partja--completely collapsed in October 1956;


I don't know any statistics, but to my knowledge, after the war many
people joined the Social Democrats - and many, who were illegal members
before and during the war - legalized their membership.  After the
communist takeover in 1949, all those social democrats became
automatically members of the Magyar Dolgozok Partja - i.e. "The Party".

Agnes

At 12:26 PM 11/22/96 +0100, Magda Zimanyi wrote, firs quoting me:

>EB>  (3) There were relatively few home-grown Marxists, but the MKP,
>EB> thanks to people who sensed that the future belongs to the
>EB> communists, joined the MKP in hordes.  A few figures: by February
>EB> 1945 the MKP had 30,000 members, by May 150,000 members, and by
>EB> October there were half a million communist party members; (4) the
>EB> Hungarian communist party--then named Magyar Dolgozok
>EB> Partja--completely collapsed in October 1956; (5) Yes, a small
>EB> group of communists headed by Janos Kadar opted for the
>EB> restoration of the regime under Soviet tutelage.  (6) The
>EB> "non-Marxist" Hungarian people again joined the communist party in
>EB> hordes: by December 1956 the new party named Magyar Szocialista
>EB> Munkaspart (MSZMP) had 37,818 members, by January-February 1957
>EB> between eight and ten thousand people joined every week and
>EB> reached 190 thousand, by June their numbers reached 345,733, and
>EB> by the end of the regime there were 800,000 party members.  If the
>EB> Hungarians were non-Marxist--and the majority certainly
>EB> wasn't--then I must conclude that our kind is an awfully
>EB> opportunistic lot!
>
>In the forties and fifties most people did not join the party "in
>hordes" because they "sensed that the future belongs to the
>communists", but because they were simply forced to do so.

        Trained as a historian I like precise wording. Do you claim that in
May 1945 people were actually threatened to join the communist party? OK,
you and I were children but I still remember the coalition period because my
parents were very involved with the Smallholders' party. My mother and my
aunt were representatives of their party in the Magyar Noszovetseg's local
chapter and I remember very well hearing stories about the constant fights
they had with the representatives of the communist party in that body. But
even if I didn't remember so well, I know from my studies and my readings
that no one forced anyone to become a communist party member in 1945.

>They were
>threatened to lose their jobs.  I was a child at that time -- as Eva
>was -- but I have very vivid memories.  A typical method was to tell
>somebody: "Your name is already on the list of people to be dismissed
>-- the so-called 'B-lista' -- but it can be removed if you fill out a
>request for the communist party membership immediately." Many people
>entered the party this way because they had a family to feed.
>Remember, at that time the state was practically the only employer, so
>if you were dismissed you were not able to find another job anywhere.

        Sorry, I don't remember that because my father was one of those
terrible capitalists and not a state employee. I don't doubt that later,
let's say by 1947-48 the communists were strong enough to force people into
joining but in the first couple of years after 1945 when actually the
Smallholders were the largest party I doubt that most of the recruits were
gotten that way.

        However, I do agree that in the 1950s fear was a considerable
factor. I remember only too well stories about being called in by the party
secretary and telling the person that he/she was lucky enough to be
considered for membership and out of fear one didn't dare to say no. But
that was during the period between 1950 and 1956. I remember one particular
story which was rather funny. Our DISZ secretary at ELTE was called in to
have a chat with the party secretary sometime in 1955. As we learned later
from the horse's mouth, he was petrified because he was sure that party
membership would be offered to me. To his great relief it was a rather
innocuous meeting of a routine nature. When it was all over our DISZ
secretary came up to a classmate of ours whose father actually was a member
of the cabinet but herself was a non-communist and a very decent person and
said to her: I just came back from an interview with the party secretary and
he invited me to join but I said that I didn't feel I was worthy. Instead, I
suggested you! At which point the daughter of the cabinet minister and a
good friend of mine began to scream: You, such and such; no, you didn't. At
which point he admitted that he was just joking! That gives you an idea what
the atmosphere was in university circles in 1955!

>Opportunism
>played a bigger role in entering the party after 1956.

        I am glad that we agree on that.

>And of course,
>millions of Hungarians never entered the party (MKP, MDP, MSzMP,
>whatever it was called) even when pressed or forced to do so.  So IMHO
>calling "our kind [...] an awfully opportunistic lot" is an unfounded
>and unnecessarily gemeralizing conclusion, insulting people who did
>not deserve this.

        Fine, Magda. I sinned: I generalized! Not everybody was a party
member, just about 10 percent of the adult population and an incredibly high
portion of the intelligentsia. The party of the proletariat was in fact the
party of of the intelligentsia. Only 35.9 percent of the membership belonged
to the category of "physical worker." That means that 64.1 percent of party
members came from the ranks of intellectual elite or white-collar workers.
Thus, over 500,000 party members came from that class! Unfortunately I can't
get good enough data to correlate these figures with the number of
white-collar workers in Hungary but I would say that a very large portion of
that group was actually party members. And surely, you wouldn't claim that
they were forced to be party members in the 1970s and 1980s.

        So, since you object to calling Hungarians an opportunistic lot why
don't we just say that 10 percent of the adult population and a much higher
percentage of the intelligentsia was an opportunistic lot because according
to Gyorgy Kadar practically nobody was a marxist. (Which I do believe, by
the way.) Yes, they joined because they perceived, rightly or wrongly, that
the road to success was through party membership. And all the talk today why
they joined is mostly hogwosh. The most often repeated phrase: "That was the
only way I could affect politics and introduce reforms" is rather sickening.
Why don't they just tell the truth? "We joined the party because we tought
that it was good for our careers." I have serious difficulties with lack of
candor.

        Eva Balogh

Eva S. Balogh > wrote Re: the nasty Orban Nov 14 in
HUNGARY #847 a letter. I would like to comment on her remarks about
the reasons why many Hungarians joined the Communist party.

EB>  (3) There were relatively few home-grown Marxists, but the MKP,
EB> thanks to people who sensed that the future belongs to the
EB> communists, joined the MKP in hordes.  A few figures: by February
EB> 1945 the MKP had 30,000 members, by May 150,000 members, and by
EB> October there were half a million communist party members; (4) the
EB> Hungarian communist party--then named Magyar Dolgozok
EB> Partja--completely collapsed in October 1956; (5) Yes, a small
EB> group of communists headed by Janos Kadar opted for the
EB> restoration of the regime under Soviet tutelage.  (6) The
EB> "non-Marxist" Hungarian people again joined the communist party in
EB> hordes: by December 1956 the new party named Magyar Szocialista
EB> Munkaspart (MSZMP) had 37,818 members, by January-February 1957
EB> between eight and ten thousand people joined every week and
EB> reached 190 thousand, by June their numbers reached 345,733, and
EB> by the end of the regime there were 800,000 party members.  If the
EB> Hungarians were non-Marxist--and the majority certainly
EB> wasn't--then I must conclude that our kind is an awfully
EB> opportunistic lot!

In the forties and fifties most people did not join the party "in
hordes" because they "sensed that the future belongs to the
communists", but because they were simply forced to do so. They were
threatened to lose their jobs.  I was a child at that time -- as Eva
was -- but I have very vivid memories.  A typical method was to tell
somebody: "Your name is already on the list of people to be dismissed
-- the so-called 'B-lista' -- but it can be removed if you fill out a
request for the communist party membership immediately." Many people
entered the party this way because they had a family to feed.
Remember, at that time the state was practically the only employer, so
if you were dismissed you were not able to find another job anywhere.

I remember a "joke" in a newspaper -- I don't know whether it was in
"Ludas Matyi" or in "Szabad Szaj", one of that time's popular comic
newspapers, maybe the latter -- at about 1947-48.  In Hungary at that
time formally it was still a coalition government, but practically the
communists did not keep any of the coalition agreements.  The
coalition parties (Communists, Social democrats, Smallholders) agreed
that they will not lead recruiting campaigns.  However, the Communists
continued forcing people to enter the party.

The illustration in the comic newspaper showed people standing in a
queue before a Communist Party office all holding requests for party
membership.  A party apparatchik stood nearby directing the people
into the party office.  A member of another party came by and asked
the Communist apparatchik:

-- Why are you doing this? Our parties agreed not to lead recruiting campaigns!

To which the apparatchik's answer was:

-- This is not against the agreement: I am not recruiting, I am
   *forcing* them!

(In Hungarian: "En nem toborzok, en csak *kenyszeritek*!")

 So most people did not join the party because of sheer opportunism.

 Of course, the situation changed after 56, this is another story.  In
some cases force or some form of pressure was still used, mostly not
in the form of brute force, but in a more refined way. Opportunism
played a bigger role in entering the party after 1956.  And of course,
millions of Hungarians never entered the party (MKP, MDP, MSzMP,
whatever it was called) even when pressed or forced to do so.  So IMHO
calling "our kind [...] an awfully opportunistic lot" is an unfounded
and unnecessarily gemeralizing conclusion, insulting people who did
not deserve this.

Best regards
Magda Zimanyi

 Magdolna Zimanyi
 KFKI Research Institute for Particle  Phone: +36-1-175-8257
 and Nuclear Physics                   FAX:   +36-1-169-6567
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