Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume X, Eastern Europe

357. Telegram From the Embassy in Hungary to the Department of State¹

7397.

Budapest, July 19, 1988, 1445Z

SUBJECT

• Thoughts on the Hungarian Human Rights Situation on the Eve of Grosz’ Visit.

1. (Confidential—Entire text.)

Summary:

2. This message is an editorial comment setting forth the Embassy’s views on the Hungarian human rights situation on the eve of General Secretary Grosz’ visit and following two days of Budapest consultations by Assistant Secretary Schifter² with Hungarian officials and leading members of the opposition. We believe the Grosz visit will create important opportunities to encourage the GOH to move forward with its announced plans to codify and enumerate citizens’ rights and broaden guarantees of personal freedoms. While recognizing that many problems remain and that recent favorable trends are reversible, we believe that Hungary’s current situation offers a window of opportunity to stimulate improvements on fundamental human rights issues which would have profound impact on this society, and which we should take full advantage of.

3. The Hungarian paradox offers temptations for extremes of praise and criticism that ill-serve our interests in stimulating political reform and pluralism here. Internally, Hungary has come a long way, and we need to be careful of confusing relations between the opposition and the apparatus with relations between the people and the system. We should not allow ourselves to be too distracted by individual regime moves in “tightening up” or “easing up” on dissenters and samizdat publishers because, in the current Hungarian context, these are tactical maneuvers, blips on a small oscilloscope. We should be careful of Grosz himself—perhaps influenceable for the good, but in no way, deep down, a paragon of democratic principles. In a positive vein, we need to probe and push Grosz on his intentions regarding the fundamentals—toleration of independent associations and trade unions, holding of multiple-candidate elections for which nominations are not party-controlled, instituting meaningful limits on the party’s role in society, and accepting a multi-party structure in which opposition groups perform a normal and healthy function. Tactical objectives well within our capacities include our getting passports for the handful of dissidents now denied them, and prompting officials to lay off harassment of samizdat publishers. Successfully addressing such issues is now becoming almost routine. But Hungary’s future, in terms of fundamental political arrangements, is very much in doubt. Securing some forward movement there would represent a real payoff for Hungary, and us.

End Summary

In the Eyes of the Beholders

4. The question of what to make of Hungary presents policy difficulties across the board, and none is tougher than in the human rights area. Hungarians for the most part are able to say what they like when they want to, yet within a controlled society in which old-fashioned communist theoretical norms still have weight, with the regime’s internal policy mix containing reduced doses of fear and compulsion, and with the opposition serving as a source of ideas and concepts for reformers within the system. Hungary’s situation is also different in that economic difficulties have not yet, as in Poland and Romania, reached consumers and workplaces so seriously as to make workable social consensus elusive. While there has been significant decline in the Hungarian standard of living, with more to come, there is still room for maneuver and dialogue here. Relatively, compared to most of its Warsaw Pact allies, this is a strikingly tolerant and humane society which has taken some notable steps toward pluralism. Practically, there is substantial exercise of basic freedoms, but without guarantees. As governments go, this one has some identifiable interest in the material welfare and dignity of most of its people. In form, and to a certain extent in practice, there is control by a communist power structure we abhor.

5. Our own House of Representatives grappled with these contradictions through 11 pages of the “Congressional Record” in its May 12 floor debate on the issue of OPIC coverage for Hungary, which was voted down.³ It is a fascinating transcript. On the whole and in parts, it betokens a thoughtful view of a complicated situation. In some passages it reflects the temptation, magnified by our own ideological blinkers, to accord Hungary harsh criticism or high praise. There are guilt-by-alliance allegations of slave labor and innuendo that police seizure of samizdat materials is typical, a revelation of basic trends. On the other hand, there is a relativist statement, made in the abstract and standing alone, that in the Eastern European context Hungary’s human rights record is exemplary. In dealing with Grosz, as with Hungary, both extremes of loose criticism and unguarded praise ill-serve our basic interests in promoting democracy and pluralism here. That is because in various ways, this level of our policy debate is about trappings and attributes, and ignores the fundamentals. And that is where we most need to press Grosz.

Dissent, and Beyond

6. Prominent among the pitfalls facing us is the temptation to confuse relations between the opposition and the apparatus with relations between the people and the system. This temptation may be healthy in respect to some members of the socialist commonwealth, in the sense that blatant disregard for individual rights of Polish or Romanian or Czech or Bulgarian non-conformists are in varying degrees a reflection of broader trends within those societies. Police there use surveillance and threat of force against opposition members, and surveillance and threat of force are also an important overall element in those societies. Hungary has come a long way. In the sense that occasional samizdat seizures and denials of passports to dissidents reflect the absence of meaningful guarantees of civil liberties in this society, but do not reflect an overall atmosphere of fear and compulsion.
In the first five months of 1988, under the new passport law, Hungarians applied for and received 1.4 million new passports and made over 2.9 million trips abroad. (The country’s population is 10.6 million.) According to official statistics, there were 3,200 passport denials for all reasons, and a recent opposition research paper identifies a dozen dissidents and former 1956 activists currently being denied passports. On July 19, five of the dozen went on hunger strike; the Interior Ministry had earlier told us it would review one of those five cases. On balance, then, remaining passport denials say something about the nature of this system and its lack of legal and procedural guarantees. It is clear, all the same, that the trend is very much toward liberalized passport issuance.

7. Close contact with the Hungarian opposition over a long period has left us some strong impressions about the nature of dissent and the opposition here. One is that the most important role of Hungary’s opposition is in being a source of ideas and concepts for reformers and younger Turks within the system. There are numerous conduits: intellectuals outside of dissident circles are avid samizdat readers. Newly-created Minister of State and Politburo member Imre Pozsgay has close links to the Hungarian populists. Interior Minister Istvan Horvath has twice met with populist leader Sandor Csoori. On the democratic opposition side, ideas which first surfaced in samizdat literature such as Janos Kis’ treatise “The Social Contract,” regarding relations between the party and society, have raised arguments later picked up by ideological debate within the party itself. While the opposition is important for its seminal role, it is not (yet) the germ of an alternate party or alternative to the present government. It is important as a pressure group on party and system behavior because it is overwhelmingly moderate. To some degree it can be said that there are, between regime reformers and Hungary’s opposition, substantially shared goals and perceptions, but differences regarding tactics.

8. As Americans, we identify closely and naturally with members of the opposition. In assessing our interests in Hungary, however, we need to bear in mind that opposition movements are, by nature, in the advocacy business. It is natural that Western press treatment of opposition matters tends to highlight the negative. For example, police raids against samizdat printers in March, which involved seizure of an IBM word processor, 10 typewriters, and large quantities of printed matter received a fair amount of Western press attention. Officials’ action in returning the IBM word-processor (which had been legally imported, with import duties duly paid) in May, along with the typewriters, went unnoticed. The recently improved format of the “Beszelo” and “Hirmondo” samizdat journals owes to composition on the previously-seized word-processor. Similarly police provocation and use of excessive force against a peaceful gathering June 16, on the anniversary of Imre Nagy’s death, received widespread press attention. Numerous police beatings were reported. EmbOffs present witnessed one (Gabor Bouquet) and confirmed two more (Gabor Demszky and his wife Rozsa Hodosan), but that’s fewer than claimed in press accounts. Nowhere in Western published sources have we seen the point made that this year, for the first time, the authorities allowed a church service and a cemetery gathering to commemorate Imre Nagy’s hanging. This is not to write off excesses which should not have occurred, but to point out they were less extreme than was widely reported.

9. As a government, we need to continue to follow Hungarian opposition matters closely, but we should not allow ourselves to confuse the regime’s tactical measures in “tightening up” or “loosening up” on dissenters with the actual human rights situation here. In the current Hungarian context, these maneuvers are small blips on a large oscilloscope. The big picture which is so important here is how far Grosz intends to go in allowing real pluralism, with meaningful guarantees of fundamental human freedoms. Our challenge is to convince Grosz that in order to achieve a viable economic system, he has no alternative but to implement fundamental political reforms. The approach we advocate is not new—carrot-and-stick linkage, with the carrot consisting of the prospect of substantial and well-directed U.S. private sector investments to help turn the Hungarian economy around.

10. Grosz will not be an easy sell. He does not in any way share our innate respect for democratic values. Some of his statements in recent weeks—confusing “opposition and enemy elements,” alleging “atrocities” committed against the police June 16 at the instigation of “chauvinist, irredentist” elements, and endorsement of a cheer-leading role for trade unions—are more broadly disquieting than the June 16 police action.

Democracy’s the Thing

11. We are currently fairly successful at solving specific human rights concerns on a routine basis. With Grosz, we need to focus most strongly on the fundamentals, including worker rights such as the right to strike and toleration of independent associations and trade unions, and issues of party and political democracy including the holding of multiple-candidate elections for which nominations are not party-controlled, acceptance of a political structure in which opposition groups perform a normal and healthy function, and the establishment of a judicial system which can truly protect those rights. There is to be a new constitution, and we need to encourage meaningful mechanisms to defend constitutional rights and function from encroaching elements of the state apparatus. We need to make sure that—as leading dissidents fear—“reformist” laws on freedom of association and assembly will not become new and more sophisticated devices for regulating dissent. We should urge curbs on the activities of the secret police and seek to pin down official plans, explained to Assistant Secretary Schifter this week, to revitalize the court system and institute a constitutional court capable of overturning party and governmental edicts. Securing positive movement on these issues would represent a real payoff for Hungary, and for our interests.

Kursch

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D880620–0508. Confidential; Immediate. Sent for information to Eastern European posts, Bonn, London, Paris, Rome, and Vienna.
2. Reference is to Richard Schifter, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.
3. The debate is in the Congressional Record, vol. 134 (100th Congress, 2nd Session), pp. 10585–10605.