The diary of decline: A case‐study of the disintegration of the party in one district in Hungary

Abstract

THE PARTY-STATE SYSTEM in Hungary has collapsed. The disintegration process itself was not short. It began in 1978 or 1979, but its first stages were hidden, as the process took place behind closed doors, that is, within the channels of a politically monopolised structure. Only the last two years, and especially the last one, were spectacular, producing an avalanche-like disintegration: all the interlinking dependency threads between party and state were broken, the dependencies within the party hierarchy vanished, and all the hidden tensions and former distortions came to the surface. The avalanche-like disintegration swept away 90% of the party apparatus and almost 70% of the party members and spread them among several political parties. The former all-encompassing power disappeared. Indeed, the representatives of the communist party (MSzMP) formed from the conservative wing of the Hungarian Socialist Worker's Party could not obtain a single mandate in the new Parliament in March-April 1990. Even the reformist wing of the former party (MSzP) is represented by a small parliamentary opposition. This period was so turbulent and full of conflict, both within and outside the party elite, and also so short, that there was no time to keep the formal rhythm and repertoire of party congresses. This means that the few statistical data usually available about the number and structure of party members are not available for this period. Regular reports about the number, structure and turnover of the apparatus were always secret, kept in the local party organisations and collected by one of the departments of the Central Commitee apparatus; now they are buried somewhere in the party archives, and are inaccessible to researchers, if not vanished. The data on the given district were mostly acquired during the interviews.