Anyone willing to give me a rundown on the societal climate in Hungary in the 1980's...

Anyone willing to give me a rundown on the societal climate in Hungary in the 1980's? I am aware it was considered one of the better soviet satellite states to live in but I'm totally unfamiliar with what life was like leading up to the fall of communism. I'm reading a Hungarian novel published in 1989 (The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai) and I'm sure I'd get much more from it if I was more familiar with Hungarian society. Alternatively, if anyone knows any articles on the net about 1980's Hungary I'd be quite pleased.

Other urls found in this thread:

desuarchive.org/his/thread/2138950
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

That's a hard fucking question m8 and I am Hungarian.
I think the feelings about the fall were mixed. Many of the older people remembered the war so they were more supportive of the communist regime. The younger people especially the intelligentsia wanted change and the universities were the hubs of these intelectuelle circles. Of course in retrospect they were very idealistic since they thought that they will be able to make a decent country out of this shithole.

Hard question or not I appreciate the response my man. But essentially it is similar to most countries which go through a revolution; the older population are more concerned with the tradition of the country while the young are idealistic and believe any change they make will be a positive one.

What was life like for the average individual, or for you if you were alive during the period? Wasn't there a bit of a food shortage at some point in the 80's?

Not the same user
Different everywhere. My granddad was a party secretary, this might sound like a big deal but they were kindof office comissars at corporations who made sure the activities of the employees fit party doctrine. By the time my granddad got the job, their (so his) job was softened up greatly. Anyways, they were a strongly socialist family, my dad remembers those times quite fondly. Life was simpler, you didn't have many opportunities, but no self-esteem problems or worries either. In the city (Budapest) there was no real poverty AFAIK, a spiral of debt ensured that the populus lived relatively well despite the retarded economical ideas. You had food, pretty good quality entertainment, a sense of society. Sometimes the Western relatives brought you stuff from home which were treasures sort of. You could go to state-issued holidays in party establishments, which were not exactly luxury, but no one got luxury so you were as happy with it as you could be, Hungary didn't have that feel of a constant empty, malevolent dick-measuring contest it is now. You get the hang of it, don't you? I'm sure there were darker sides of socialist life in the 80's, but that's what I heard from my family.

cont.
Anyways, the thing is, Hungary thought it wanted a revolution real bad. They got it, we had to face the fact that our culture simply didn't develop enough and in the right direction to have a market democracy. The hopeful 90's passed quickly and Hungary started off on the path of the national failure it walks now. Thanks to the socialist system, people are simply unfit for the world of economic competition. Shit work ethic, absolute lack of critical thinking, subservience etc. Ironically, the people who claimed to hate socialism are no expection. It feels really bad to write this, but even the 56 generation, sometimes even the very people who were fighting on the streets grew so accustomed to the new system that they no longer know anything else. It might be contradictory to what you have heard, but what Orbán is building is pretty much a modern interpretation of the bolshevist era of 48-89. And many, many so-then "rebellious" people welcome his efforts.

I am Hungarian and I certify this

Magyarorszag nem jó most desu

So the Soviets had more cultural influence than any of the other states that once dominated Hungary?
Weird to think about

I find it so foreign and odd that universities and the intellectual class would be against socialism. Its amazing to see the variety in the world.

More recent, not necessarily more. And it was not direct influence, either. No one liked Soviets, and the poeple who'd love to have the bolshevist system back are still triggered by the word "communist". They consider themselves anti-Soviets and anti-communists.

But for example, the decades taught us that no matter what we do, everything is the same. Everyone had a job, 40% of the jobs made no sense to have at all. Also, nothing really changed if you absolutely excelled in your job. You saw no fruits of it, neither did you see anything if you didn't do jackshit. Especially when the country started to take out huge foreign loans to constantly raise living standards. The main thing is that the very concepts of learning, human growth and professional excellence were passively vaporized from our culture.

Correction, some people were quite happy with the Russians, like my paternal family. But the majority of the population was silently against them. Please also note that this was way after the era of terror.

Trianon kind of put your country in an identity crisis, I think that magnifies any cultural influence into the country in the following period aka after the nationalists failed in WW2

All of your posts are extremely helpful to me, friend. It seems, from what you've said, Hungary has essentially remained stagnant. And remaining stagnant is sort of another way of slowly disintegrating.

Krasznahorkai, the author I mentioned in the OP, seems to suggest the old ways were not good but the new ways are just as bad, if not worse. Above all, his works display a constant, slow decay. This is the case for Hungary, this is the case for the world.

The 1980s were a time of depression, especially the second half. Economic problems kicked in. The standard of living was being sustained from Western loans. Alcoholism and suicide rates were growing. People were rapidly losing faith in the system. The government was trying to avert catastrope by slow economic and social liberalization (like loosening restrictions on foreign travel), but it was too slow. By 1987-1988 liberal and conservative opposition was starting to seriously organize. A lot of stuff went down in 1988-1989, and I can't write it down now.

Check out this older thread: desuarchive.org/his/thread/2138950

In the 1960's, George Lincoln Rockwell was once invited to speak at UCLA and talk about National Socialism and race relations, which he did. The university wanted to promote the idea that free speech should allow everyone to express opinions regardless of how taboo they were, and Nazism was just about as taboo back then as it is now.

Now you have universities shutting people down for being more right-wing than Hillary Clinton. It was a totally different world back then.

My nigga! Thank you.
Didn't something like that happen in America recently with someone affiliated with Breitbart? I'm generally pretty left but it frustrates me to no end how so many leftists censor anyone they disagree with.

why do all you hungarians hate hungary so much?

self-loathing is probably the one thing you can guarantee in central and eastern europe

and gypsies

The funny thing is Western Europeans hate their ancestry but love their countries, and Eastern and Central Europeans love their ancestry but hate their countries.

Although I wouldn't call it self-loathing in the case of Central and Eastern Europe. The people are just disgruntled about the current state of things.

I like Hungary but shit is really going badly for us.

That's a regional mentality, probably the result of the failure that is 45 years of socialism + 25 years of oligarchic capitalism.

This is sort of funny for me in the states, I had a friend of a friend tell me about his semester abroad in Hungary and how amazing the place was. I asked him a bit about the history and he had no idea. The stupidity of my fellow burgers never ceases to appall and delight.

Hungary was always shit in the past ~500 years. The Habsurgs were worse than the commies.

If you have a few thousands euros/dollars to spend it's sure that Budapest is fucking awesome. But if you earn like 500 euros per month it's sucks ass. That's why the westerners are clueless about our self hate. Don't forget the countryside which is even worse and in a massive decay since the last decades.

Hello, my fellow post-communist friend. Bulgarian here. I was very surprised at to hear you face the same problems as we do(National self-hate, economic problems, oligarchy, etc). Here we always believe you have it much better than us, that you're the perfect example of a post-Eastern Block nation.
I'm curious, though, what are your thoughts on neighboring Austria? We're told you live just as well as them. Is that true?

Lol no, Austria is a serious country

Meaning?

Meaning they are not completely defunct regarding their attitude to anything needed to keep a market economy running. Their economy was also not in ruins by 89. They have actual governments and much higher living standards than us.

quick rundown

What about Orban? People here love him, they're looking for our own 'Orban'.

good post

it was a total shithole just like any other communist country, my grandma lived in hungary during the ussr occupation for a while before getting refugee status and this is what she told me

>everybody was extremely poor
>you were not allowed to speak out against the government or else you would disappear
>basically it was an authortarian shithole senpai

>The Habsurgs were worse than the commies.
Literally wrong though. My great grandmother lived through them, I even asked her about what it was like before communism in hungary and I'll try to remember what she said

I already made this post but Ill expand on what she said

>before communism, a lot of people were poor and it was not perfect, but you were able to move up and get yourself out of it
>after communism, everybody was poor, and there was nothing you could do to change it

Endless gibsmedat. Petty corruption and nepotism so bad it literally stoped state machinery from working, half of the country was built from stolen public resources. Entire generation of petty, whiny, and spiteful bydlos. After the brutal supression of '56 the nationalistic spirit was broken and carefully uprooted, leaving only self-hating, materialistic cucks behind willing to shit on themselves for asspats.

>Orbán is building is pretty much a modern interpretation of the bolshevist era of 48-89

This is the exact line of thinking of old commies sitting in opposition. They were finally pushed out of power and they are mad about nationalism being a thing again.

He put the country back on track, but you cant erase generations of failed, whiny retards and a culture of self-hatred instantly.

neobolshevist pls go
Where are you from? Most rightists abroad know him for his fervent anti-immigrant stance and his wall. Fine, be anti-immigration. It's your choice. Vote for it in politics. But the Orbán issue is not about that. These are in fact just secondary things, and also hypocrisy as he will become friends with any Islamist as long as they are rich businessmen.
What he actually did is that he finalised the destruction of Hungarian democracy, ruined education and openly made corruption a national standard. I mean, government officials are now saying it on TV that they are taking public money for their own purposes and the people no longer mind. He and his friends increased their wealth since he took office by about 1000000%, merely a coincide ofc. Also, in 2017 Hungarian state pension funds are quite literally gone (at least that was the case last year) and you have a greater chance to die in an infection you got at the hospital due to extremely poor healthcare conditions than the illness you were originally hospitalised with. But football stadiums, private business venues and luxury apartments for government officials and their relatives are springing up left and right.

He is simply a traitor to Hungary.

Also, on our self-hate: the Hungarians that shittalk Hungary are not self-hating. The ones who actually hate themselves hide it behind their faked arrogance and national pride.
"Self-hating" Hungarians are perfectly fine with themselves, they just don't like the state their country is in and consider most of its people fucking idiots. As for myself, I'd put it this way: I'm Hungarian and I'm proud of what makes me Hungarian, I identify with the land, some of the cultural aspects and the language that makes others Hungarian, but not with all of them and most of all not with the country as a political entity. I just don't feel myself politically represented as a Hungarian by anyone. Consequentally, my European identity has grown stronger.

>left in charge of universities
I bet you think liberals are leftists

You know, it's strange reading these comments from Hungarians themselves.
The image that we have just across the border is very different. Orban while a nationalist leader has prestige and is taken seriously by the West and loved by Hungarians.

Hungary is presented like an advanced Western country, with little or no social problems, that is appreciated by Europe and loved by all its citizens.
Many envy Hungary and Orban as a political leader.

Watch SATANTANGO by Béla Tarr. Might give you clues

>Many of the older people remembered the war so they were more supportive of the communist regime

Thy were more supportive of the communists that raped and pillaged their country during the war.

Leftists never cease to amuse me with their delusions.

Interesting you say that, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the author I mentioned in the OP, wrote the book Satantango and then the screenplay for Satantango. I believe he and Tarr are friends, or at the very least respect each other artistically.

I want to read Satantango before I watch the seven hour epic. I'd also like to watch a few other Bela Tarr films before I dive into his longest. I was thinking The Turin Horse.

In America the left is associated with liberals. I apologize for my ignorance.

A prime exaple of the liberal self-hater I talked about.

>What he actually did is that he finalised the destruction of Hungarian democracy

WAAAAH PEOPLE ARE NOT VOTING FOR US WAAAH WAAAAAHHHHH - opposition for the 7th year by now


>I mean, government officials are now saying it on TV that they are taking public money for their own purposes and the people no longer mind

Guess that speaks a lot about the liberal opposition too, right? If only it would be true and not you making shit up again.

>Also, in 2017 Hungarian state pension funds are quite literally gone

Yet another straight, bold faced lie.

>you have a greater chance to die in an infection you got at the hospital due to extremely poor healthcare conditions than the illness you were originally hospitalised with.

Yet another lie(I'm noticing a pattern)

>But football stadiums, private business venues and luxury apartments for government officials and their relatives are springing up left and right.


Yeah with state debt dropping, low unemployment, GDP over expetations every year, IMF sent home whining, borders getting defended from migrants and so on. I wish we had more "corrupt" politicians fixing the economy like that.


>Consequentally, my European identity has grown stronger.

Fucking kek, what a deluded idiot.

>WAAAAH PEOPLE ARE NOT VOTING FOR US WAAAH WAAAAAHHHHH - opposition for the 7th year by now
No, they just gerrymanded everything so they would win 2/3 no matter what, rewrote the constitution to give way for anything they please, destroyed the notion of free media, plan to move Orbán into the fucking castle as a symbolic gesture etc. Really isn't much to talk about, yet all you can use is strawmanning.
>Guess that speaks a lot about the liberal opposition too, right?
It does, I explicitly mentioned that I don't feel represented in politics.
>Yet another straight, bold faced lie.
It was near empty a few years back. Also the new plan to make people directly finance their own parents' retirement instead says a lot.
>Yet another lie
An exaggeration, maybe. Still, healthcare is neglected as it is.
>state debt dropping
I remember this being hot topic a while back, then it turned out our obligations to one debtor dropped, this was bragged about, while they increased equally for another one. If it is actually dropping right now it still doesn't compensate for the increasing poverty and despair across the country.
>Low unemployment
Please. The public job programme is a joke. Apart from not paying nearly enough to feed a single person, yet alone a family, they are needless and humiliating jobs that serve no purpose besides making this number appear better.
>IMF sent home whining
What the fuck is that even supposed to mean.
>borders getting defended from migrants
Defended my arse, they had no intention of staying here and they came through just the same. It was all but a secondary non-policy to spark low-level public debate.
>Fucking kek, what a deluded idiot.
Ah yes, sure. You couldn't write a post without ridiculous strawmanning and name-calling for no reason.

So here they are, the two types of voices to be heard in Hungary. Decide for yourself which one hates themselves the more.

>No, they just gerrymanded everything so they would win 2/3 no matter what

>won two supermajorities back to back
>they would win a supermajoIty right now

I guess the people still want them to have a 2/3

>rewrote the constitution to give way for anything they please

Yeah, thats exactly why the people vote for them. They want them to do stuff. When the people will want the liberal parties languishing at 1-2% to do things and have an impact they will vote for them.

>destroyed the notion of free media

What the fuck is this shit? Yet another complete, total, 100% lie?

Nah fuck this, I'm bored of talking to whiny liberals. Youre completely disconnected from reality, you hate yourself and your country and you hate the idea that its successful without the liberalis "condoning" it.


See ya at the 2018 election, yet another supermajority coming.

Tbh you don't seem to understand what gerrymandering means.

Also, everything you said could have been said by someone supporting the reds at the formation of the SU as well. I leave you to consider the paralells, but I assume you won't do that anyways.

And no, I don't hate myself. I absolutely love myself as I have every reason to do so, and maybe this is why I don't hate on other people and can talk to them without resorting to vulgarity, even when we disagree.

However, I will be out of the country by 2018.

Germoney here. Don't listen to the fag above. What you are telling about Hungary seems reasonable and in line with the general alt-right/populist behaviour.

This whining about globalism and making the state strong again is just frustrated leftist thought. The left has become the establishment in most of the developed world and now you have right wing populists making unfullfillable promises pandering to the lowest common denominator. All of them corrupt and inept. The funny part is the socialist regimes in the eastern bloc were rampantly nationalistic and chauvinistic.

On another Note:

What do you think is Orbans endgame. Stuffing his pockets and putting his cronies in place or does he have a real Vision?

I think he has a vision of Orbánland. He is megalomaniac to the end. While his lackeys (Lázár János, Rogán Antal, Mészáros Lőrinc to name a few) are just in the game for a nice little ego trip and some mad dosh, he has a very strong vision of himself and his role in Hungary. After the loss in 2006, he was attending psychiatrical care in Austria and that was about the time when his political behaviour assumed an attitude of 'I will get on top even if it means this country will literally burn to ashes'.

I think there's a slight chance he would not, at least figuratively, survive being ousted.

>Germoney here

You mean the moribund country cucked to death by migrants? And youre even about to elect the fat EU jew, my fucking sides.

>This whining about globalism and making the state strong again is just frustrated leftist thought

Guess Trump is a commie now

>right wing populists making unfullfillable promises pandering

Oh but he fulfilled his promises, thats why the liberals are so mad. They have nothing to compete with, except lies and whining.

>The funny part is the socialist regimes in the eastern bloc were rampantly nationalistic and chauvinistic.

Not hungary. Selh-hatred was imposed.

Wait a minute, poster count remained the same. Nice try, samefag.

Maybe the German poster had posted before in the thread. Do you want a phone photo of only one (you) in your reply?

This is the average Orbán fan. These type of people are the ones who think that everyone opposing their beloved leader is a jew, communist, freemason etc. They are completely brainwashed by the state controlled media.

Why would anyone think that? Hungary is the third poorest country in Europe.

This is your average projecting liberal. These are the types of people who vent their frustration on the internet because they know they have no chance to be in power again.

My friend, do you think you are in power? Do you think you are being watched out for?

In the EU*

>he thinks Orbán is caring about him or anyone beside himself

>want fence
>get fence

Enjoy your multiculturalism and blanda upp.

Fine, if a fence is all you need, then Orbán is truly the greatest leader for you.

Thanks. I will enjoy the upper-middle class life I will be leading in a nice neighbourhood in a Western country I choose to emigrate to.

I would appreciate muslims over Hungarians any time. I think that even they are more sophisticated than this balkanised cesspit.

I suspect a samefagging though

>poster count not changing

Major kek.

>I would appreciate muslims

Dont worry, you will soon have a lot of them to appreciate.

Quit your autism about the poster count. I'm half of the replies in this thread, obviously it won't increase when I post again.
This was not me but the same guy as Or is it still you? Calling samefagging on the people who call samefag on you, along with yourself? The alt right really knows no lows it will not swoop to.

>they had no intention of staying here and they came through just the same
They still caused a great deal of chaos, especially at the train stations and highways which were totally clogged up. It's not like their presence went unnoticed.

The government also has to pay a considerable amount of money to take care of each migrant. It's not like they can pass through the country in a single day. The border fence essentially pays for itself by limiting the amount of people that are coming in. Hungary already has enough financial concerns as it is. Not to mention, the EU tried to impose quotas on Hungary to settle migrants, which Orban rejected.

> they just gerrymanded everything so they would win 2/3 no matter what
Gerrymandering or not, Fidesz still won the popular vote by almost twice as much as the Socialists. It's not like that matters to me, but it definitely disproves your point about the people not wanting Fidesz. And now Jobbik is said to beat the Socialists in the next election anyway.

Really? How many people did the Hungarian migrants in the 50's rape? How many riots did they start?

Thanks for outing yourself and an obvious shill. You guys are really starting to slip.

The people did not want Fidesz to the extent Fidesz got seats in the parliament. I also don't see any point of mine claiming that the people didn't want them.

The costs of this whole border-hunter ordeal and the anti-migrant campaigns to scare the people here (they were messages supposedly directed at migrants, but somehow only in Hungarian) far exceeded the alternative costs.

Also, the EU migrant quotes were about some laughably small number. I'm not mad at all about not having them here but they would not be 1/100th of the problem they made them out to be in any way.

>the EU literally forcing ethnic and demographic changes to destroy the ethnic homogenity of its member states
>not a big problem

lmfao willkommenskultur

good troll

>not supporting a masonic multicultural European superpower

I bet you are a Christian too.

>The people did not want Fidesz to the extent Fidesz got seats in the parliament.

Maybe let the people decide that.

I'm sorry user, but you seem to be a bit challenged by the concepts to grasp here

The other user brought up the fact Fidesz won has been in power for 7 years in a row and you said, "no, they just gerrymandered everything". It may not be what you actually meant, but it seemed like you were implying that the people didn't actually elect Orban.

Regardless of the costs, it doesn't change the fact that the inflow of migrants caused a lot of chaos in the country and unnecessary problems for citizens. The fence at least is helping to control it. About 764,038 entered Hungary in 2015. 138,396 entered in September alone, but thanks to the fence, the number was less than half that amount the following month despite the fact it increased for the rest of Europe.

The initial amount that the EU wanted Hungary to settle was quite small, but that's only because they knew Hungarians would lose their shit if they were presented with a larger number. The quota system would allow the EU to create future quotas and force Hungary to accept even more migrants. Germany is completely overwhelmed right now, and God forbid if Martin "EUSSR" Schulz becomes Chancellor. So of course people are nervous about it.

The EU needs to be exposed for how incompetent they are. I'm glad Orban has chosen to do something about instead of just bending to their demands. He's sending a good message to the rest of Europe.