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Revolution from within: Institutional Analysis, Transitions from Authoritarianism, and theCase of HungaryAuthor(s): Patrick H. O'NeilSource: World Politics, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Jul., 1996), pp. 579-603Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25053982

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REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN

Institutional Analysis, Transitions from

Authoritarianism, and the Case of Hungary

By PATRICKH.O'NEIL*

THE

dramatic collapse of state socialism inEastern Europe poses a

number of questions still waiting to be answered. One of the most

interestingconcerns how communism

collapsedand how the process

varied across theregion.

The transitions in EasternEurope

are charac

terized by diversityin

timing, manner, and central characteristics. Thus,

there were theearly, negotiated developments

in Poland andHungary,

the sudden downfall of regimes inEast Germany and Czechoslovakia,the

ambiguous"revolution" of Romania, and the

palace coup in Bul

garia. Moreover, each oneshaped

the prospects for consolidated

democracy differently.

Hungary is especially striking in that within theparty itselfover the

course of 1988 and 1989 there developeda rural-based political

move

ment, the so-called reform circles, whichplayed

animportant part in

undermining the ability of the leadership to dictate the course of the

transition. Such differences aresuggestive

of thediversity

of state so

cialism within theregion, contradicting the appearance of

uniformity

amongthese

politicalstructures.

This study,an analysis of the dissolution of theHungarian Socialist

Workers' Party (Magyar SzocialistaMunk?sp?rt,orMSZMP),makes the

case that understandinghow authoritarian rule was first institutional

ized in agiven

case is akey

to a betterunderstanding

of variations in

authoritarian transitions. Institutional orders determine the context

thatshapes

notonly

the transition event itself but also thesubsequent

political order, that is, how authoritarianism dies and whatreplaces

it.

In this study the strong connection between institutional forms and the

*The research for this study

wassupported

in 1992 and 1993 bya

Fulbright-Hays Grant from the

Center for International Education of the U.S.Department

of Education, aswell asby

a grant from

the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX),with funds provided by the U.S. Departmentof State. None of these organizations is

responsiblefor the views herein

expressed. My thanks toAn

drew K. Milton for his comments onprevious versions of this article.

WorldPolitics 48 (July 1996), 579-603



580 WORLD POLITICS

trajectory of authoritarian collapse inHungary will serve to illustrate

this argument.

Current Perspectives on Authoritarian Transitions

Authoritarian transitions in EasternEurope

and elsewhere aretypically

explained byreference to either "structural" or

"process" arguments.

Structural arguments tend to stress the macrolevel conditions (for ex

ample,economic

development, urbanization, levels of socialprogress)

that arenecessary for the creation of

democracyout of a nondemocra

tic form of political control. Process arguments takea

different ap

proach, focusingto a

greaterextent on the means and patterns by

which actual authoritarian dissolution takesplace

andconcentrating

on

the interaction of elitepolitical figures

and the success or failure of such

negotiationsto

producestable

democracy.1

Both sets of arguments stand inopposition

to one another. Struc

turalism can be criticized in that socioeconomicdevelopment and po

litical democratization are often taken aslargely axiomatic, and the

question of how a nation-state moves from an authoritarian system to a

democratic one is notgiven

due consideration. Process-oriented per

spectives, by contrast, can be criticized formoving

to the other extreme.

The oft-cited Transitionsfrom

Authoritarian Rule, forexample, provides

no framework forcontextualizing

events and opts instead to document

the actions ofpolitical elites and to stress their resourcefulness as a

keyvariable in the transition, to the exclusion of both state and

societyas

analytical components.2Currentapproaches

to thestudy

ofpolitical

transitions thus remain

unintegrated.Macrolevel structuralist

approaches paintthe broad brush

strokes of state, economy, andsociety

but fail to link these conditions

to thedynamic of actual

political change;microlevel process approaches

catalogthe actual transition

phenomenabut do not connect them to

the environment from whichthey emerge. Each framework, while es

sential tounderstanding political transitions, excludes the other, to the

detriment of both.One way of

bridging the gap between process- and structure-based

1Well-known

examples of structural arguments include Seymour MartinLipset,

"Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic

Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Re

view 53 (March 1959); notable among process-oriented works is Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C.

Schmitter, and Lawrence Whitehead, eds., Transitionsfrom

Authoritarian Rule, 4 vols. (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).2O'Donnell, Schmitter, andWhitehead (fn. 1).



REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN: HUNGARY 581

analyses is tostudy theway inwhich organized activities become fixed,

self-replicatingsocial forms. The "new institutionalism," which has en

joyeda

strong resurgence within social science, stresses theimpact

of

institutions on theordering

and formation of social andpolitical

rela

tions.3 As to what makes this area ofstudy theoretically valuable and

how thesefindings apply

toanalyses of state socialism and authoritar

ian decline ingeneral,

there are nosimple answers, since institutional

approachesare characterized by

adiversity

of views that are not neces

sarilyreconcilable.

However, several centralassumptions

threadthrough

much of this

research. Tobegin with, they

start from a

rejectionof the individual

based marketanalogies

of the rational choice, pluralist,or behavioralist

approaches.These

approaches typicallyview institutions as little more

than instrumental structures created to servespecific

utilitarian func

tions, "arenas within whichpolitical behavior, driven

bymore funda

mental factors, occurs."4 By contrast, institutionalperspectives

rest on

the assumption that theseorganized

forms are notsimply transparent

constructs but rather are a morecomplex

and influential aspect of

human behavior. Institutional arguments stress that these forms do not

necessarily follow frompurposive

humandesign

but instead often arise

through unintended actions and replicationor

by default. Institutional

conformityto rational

expectationscan be

dramaticallyaffected

bythe

pullof internal and external activity

as theorganization

strives to main

tain and define its ownintegrity.5

Second, institutions, asself-replicating structures, develop

their own

particular characteristics?resources, values, norms, routines, and pat

terns?which arepassed

on to individuals both inside and outside the

structure. This tends to bestow on institutionsindependent power, the

abilityto create and

shapethe

objectivesof individual and collective ac

tion. In contrast to more atomisticapproaches

to social choice, institu

tions can "establish the very criteriaby

whichpeople

discover their

preferences."6 ThedaSkocpol nicely

summarizes thispoint: "Organiza

tionalconfigurations, along

with their overall patterns ofactivity,

affect

political culture, encouragesome kinds of

groupformation and collec

3See in

particular James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, "The New Institutionalism: OrganizationalFactors in Political Life," American Political Science Review 78

(September 1984); Walter W. Powell

and Paul J.DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism inOrganizational Analysis (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1991).4March and Olsen (fn. 3), 734.5JohnW. Meyer andW. Richard Scott, Organizational

Environments: Ritual andRationality (Bev

erly H?ls, Calif.: Sage, 1983).6Paul J.DiMaggio andWalter W. Powell, "Introduction," in Powell and DiMaggio (fn. 3), 11.



582 WORLD POLITICS

tive political actions (but not others), and make possible the raising of

certainpolitical

issues (but not others)."7

Third, animportant corollary, organizational

"lock in," is central to

understanding institutionalization itself. Institutionalization typicallyinvolves the formation of

policiesand patterns of behavior to

respondto the

surroundingenvironment. Over time these

practices tend to

harden, becomingan

inseparable part of theorganization's objectives

and thereforeblurring the

relationshipbetween means and ends. As a

result, dramatic reorganization becomes more difficult. Indeed, when

highly institutionalizedorganizations

are confronted with environmen

tal or internalchallenges, they

are more

likelyto

suppress

or

ignorethese contradictions than to

respondwith corrective measures.8

This has twoimplications. First, suboptimal systems may persevere

over along period

of time. Second, if thegrowing

obsolescence of an

institution fosters internal or external pressure, the institution is likelyto

respond by attemptingto

preserve the status quo regardless, until

such time as the tension succeeds ineliminating

the institution en

tirely.9Institutional

developmentthus appears

as apunctuated rather

than a gradual form of change.10 This corresponds well to our under

standingof transitions and revolutions, such as those in Eastern

Europe?situations that arise without

warningand

bringdown the authoritar

ian system within arelatively

shortperiod

of time.

Application and Misinterpretation

in Institutional Analysis

The institutionalperspective has

gaineda

great deal of currency over

the pastten years,

asmany scholars now utilize it to

augmentor

sup

plant earlier theories of political activity that had stressed individual ac

tion without reference topersistent

social constructs. Research on the

state, includingstate socialism, is one clear

exampleof this.11 In some

7Theda

Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In: Current Research," in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich

Reuschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringingthe State Back In

(Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1985),21.

8DiMaggio and Powell (fn. 6), 14-15.

9G. John Ikenberry, "Conclusion: An Institutional

ApproachtoAmerican Foreign Economic Pol

icy,"inG.John Ikenberry, David A. Lake, andMichael Mastanduno, eds., The State and American For

eignEconomic

Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), 224-25.10

StephenD. Krasner, "Approaches

to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynam

ics," ComparativePolitics 16

(January 1984), 240-44.11

Notable examples include Ellen Comisso, "Introduction: State Structures, Political Processes, and

Collective Choice in CMEA States," InternationalOrganization

40(Spring 1986); Ken Jowitt, "Weber,

Trotsky and Holmes on the Study of Leninist Regimes," Journal ofInternational

Affairs45 (Summer

1991); Victor Nee and David Stark, "Toward an Institutional Analysis of State Socialism," inDavid




ways, earlier studies of socialismanticipated

this current wave of re

search, asWeberian-influencedorganizational theory, beginning

in the

1950s, strongly shapedwork on theUSSR and Eastern Europe.12Nevertheless, although

institutional analysisis

winning converts, at

least withinpolitical

science theperspective

tends to suffer from weak

nesses in both definition and theoretical power. For onething,

institu

tions are often characterized as little more thanself-reproducing

constructs, linked to sunk costs and vested interests, rather than as ac

tors in their ownright, creating

their ownorganizational

culture and re

sources. As RonaldJepperson notes, "Institutions are not

justconstraint

structures;all institutions

simultaneously empowerand control.13

A second problem lies in overstating institutional effects.While the

institutionalperspective

hasrightly

been accorded a role in under

standing politicalorder and

change,some have utilized the

approachin

away that exaggerates the

uniquenessof

politicalinstitutions as vari

ables, which leads to the conclusion thatpolitical

institutions are so

context-dependentas to be

largely noncomparative.This then limits

thedegree

to which institutional effects can begeneralized.

One finds this particularly in institutional analyses of state social

ism.14Certainly,

the introduction of institutionalperspectives

into stud

ies of state socialism is awelcomechange

from earlier attemptsto

place

these systems under the rubric ofWesternpolitical

orders. But when

the institutionalperspective

isoveremphasized,

the arguments lose

their theoretical character and shift away from aconcept stressing

process toward anideographic symbol emphasizing character, differenti

ation, that is, overshadows

causality. Following

this

logic,

the institu

tions of state socialism thus become "novel" because, to use Ken Jowitt's

well-worn term, theyare "Leninist," but we then fail to

identifythe un

derlying dynamics that institutionalized Leninism in the first place. A

generalizable process of institutionalization isconsequently

lost. Jowitt

evenrejects

the use of the term "state socialism," in that its use has "in

creased the analytic familiarity of Leninist regimes by denying their in

stitutionalpeculiarity."15

As others have noted, such advice does not

Stark and Victor Nee, eds., Remakingthe Economic Institutions

ofSocialism: China and Eastern

Europe

(Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1989); and Valerie Bunce and M?ria Csan?di, "Uncer

tainty in the Transition: Post-Communism inHungary,"

EastEuropean

Politics and Societies 7(Spring

1993).12

See, forexample, Barrington Moore Jr., Terror and

Progress,U.S.S.R.: Some Sources

of Changeand

Stabilityin the Soviet

Dictatorship (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954).13

Jepperson, "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism," in Powell and DiMaggio (fn.

3), 146.14

See inparticular Jowitt (fn. 11); and Nee and Stark (fn. 11).

15Jowitt(fn.ll),40.



584 WORLD POLITICS

lend itself to either theory buildingor

generalization. Nor does it en

rich the analytical process by searchingfor

illuminating concepts else

where within the social sciences.16

ENRICHINGTHE "NEW"INSTITUTIONALISMITH LESSONS

FROM THE "Old"

Manyof the

shortcomingsin the so-called new institutionalism in po

litical science areaggravated by

the fact that ourunderstanding

of the

intellectual origins of this field is rather limited. Notable for its absence

isany

reference to thepioneer

of institutionalanalysis,

thesociologist

Philip Selznick, whose work onorganizational development

in the

1940s and 1950s paved theway for later studies in the field. This ispar

ticularly ironic, giventhat Selznick's

approachismore consistent with

arguments currently employedin

politicalscience than with those

found insociology

itself.17

AmongSelznick's many contributions in the area of organizational

study,one of the most

importantwas his

emphasison the link between

co-optation (defined as both the informal linkage of a unit to externalactors as ameans of

pacificationas well as the formal

incorporationof

individuals into the unit itself) and the institutionalization process.Selznick made the case most

strongly in his 1949 TVA and theGrass

Roots, arguingthat one of the

keyfactors influencing institutionaliza

tion was thedegree

towhich organizations, seekingto validate their ac

tivities and/or fill administrative demands, createlinkages

and/or

formally incorporateactors external to themselves. By doing so, the or

ganizationconnects itself to the broader environment and, it is

hoped,

increases its technical power and legitimacyas a result.

How anorganization responds

to the external environment is neither

predeterminednor uniform, however; existing

social patterns maycre

ate certain obstacles oropportunities,

andorganizational

leaders may

attemptto realize different forms and

degreesof

linkageas a result. The

givensocial

landscapeand the way in which an

organizationcan and

doesrespond

makes a difference in the institutionalizationprocess.

Institutionalization can thus be seen as a basic tactic fororganiza

tional survival, thoughone that over time often generates its own set of

16See the criticism of Jowitt's approach

inPhilippe C. Schmitter and Terry Karl, "The Types of

Democracy Emerging in Southern and Eastern Europeand South and Central America," in Peter

M. E. Volten, Bound toChange: Consolidating Democracy

inEast-Central Europe (New York* Institute

for East-West Studies, 1992), 43-45.17W. Richard Scott, "Unpacking

Institutional Arguments,"in Powell and DiMaggio (fn. 3),

179-80.



REVOLUTION FROMWITHIN: HUNGARY 585

dangers.While the process of

co-optationcreates a set of environmen

tal relations that legitimizes the organization, there is also the risk that

these relations will gaina

greater prioritythan had been envisioned in

the original policy objectives and consequently that distinctions be

tween means and ends will be blurred.Organizations

thus become "in

fuse[d] with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at

hand."18 The organization,no

longer simplyan instrument of a

larger

policy goal,becomes valued for its own sake, and

self-replicationbe

comes theprimary objective.

As a result, an institution may grow increasinglyinflexible even as

the social environment remains

dynamic.

This raises the

possibility

that

the institution will be less willingor able to respond to succeeding

waves of externalchallenges.

One way ofdealing

with theproblem

is

to continue with the policyof

co-optation, buildingnew

linkagesand

incorporatingnew members. However, the more

deeplyinstitutional

ized theorganization

and the greater theblurring

of the means-ends

relationship,the more resistant itwill be to

assimilatingnew actors

whose loyalty to the institution (as opposed to its ostensible goals) is

in doubt. This is the essence of the struggle within state socialism,described as the battle between the institutional "red"and the independent

"expert"?termsthat have become part of the lexicon of

organiza

tional behavior.19

Reinterpreting State Socialism as an Institutional Form

State socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europeis a clear case

of extreme institutionalization. Stalinism represented above all a

process ofco-optation

andpenetration

into all aspects ofsociety

and

economy,a

process thatparalleled

the formation of alarge

nomen

klatura whose power derived fromloyalty

to the organization itself.

With the institutionalization of the partycame the subversion of its in

strumental nature: the partycame to be venerated as the revolution in

carnate and the infallible manifestation of the people's will; it signaledthe

complete mergingof means and ends. And as it became the em

bodiment andjudge

of knowledgeand truth, itwas the sole evaluator of

all information. This was carried to extremelengths

andapplied

even to

18Philip Selznick, Leadership

inAdministration (Evanston, 111.:Row, Peterson, 1957), 17.19

As Alvin Gouldner argues, this is in fact a basic part of political developmentin all societies; in

the longrun the intellectual "expert" segment must be "either coopted

into theruling

class or itmust

be subjectedto the

repressivecontrol of a

burgeoning bureaucracy."See Gouldner, The Future of the

Intellectuals and theRiseof

theNew Class (New York:Seabury Press, 1979), 24.



586 WORLD POLITICS

economic and scientific relations, sinceobjective

criteria were feared as

a source of autonomous, noninstitutional power. Subsequently,this

highly institutionalized Soviet form was replicated in Eastern Eu

rope?irrespective of the nature of the local environment.

With the death of Stalin and attempts at reform in the Soviet Union,communist leaders in Eastern

Europerealized that their domestic in

stitutional linkageswere

extremely weak, leavingthem vulnerable to the

impactof

changesin Soviet domestic and international

policy.Domes

tic institutional ties now attracted greater attention.By the 1960s many

communist leaders initiated policies of limited political and economic

reform inhopes

ofco-opting

the"experts" among

theintelligentsia

and

in thatway building local legitimacy and increasing technical power. It

seemed the intellectuals were on the road to classpower.20

These actionsreignited

thestruggle

between red and expert. As in

tellectuals across theregion

raised calls for the reorganization of social

ism and its reformulation on new, objective grounds, party leaders,

whose claim topower

was basedsolely

on theirloyalty

to these very in

stitutions, struck back. The end of Prague Spring in 1968 wasonly the

most evident example; intellectuals all over the region were purged

from or left the party, leavingthe

institutionally loyalin clear control.21

Where domestic institutionalization was stillpursued,

itwas nolonger

predicatedon increased intellectual autonomy but instead

appealedei

ther to narrow and limited technocratic claims(rationalizing

but not

liberalizing the centralized economy)or to traditional legitimizing

forms, definingand

justifyingthe party-state with the same

myths used

by their ruling predecessors.

After 1968 the Czechoslovak party returned to a highly centralized

form, legitimized byits

conformityto Soviet strictures rather than

by

the domestic environment. EastGermany

also soon launched its own

offensiveagainst

theintelligentsia, merging

technocratic reform with

extreme ideological ridigity inwhat has been termed "computer Stalin

ism."22 In Poland, the party triedvariously repression

and technical

rationalization, with results so disastrousthey

eroded domestic institu

tional linkages and paved the way for the rise of Solidarity and theparty's desperate

recourse to martial law. Even in Romania and Bui

20George Konr?d and Iv?n Szel?nyi, The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power (New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979).21

Iv?n Szel?nyi, "The Prospects and Limits of the EastEuropean

New Class Project: An Auto

Critical Reflection on The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power," Politics andSociety 15, no. 2

(1986-87).22

Leslie Holmes, "The GDR: 'Real Socialism' or'Computer Stalinism'?" inLeslie Holmes, ed., The

Withering Away ofthe State?

Partyand State under Communism (London: Sage, 1981).




garia,where liberalization had been modest to

begin with, those steps

forward werequickly

reversed. Instead, domestic institutionalization

wassought through traditional, "Balkan" institutional forms, such as

the development of sultanistic and dynastic party apparatuses, as well

as the resurrection of nationalism andprecommunist history,

which

viewed the partyas the

expressionofthat national

destiny.

Only inHungary did the process of institutionalization continue to

depend upona liberalized

policyas a means of

co-opting societyand

the intelligentsia in particular.While this had the intended effect of

blocking the formation of socialopposition,

it also moved animportant

segment

of intellectual dissent into the ranks of the

party

itself. As a re

sult of this form of institutionalization?legitimacy attempted throughsocial reconciliation and the formal incorporation of the intelli

gentsia?the party bothperpetuated

its rule and created the means of

its eventual downfall.

The Institutionalization of Socialism inHungary:

From Stalinism to "Goulash Communism"

To explain why Hungary followed the institutional path that itdid, one

must first understand the effect of the 1956Hungarian revolution, sig

nificant for having totally destroyed organized party power. Followingthe rebellion, a violent reaction to the

repressive policiesof General

Secretary M?ty?s R?kosi, the party resorted to coercive ruleduring

the

years 1956-62. However, the newgeneral secretary, J?nos K?d?r, even

tually chose to create a new institutional base forHungarian

socialism

by pursuing a policy of reconciliation rather than continued force. Shat

teredby

the revolution, shorn of members, its heroicmyths,

and much

of its leadership, the chaoswithin the party gave K?d?r the opportunityto

incorporatewithin the structure a new set of administrative ideolo

gies upon which to construct apolicy

of broadco-optation.

From the 1960s onward thispolicy

of"goulash

communism" was

typified bya number of reformist

policiesunknown elsewhere in the re

gion.K?d?rism in essence

represented

a form of institutionaldualism,

where a whole array of ad hocorganizational

forms were created to

compensate for, but notreplace,

the intractable Soviet model. Eco

nomic reforms allowed for a more decentralized and mixed socialist

economy, with agreater role for

entrepreneurial activity. Simultaneously

the party initiated arapid liberalization within society in general.

While the core institutions of the party-state remained intact, new rou

tines andpractices

formed around theedges

of thepolitical system,

an



588 WORLD POLITICS

informalco-optation process known to

Hungariansocial scientists as

the "dual" or "second"society.23

A more formal process of party co-optationalso took

place,as the

MSZMPexpanded

its recruitment to thegrowing

nonmanual sector.

This focus was notonly

on the clerical andmanagerial

sectors but also

on the younger intelligentsia.For many of these young intellectuals,

party membership took on a highly charged political edge; exposed to

neo-Marxist and antiestablishment views, theyarrived with a mission

to create amodern socialist order.

Thus, while elsewhere in Eastern Europea conservative counter

offensive hademerged by

the late1960s, driving

intellectuals out of the

party andsowing

the seeds of later opposition movements, inHungary

reforms and co-optative policieswere

largely keptin

place.K?d?r as

well as the Soviets knew that since 1956 stability inHungary had been

predicatedon a

temperedform of one-party rule, whose rollback could

spell disaster. In other words, the process of institutionalization?of

building linkagesto an external, legitimizing

environment?involved a

system of routines and norms that maintained thesanctity

oforganiza

tional form, while allowing for alternative activity on the margins of the

party-state. Reform andco-optation

were not intended torectify

the

shortcomingsof state socialism, but rather were intended to compen

sate for it.

This created acontradictory

situation for many intellectuals in the

MSZMP. On the one hand, it became evident that the currentsystem of

socialism had clear limits to reform. On the other hand, theHungarian

party remained at least superficially committed to liberal policies. As

opposedto elsewhere in the region, many intellectuals retained their

party ties in the hope that change could somehow be effected from

within. As a result, this group slowly beganto

developas an internal

"party opposition [that] did not identify with the R?kosi or the

K?d?rist model, or the Stalinist orpost-Stalinist systems that they had

created. 'This is not oursystem,

not our socialism. We joined theparty

so

that we couldtransform

this modeV"

(emphasis added).24

The party leadership, in the meantime, while simultaneously co-opt

ing intellectuals, took stepsto

prevent theascendancy

of an intelli

gentsia"new class." Recent studies have shown that while in

Hungary

the party actively courted theintelligentsia, they

were directed primar

ilyinto state

positions,while their ascension into

important offices

23Elem?r Hankiss, East

EuropeanAlternatives (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), chap.

3.24

L?szl? Lengyel,Micsoda ev (What a

year ) (Budapest: Sz?pirodalmi Konyvkiad?, 1991), 20.




within the party itselfwaseffectively prevented; these remained in the

hands of apoorly educated, aging leadership.25

Thissegregation

of red

and expert between party and statewas a useful way of both pacifyingand controlling party intellectuals. At them?tropole level of Budapestthe party intelligentsia found thatmembership provided opportunitiesand privileges,

even a limited part in political developments if they

stepped carefully. These actors, as anecessary part of socialist

legiti

macy,were thus

incorporatedinto the

rulingstructure and

brought

under control in the process.

Obstacles to Party Power for the Rural Intelligentsia

Yet this segment represented only part of the MSZMPintelligentsia.

Outside ofBudapest

itwas anentirely

different story: intellectuals were

far from the center of power and thus of much less concern to the party

leadership.Resources were fewer, forcing

intellectuals to remain within

the party for what little access and connections were to be had. More

over, whereas theco-optative policies

of them?tropole

served topacify

the intellectual class, rural political power acted as a conservative bas

tion, overwhelminglystaffed

byolder hard-liners of

proletarianback

ground.Conservative county secretaries insulated the party

center

against local/sectoral interests and threats bymeans of a

peripheralca

reer track forpolitically loyal

but notnecessarily

talented party cadres.

This position usually representedthe limit to which the county party

secretaries could rise; they occasionallyrotated from county

to county

but almost neverupward.26

While this method was not uncommon in

Eastern Europe,what is notable is that in

comparisonwith other East

ernEuropean states, the

demographicsof

Hungary's regionalcadre in

the 1980s mostclosely

resembled that ofpost-1968 Czechoslovakia,

where younger party leaders had beenpurged

in the wake ofPrague

Spring?a realityinconsistent with

Hungary's imageas

beingin the

vanguardof reform.27

Theselong periods

of tenure for party officials in effectencouraged

thecreation

of party fiefdoms, dynasticclans where

personaland famil

25Ferenc Gazs?, "Cadre Bureaucracy and the Intelligentsia," Journal of

Communist Studies 8 (Sep

tember 1992); see also the formerly classified Statisztikai adatok ak?der?llom?nyr?l (Statistical data on

cadrepositions) (Budapest:

MSZMP KB Part- ?sT?megszervezetek Oszt?lya, 1983), esp. 10,67.

26For details on the class origin, age, and tenures of county party secretaries in

Hungary,see Sta

tisztikai adatok (fn. 25), esp. 48; and Andr?s Ny?ro, Sege'dk?nyv apolitikai bizottsdg tanulm?nyoz?s?hoz

(Resource guideto the study of the Politburo) (Budapest: Interart, n.d.).

27Data derived from Central Intelligence Agency publications

on Communist Party cadre demo

graphics in Eastern Europe. See, for example, Directory ofHungarian Officials (Washington, D.C.:

Central Intelligence Agency, 1987).



590 WORLD POLITICS

ial ties, overlapping membership,and

patron-client relationshipsdom

inated.28 This was made even moreegregious by

the fact that whereas

elsewhere in EasternEurope

central authoritiescommonly

usedpolit

ical power to enrich themselves, the Hungarian central party elite was

relatively poorly rewarded with benefits, a reflection of K?d?r's own

personal asceticism.29 Intellectuals, naturallyseen

bylocal party cliques

assuspicious, typically

found themselves shut out of these patronage

systems. Talented yet not apart of the elite of the

m?tropole,these re

gional"second tier" intellectuals

frequently complainedabout their

marginalstatus "Isten h?ta

m?g?tt"?"behindthe back of God."30 Re

form policies directed by them?tropole inHungary were thus able to

neutralize much of the power of the intelligentsia in the capital but had

theunanticipated

effect ofreinforcing center-periphery

friction and en

couragingmobilization below. In response to this situation, members of

this intellectual second tier used the partyto cultivate their own informal

networks, largely ignored by central party elites.These "solidarygroups,"bound

bycommon values and interaction, were critical in that

they

commonly served as akey building

block ofpartisan organization.31

The Emergence of the Reform Circle Movement32

By the mid-1980sHungarian society

was in a state ofdeep

crisis in

dicative of thegeneral stagnation of socialist economies as awhole. The

economic "miracle" of the past decadesbegan

todisintegrate

under the

pressure of massiveforeign debt and new

pressures forchange

from

28Andr?s A. Gergely, Az?llamp?rt

var?zstalan?t?sa (The disenchantment of the party-state) (Bu

dapest: TTI, 1992); and L?szl? Bogar, "Amegye p?rtszervek szerepe amegyei tan?csi ter?letfejleszt?si

d?ntesi mechanizmusban" (The role of county party organs in the county council'sregional develop

mentdecision-making mechanism) (Manuscript,

TTI collection, Budapest, 1989).29

One journalist hasprovided

a cleverexample

in his observation that the further one traveled from

thecapital and out from under the gaze of "az

Oreg (the old man), meaning K?d?r, the more audacious

wereparty elites and thus the more

sumptuous their food: "Nowhere else could one find amore ex

ceptionalkitchen than at the county party committee." L?szl? Hovanyecz, "H?bor?s gyerek" (Chil

dren of wartime), N?pszabads?g, May 15,1993, p. 21.30

Zsolt Szoboszlai, "V?zlat a vid?ki ?rtelmis?grol" (Outline of the rural intelligentsia), Juss 2/3 (De

cember1989-January 1990), 103-12; Pal B?nlaky,

"A kisv?rosok?rtelmis?ge

a'helyi t?rsadalom'

koz?let?ben" (The small-town intelligentsia thepublic life of "local

society"),inTibor Husz?r, ed., A

magyar ?rtelmis?gaW-as ?vekben (The Hungarian intelligentsia in the 1980s) (Budapest: Kossuth,

1986).31William Gamson, Power and Discontent (Homewood, 111.:Dorsey, 1968), esp. 32-37.

32The following discussion of the reform circles is based on an

analysis of approximatelytwo hun

dredunpublished reform circle documents collected by the author, MSZMP archival research, and in

terviews with reform circle participants and former Politburo members (Imre Pozsgay,Resz? Nyers,

and K?roly Gr?sz) inHungary. Specific interviews or documents will be cited as

appropriate. For an

expanded analysis of this topic,see Patrick O'Neil, "Revolution from Within: The Hungarian Social

istWorkers' Party 'Reform Circles' and the Transition from Socialism" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University,

1994).




Moscow. While during this period K?d?r had tolerated further political

changeswithin the state, such as in the

parliamentaryelection process,

those who called tooopenly

for dramaticorganizational change

still

faced serious repercussions. Even with the final ouster of K?d?r and his

replacement by K?roly Gr?sz inMay 1988, dramatic change seemed

unlikely,and

opposition forces themselves remained too weak to chal

lenge party authority."Reform communists"

spoke largelyof a trun

cated democratization, a limitedsharing

of power whilemaintaining

the constitutional"inviolatability

of socialism."33 Even under these cir

cumstances, multipartyelections were not

anticipateduntil 1995. The

MSZMP,which had institutionalized a set of limited reforms to balance

domestic and Soviet pressure,was

incapableof

reactingto a

changedinternational environment.

Theresulting

social tension extended to many party intellectuals,

particularly those at the rural level. And it is from thisposition within

the party but on the margins of power that the catalystfor

self-organization

emerged:the party reform circle. The

originsof the reform cir

cles lie inCsongr?d county and its capital, Szeged, long dominated by

conservative party leaders (as is testified by its nickname of "Pol Pot

county").After decades of hard-line, often corrupt leadership, by

1988

a series of scandals finallyundermined the county leadership, leaving

themgrasping

for the meansby

which theirauthority

could be re

asserted. One such idea, a consultativebody

of local intellectuals to

"advise" theleadership,

wasproposed. Though

thebody

never materi

alized, several of those involved in the attempt continued to discuss the

ideaprivately.

Local intellectualsbegan

to outline the concept of apolitical

move

ment within the party, a kind of "reform cell" that could link local partyreformers scattered

throughoutdifferent basic party organizations

into

onehorizontally

based group. Notonly

could such anorganization

concentrate on the local level, but it could also broaden itsobjectives

and foster similar groupings elsewhere in the country. A grassroots

movement orparty platform

that could link up with reformers at the

center ofpower

was envisioned as a final outcome.34

ByNovember this loose group sought

to enter thepublic sphere,

33Author interview with K?roly Gr?sz, G?d?ll?, June 2,1993; also transcripts of Central Commit

teemeeting, December 15, 1988, Hungarian Ministry of Education MSZMP archival collection 288f

4/248 o.e.34

Author interview with Csongr?d county reform circle members, Szeged, February 9,1993, and

Budapest, October 20, 1992, and March 23, 1993; J?zsef Lov?szi, "P?rttagok reformk?re Csongr?d

megy?ben" (The party members' reform circle in Csongr?d county) (Unpublished document, dated

March 28,1989).



592 WORLD POLITICS

hopingto raise the ranks of its members within the party. On Novem

ber 29,1988, the first declaration of the Csongr?d county reform circle

appeared in the local press. Titled "Reform Circles in the Party as

Well "?a reference to the rise in political "circles" spreading outside of

theparty?the

declarationopened

with a radical call to action:

In Eastern Europe, the countries of so-called existing socialism are in deep cri

sis.This crisis canonly be fought against with radical and complex reforms; the

historic task is toliquidate the structure of the Stalinist model. The economy,

politics,various

spheresof

society?andour own socialist

conceptas well?we

must irreversibly liberate from the captivity of the bureaucratic mechanism This

will simultaneously require the following: 1.A clear strategy for r?int?gration

into the world economy (above all a functioning market and the revival of re

jected bourgeois values); 2. Political and ideological reform which will rediscover

and support every legitimate value of the socialist movement; 3.The reform of

political institutions, such that they will give space to individual and communal

autonomy andregard

amultiparty system

as a natural state.

The quarter-pagestatement continued with a number of

points:It dis

cussed the need for a criticalanalysis

of the past and the role of the

partywithin it. It called for the

developmentof a

dialoguewith those

outside of the party and for reformers within the partyto unite

against

hard-linersseeking

tosabotage

reforms. Andfinally

it exhorted other

party members tojoin

the reform circle and create others so as to build

ahorizontally based national political movement.35 A subsequent open

meetingof the reform circle on December 2,1988, attracted some 120

people,and over 65 signed

thefounding

statement.36

The timing of the declaration could not have been lesspropitious.

That same day General Secretary Gr?sz spoke to party activists in Bu

dapest, warningof the rise of "strident, bourgeois restoration-seeking,

counter-revolutionaryforces" who

soughtto

bringabout

"anarchy,

chaos ... and awhite terror" toHungary.

Struck first bythe

reactionary

tenor of thespeech,

the members of the Csongr?d reform circle were

then further alarmed bythe

general secretary's appearance inSzeged

two weeks later at a local party conference, where hetargeted

the re

form circle, brandingit as factionalist and divisive.37

In response theCsongr?d

reform circlekept

a lowprofile

for some

weeks, fearinga conservative counteroffensive. However, their reserva

35"Reformk?r?k a

p?rtban is " (There are reform circles in the partyaswell "), D?lmagyarorsz?g,

November 29,1988, p. 2.36

"Megalakulta

p?rttagokreformk?re" (The party members' reform circle has been established),

Csongr?dMegye Hirlap,December 3,1988, p. 3.

37"Gr?sz K?roly besz?de a

megyei p?rtertekezleten" (K?roly Gr?sz sspeech

at the county partycon

ference), Csongr?d Megye Hirlap,December 12,1988, pp. 3-4.




tions were soon overcomeby increasing

rifts at the top.When in late

January1989 Politburo member and noted reformer Imre

Pozsgayat

tempted to break the political stalemate by declaring that the "counter

revolution" of 1956 had in fact been a "popular uprising" against an

oligarchic regime, the Csongr?d reform circle publicly backed him

againstthose

callingfor his ouster. The reform circle statement received

national press coverage and called attention to the existence of an alter

nativecounterorganization

in theparty.38

This was not lost on other

party members elsewhere inHungary.

Thesubsequent

decision not toexpel Pozsgay

from the party proba

blyhad little to do with the

protestationsof the

Csongr?dreform circle.

However, theirpublic presence, combined with the

implicationsof

Pozsgay'sradical act, did

beginto mobilize other members of the party

intelligentsia. By the middle ofMarch reform circles had appeared in

Somogy, Hajd?-Bihar, B?cs-Kiskun, Zal?, and B?k?s counties, and bythe end of the month they

were to be found in Fej?r,Tolna, Szolnok,and

Gy?r-Sopron?that is, in over half of the counties inHungary.

Re

form circles wereparticularly strong in

Csongr?d, Zal?, Somogy,and

B?cs-Kiskun?all southern counties well known for lower levels of

heavy industry, underdeveloped infrastructures, and conservative, often

corrupt local leaders. While inBudapest party intellectuals remained

hesitant andkept

within thegiven parameters for reform, at the pe

ripherythe

intelligentsiawas in open revolt.

Despitethe lack of direct connections, the

spreadingreform circles

mirrored one another to anamazing extent, suggesting the same

party

cohort in each case. Noneincorporated

a formalleadership,

as all ex

plicitlyeschewed any semblance of

hierarchyor vertical

organization.

Nor was there any registeredor delimited

membership. Participants

themselves wereusually thirty-five

toforty years old, university gradu

ates who held minorpositions

in party cells or committees at the work

place.39

Reflectingtheir common socialization, early reform circle declara

tions focused on similar themes, based on theirexperiences

within the

party-state system. Despite 1956, Hungary remainedan

organizationallyStalinist state. Socialism could only be

predicatedon true

democracy and

not vice versa. To that end, the institutional framework for a true multi

38Radio

Budapest, January 28,1989, cited inAlfred Reisch, "HSWP Study Re-Evaluates the 1956

Revolution, Imre Nagy, and Forty Years of Hungarian History,"Radio Free

EuropeResearch (February

24,1989), 5.39

Gy?rgy Ker?nyi, "Reformkor-kor-k?r-k?p" (A portrait

of the reform time/circle/malady), Jelzb" 1,

no. 6 (1989).



594 WORLD POLITICS

party democracymust be created, both for

Hungaryand for the

MSZMP.This would include the formation of ahorizontally based party

reformplatform

and the convocation of anextraordinary party congress

to effect a radicalreorganization

of the party (the current timetable did

not allow for such acongress until after the 1990

parliamentary elections).

As the number of reform circles grew throughout Hungary during

thespring

of 1989, they beganto form connections with one another

on a horizontal basis, direcdy challengingthe vertical structure of the

party. InApril delegates

from a number of reform circles met at aparty

reform conference (where many hopedin vain that

Pozsgaywould an

nounce the formation of aparty platform

or a newparty itself)

and set

in motionplans

for ameeting

of their own. Reform circlesfrequently

issued manifestos onpolitical

reform andscathing critiques

of the

party; theseappeared

first in local papers and then made their way into

the national press. These continuous attacks increased discord within

the party, demoralizing leaders as well as the rank and file. Reform cir

cles inmany counties and cities also demanded local party conferences,

wherethey sought

to oust entrenched bosses.

But in spite of these rapid successes, the transformation of the re

form circle movement into anorganized party platform

was not soeasy.

There wereattempts

atlinking up with

Pozsgayand his supporters, but

giventhe latent

hostilityof some rural intellectuals toward

m?tropole

elites, little was achieved. Rather than surrender theiremerging influ

ence to a centralpolitical faction, reform circles chose instead to act au

tonomously.Even as reform circles

developedties to each other, they

rejecteda unified

leadership.As some

participants later noted, they

viewed themselves as a "reform virus," livingoff the structure and re

sources of the partyto kill it from within?a clear result of their spe

cific institutional origins. This gave the movement much of its

anti-institutionalstrength,

but it also hindered coordination and the

formation of asingle policy.

This dilemma could be clearlyseen in lateMay at the first reform

circle conference, where some 440delegates

were in attendance, repre

senting 110 reform circles and by now over 10,000 participants.40 Dele

gates drafted an extensivecritique of state socialism and reiterated their

demands formultiparty elections, economic reform, and the democratic

transformation of the party. Press coverage was extensive, and guest

40For details on the conference, see Istv?n Tanacs and Eva Ter?nyi, "B?k?s ?tmenettel a demo

kratikus szocializmusba" (With apeaceful

transition to democratic socialism), N?pszabads?g, May 22,

1989, pp. 1,4-5; Judith Pataki, "First National Conference of HSWP Reform Circles," Radio Free Eu

ropeResearch (May 30,1989).




participants included several members of the Politburo and Central

Committee.Despite

such visible power, however, the movement was

still unable to unify its actions, as the delegates struggled unsuccessfullyto draft a common

platformstatement. Jealous of their own autonomy

andoverly

democratic in nature, noagreement could be reached on a

singlestatement

despitehours of debate.

On the Offensive and the Party Center in Retreat

While still chaotic, this public show of strength by the reform circles

had a clear effect on theincreasingly

anxiousparty leadership. Many

members of the Politburo and Central Committee now sawpolitical

changeas inevitable and

beganto retreat in the face of reform circle de

mands, leavingthe

general secretary with fewer and fewer allies. Si

multaneously, opposition forces tookadvantage

of this growing disarray

within the partyto

organizetheir ranks

againstthe MSZMP.

By earlysummer numerous civil groups formed nascent

political parties, pres

suring the party into roundtablenegotiations and

eventually achieving

their demand for open parliamentary elections in 1990.

Importantly,this internal

disintegrationof communist power dra

matically changedthe incentive for collective action, removing the ne

cessityfor the

oppositionto

unifyin a broad-based "front" movement,

as seen elsewhere in the region. Stable, competitive,and articulated po

litical organizations thusdeveloped

much earlier in theHungarian

transition process than elsewhere in theregion,

wherecounterhege

monic movementsdeveloped

tochallenge

still-formidable regimes.

The influence of the reform circles on thepath

of transition was

most obvious at the Central Committee session onMay 29, 1989,

where members confronted a number of reform circle demands, in

particularthe call for an

extraordinary party congress priorto

parlia

mentary elections (as opposedto the

planned conference, whose au

thoritywas much lower). The

assemblyalso heard a confidential report

on the reform circle nationalmeeting,

which outlined the movement's

growing strength.41 Over Gr?sz's protestations, the Central Committee retreated, approving

the party congress for October, withdelegates

to be elected as soon aspossible.

Gr?szcomplained

in asubsequent

in

41"Taj?koztat?

az MSZMPK?zponti Bizotts?g?nak

az MSZMP reformk?r?k 1989m?jus

20-?n

Szegeden rendezett munkatan?cskoz?s?r?r (Information for the MSZMP Central Committee on the

MSZMP reform circles' May 20,1989, work conference in Szeged),MSZMP Central Committee meet

ing,May 29, 1989, Hungarian Ministry of Education MSZMP archival collection 288f. 4/263 o.e.,

125-29.



596 WORLD POLITICS

terview that the partywas

unpreparedfor such a

meeting,but had to

yieldto demands from the party ranks, such as those heard from the re

form circles.42

By the summer of 1989 the reform circles were no longer engaged in

tryingto defend reform but were

preparingto

carry it out. With elec

tions for the party congress under way, reform circleshoped

to win the

backingof as

many delegatesas

possible, isolatingconservatives at the

congress andforcing the transformation of the

party.43In anticipation

of this showdown, a second reform circle conference was held in Bu

dapestin

early September,but as before attempts

to form a unitedplat

form failed.

Importantly, delegates struggled

less over the actual

content of aplatform

statement than over theauthority implied by

such

organization. Created as an anti-institutional responseto the old order,

delegatescould not

accept the formalization of the movement and the

notion ofhierarchy that it contained. In the end, the conference ap

provedan

ambiguous"statement of

platform reconciliation," coveringvarious

policyissues on reform and democratization. Also formed was

acoordinating council, charged with the daunting task of building

a

central strategy to dominate the party congress, now one month away.44As the process of congress delegate

nomination and election un

folded, the reform circles fought hard to field candidates andwin rank

and-file party support. However, despitevictories in many electoral

contests, theyremained constrained

bytheir

minoritystatus within the

party. When the process finallycame to an end in late

September,

prospects for the congress remained unclear. On the surface, delegate

demographics gave the reform circles some reason forhope.

Over 80

percent were underfifty,

had some form ofhigher education, and were

classified as either white collar orintelligentsia. Nearly

90 percent had

never taken part in aparty congress before.45 In this aspect,

at least,

they clearly resembled the reform circle cohort. Less clear was how

many would commit themselves to the reform circleplatform. By

one

estimate over 40 percent of the samedelegates

came from the ranks of

42See the text of a television interview with K?roly Gr?sz,

"

'Tagadom, hogya

n?gy ?vtized zs?kutca

volt" (I deny that the last four decades were a dead end), Magyar Htrlap, May 31,1989,4^5.43

"Reformkongresszust Felh?v?s azMSZMPtags?ghoz" (Reform congress Call to the MSZMP mem

bership) (Unpublished joint document of six reform circles, June 14, 1989); "ABudapesti Re

formkor?nek ?ll?sfoglal?saa

p?rtkongresszusr?T (The Budapest reform circle statementregarding the

party congress), N?pszabads?g, June 12,1989, p. 7.44

Gy?rgy Kerekes and Zsusza Vars?di, eds., Reformk?r?kes

reform-alapszervezetek budapestitan?c

skoz?sa (The Budapest conference on reform circles and reform cells) (Budapest: Kossuth, n.d. [1989]).45

SeeKongresszus '89, no. 23 (October 6,1989), 1.This was a

special party publication disseminated

to alldelegates

fromSeptember

1989 until the last day of the congress.




the nomenklatura and party apparatus, particularlythose

delegated

fromBudapest.46

Reform circle estimates concluded that the number of

thosesympathetic

to the reform circleplatform

made up less than a

quarter of the over twelve hundreddelegates,

and within that group

onlyabout one hundred were

actuallyreform circle

participants.47

The Final Party Congress and the End of the mszmp

Under these uncertain circumstances the party congress openedon Fri

day,October 6.48Delegates had the option of allying themselves with

formal party platforms, includingthat of the reform

circles,now known

as the Reform Alliance. This was the first moment ofreckoning

for the

reform circles, and asurprising

one at that. Of theeight platforms reg

istered, nonecompared

in size with that of the Reform Alliance, which

boasted some 464delegates. (The next

largest group, the neo-Marxist

Peoples' Democratic Platform, had sixty-eight.) Not only had the Re

form Alliance been able to gather the proreform leadership within its

ranks (including Pozsgay, Prime Minister Miklos N?meth, and Foreign

Minister Gyula Horn), but hundreds more had also flocked to theirranks. The alliance, in other words, dwarfed all the others.49

Yet itwas still opento

questionas to how many alliance supporters

ac

tuallybacked the reform circle demands, as

opposedto

joiningin order to

be on thepresumed winning side.

Initiallyevents went the alliance's way,

blockingCentral Committee voting rights, steering congress proceed

ings, andhaving

aproposal accepted

that would lead to the election of

a newparty

leadership

on the basis of

competing,

winner-take-allplat

form lists. This last victorywas

particularly importantfor the alliance,

as a means ofwinning

a decisivevictory

overparty conservatives.

However, the sheerpolitical weight

of the alliancebegan

to work

againstit.

Fearingthat the alliance was

goingtoo far in

transforming

the party and inforcing political change, many delegates

turned to the

46L?szl? Bihari, "Amult?t v?gleg elt?r?lni" (To finally break with the

past), Kapu (October 1989),

4-5.

47Supplement

to invitations for the first meeting of the Reform Alliance congress platform, Sep

tember 25,1989.48

For details on congress events, see Emil Kimmel, ed., Kongresszus'89: r?vidett, szerkesztett je

gyz?'k?nyvaz 1989 oktober 6-9 k?z?tt tartott

kongresszus anyag?b?l (Congress'89: Shortened, edited

transcriptsof the material from October 6-9,1989, congress) (Budapest: Kossuth, 1990); Judit Benk?,

Gy?rgy Kerekes, and J?nos Patk?s, A sz?let?s sz?ps?ges ktnjai, avagya

rendhagy?h?rad?s az MSZMP kon

gresszusr?l1989 Okt?ber 6-9 (The beautiful agony of birth, or

irregularinformation concerning the Oc

tober 6-9,1989, MSZMPcongress) (Budapest: Kossuth, n.d. [1990]).

49Benk?, Kerekes, and Patk?s (fn. 48), 20.



598 WORLD POLITICS

Peoples'Democratic Platform, whose

left-wing,"third-road"

ideology

seemed anacceptable counterweight

to the radical demands of the al

liance.50During

the course of October 7 thePeoples'

Democratic Plat

form nearly doubled in size, with over 40 percent of the new affiliates

fromBudapest.51

As the balance of power shifted, reform circledelegates grew anxious

that the majority of delegates (including many in the alliance) would

oppose their radical demands. Platform negotiations, primarilybe

tween the alliance and thePeoples'

Democratic Platform, arguedover

the future of the party. Despitefears on both sides that too much would

begiven up

in acompromise,

theonly

otheroption

seemed anopen

party split?a dangerous prospect given the uncertain state ofpolitical

transition. After a fullday

ofnegotiations,

a basic agreementon the na

ture of the newparty

wasagreed

to and putto a vote.

Bya

large major

ity,with only 159 opposed and 39 abstaining, the congress manifesto

wasapproved

on October 8, and a newparty, Magyar Szocialista Part?

theHungarian Socialist Party (MSZP)?was finally established.

Had the victory sought by the reform circles been achieved? Initially,

it had been imagined that the alliance would be able to instigate a clear

showdown in the party, winningover the

delegates, dissolvingthe

MSZMP, andhiving

off party conservatives. Now most congress dele

gates claimed tosupport reform, though

not in the manner the reform

circles had envisioned.Compromise,

apseudoreform

toreengineer

power, seemed in the offing.

Lackinga set of clear

strategiesand a formal

leadershipand

havinga

largenumber of

questionablesupporters, the alliance

quicklylost the

initiative.Having emerged

as an anti-institutional reaction, theylacked

theorganizational

tools necessary tocompete in an

open political

forum. The issue of the party leadershipnow became uncertain aswell,

as the mechanism of electionby

closed lists raised the fear that in fact

an alliance ticket would lose. Platformrepresentatives began

to discuss

asingle, compromise

list to preserve party unitybut were soon at

log

gerheads. The partywavered on the brink of asplit.But towhat end? If

alliance members were to withdraw from the congress and found theirown

party, whose support couldthey

count on? How many of the del

50Rudolph Tok?s, "Beyond the Party Congress: Hungary's Hazy Future," New Leader, October 30,

1989, p. 6.51

Calculated bythe author. Nearly half of the

delegatesfor the

Peoples'Democratic Platform were

from Budapest,as

opposedto less than a

quarter for the Reform Alliance; L?szl? Vass, "AMagyar Szo

cialista Part," in L?szl? Bihari, ed., Atobbp?rtrendszer

kialakul?sa magyarorsz?gon (The formation of

multiparty democracyin

Hungary) (Budapest: Kossuth, 1992), 149.




egates, even within the platform, would follow? And would this not

leave the party in the hands of conservatives and moderates whose

commitment to democratization wasquestionable?

These doubts forced the alliance into a finalcompromise,

asingle

electoral list for the newparty leadership,

whose compositionconserv

atives and reformers alike could accept. This back-door manner of lead

ershipselection was denounced

bya number of

delegates,but to little

effect. Havingearlier

accepteda closed-list format for elections, with

nowonly

one listbeing forwarded, the

delegateshad in effect surren

dered most of their power, reduced torubber-stamping

the list assem

bledby

a handful ofplatform representatives.52

On October 9 the new

socialist party elected its leadership, with the older centrist politicianRezs?

Nyersmade party president.

The MSZMP had been transformed; a new, avowedlydemocratic

party stood in itsplace.

Yet few werehappy

with either the results or

the methodby

whichthey

came about.Among

reform circledelegates

inparticular, many felt that too much effort had been spent

on dis

mantling the old party, and too little attention paid towhat would be

constructed in its place.53 Yet the change had been made: the old order

had been overthrown. With theirobjective

more or less achieved, the re

form circles lost their motivating force, and their ranks soon dissolved.

With thisincomplete

transformation the stagewas set for open elec

tions in 1990, and for many the renouncement of one-party rule

seemed to bode well for the MSZP.Nyers expressed

confidence that the

MSZP expected to lose only half of the MSZMPmembership, leavingthem with a base of

nearlyfour hundred thousand or more, well

beyond

themembership

of all the otherparties combined.54 Upcoming

direct

presidential elections, scheduled for November, also seemed certain to

bringa

victory forPozsgay,

who remained one of the mostpopular

and

well-knownpoliticians

in the nation. Hisvictory

wouldhelp

the party

in its bid for political power.Soon enough, however, the

shortcomingsof the

party'stransforma

tion became apparent. As it became clear to former MSZMP members

that membershipno

longer guaranteed economic security, few foundthat they had any real socialist (or even

political) inclinations. By No

52L?szl? K?ri and Maria Zita Petschnig, "Ez a n?v lesz a

v?gso" (This name shall be your last), pt.

2, Els? k?zb'ol (October 16,1989), 9-10.53

Erzs?bet Sulyok, "Antipolitikus sorok, reformk?rben" (Antipolitical ranks in the reform circles),

Szegedi Egyetem,October 16,1989, p. 1.

54Rezs? Nyers,

"AzMSZPv?rja tagjait

az MSZMP-b?l es azon kiv?lr?l is" (The MSZP expects mem

bers from both inside and outside the MSZMP), N?pszabads?g,October 14,1989, p. 14.



600 WORLD POLITICS

vember only fifteen thousand of themore than seven hundred thousand

former MSZMPmembers had joined theMSZP,many from the old ap

paratus.55 Moreover, with the old party monolith nowclearly gone, op

position forces were free to mobilizefully against the socialist system

and quickly developed strong organizations that could check the feeble

attempts of the MSZP to hold on topower.

Thecampaign

battle now turned on anticommunism, a litmus test

that the MSZPclearly

could notpass. Hopes

for apresidential victory

weresimilarly dashed when an

oppositionreferendum

managedto

block the direct election of thepresidency, something

made much eas

ierby

the enervation of the socialists.Having given up

the onemajor

appeal of theMSZMP?to hold the status quo?the MSZPbecame much

like any other party, making promisesabout an unknown future.

The first open multiparty elections for parliamentwere held in

March andApril 1990, based on a combination of single-member dis

tricts and county and national lists.56 Far from itsoriginal predictions,

theMSZP took fourth place in the elections, netting some half million

votes (about 11 percent of the total) and 33 out of 386 total seats.A

coalition of conservative parties formed the first postcommunist cabi

net, while the MSZP and liberalparties

went intoopposition. The era of

socialist rule wasofficially

over.

A Political Resurrection

The disastrous results of the 1990 election proved to be ablessing in

disguise. First, many MSZMP cadres who had

clung

to the new MSZP

deserted the partyonce elections made it clear that the old

spoils sys

tem hadtruly

come to an end. Second, election results gave weightto

the arguments of MSZP reformers that the party had in fact failed to

change radically enough;within the year the party leadership

under

went apurge of more conservative elements.

Nyers stepped down, re

placed by former Foreign Minister Horn.

Inparliament,

whileantagonism

between coalition andopposition

parties intensified, the MSZP took advantage of its outcast position, tak

ing moderatepositions

andironically calling

attention to itspolitical

55Zoltan D.

Barany, "The Hungarian Socialist Party:A Case of Political Miscalculation," Radio

FreeEurope/Radio Liberty Research

Report (December 22,1989), pp. 1-2.56

For detailed information on the outcome of the elections, seeGy?rgy Szoboszlai, ed., Parlamenti

v?laszt?sok 1990(Parliamentary elections 1990) (Budapest: MTAT?rsadalomtudom?nyi Int?zet, 1990);

ananalysis of the Hungarian electoral system can be found in John R. Hibbing and Samuel Patterson,

"ADemocraticLegislature in theMaking: The Historic Hungarian Elections of 1990," Comparative

Political Studies 24(January 1992).




experienceand

expertisein contrast to the other

political parties.57

These tacticspaid

off far better than anyone expected.As the

popular

ity of the coalition government deteriorated in 1992 and 1993, hurt byits inconsistent economic policies and authoritarian leanings, public

support began to shift toward the MSZP.A population increasingly

weary of the costs of economic transition found theparty's

social mar

ket ideology?its imageof

politicaland technocratic expertise?more

attractive than the liberalopposition's promise

of more radical reform.

As aconsequence the May

1994parliamentary elections led to an

overwhelming victory for the MSZP, avictory that no one would have

predicted justone

yearbefore. The MSZPwon 149 seats in

singlemember districts (as opposed to 1 in 1990) and another 60 on national

and territorial lists, for a total of over 54 percent of the seats inparlia

ment. A subsequent coalition, formed with the liberalAlliance of Free

Democrats, gave the governmenta two-thirds

majorityin

parliament.58

In this success, agreat debt is owed to the reform circles. As one reform

circle founder concluded in 1990, the reform circles were in fact victori

ous in their defeat.Although

unable to realize theirobjectives

asswiftly

or conclusively as they had hoped, in the end they were instrumental in

bringingabout the destruction of the old order so that a democratic sys

tem and amodern socialist party could be built in itsplace.59

Conclusions and Comparisons

Selznick and other scholars haveargued

that institutionalization, the

process bywhich

organizationslink themselves to the external environ

ment as a means ofstability,

has the effect ofbinding

the organizationto certain routines that inform collective action and influence the

path

oforganizational

success or failure. There are two different issues at

work here: first, the process of institutionalization itself (a questionof

degree)and second, the

comparativeforms of institutionalization de

pendingon the

specificcase (a question

of kind). Overall, extreme in

stitutionalization tends to causepolitical ossification, as we can see

across EasternEurope,

but theparticular routines, norms,

and struc

tures involved in the institutionalization processare critical in under

57Barnabas Racz, "The Socialist-Left Opposition

in Post-Communist Hungary," Europe-AsiaStud

ies 45, no,4 (1993), 660-63.58

For details, see Judith Pataki, "Hungary's New Parliament Inaugurated," Radio FreeEurope/Radio

LibertyResearch

Report (July 22,1994), 7-11.59

J?zsef G?czi, "J?tt?nk, l?ttunk, buktunk... bukvagy?'zt?nk?" (We came, we saw,we failed ... in

failure were we victorious?), N?pszabads?g, June 23,1990, p. 17.



602 WORLD POLITICS

standingthe construct of institutional power and the

trajectoryof its

failure. Indeed, it can be asserted that transition modalities, such as

those outlined by Philippe Schmitter andTerry Karl?imposition (co

ercive, elite dominant), pact (negotiated,elite dominant), reform

(nego

tiated, mass ascendant), and revolution (coercive, mass ascendant)?can

be much better understood ifwe trace their forms back to theparticu

lar institutional order from whichthey emerged.60

In theHungarian

case the process oflinking

the partyto an external

legitimizingenvironment took the form of social

pacification, predicated on a reformist

ideologyand the

co-optation of intellectuals.

When thispolicy

was stifledby

economicdecay,

theparty

lacked the

means torespond, having

staked itslegitimacy

on these routines and

unable to formulate new alternatives. Yetco-optation inadvertently

providedthe means

bywhich anti-institutional elements could attack

the party from within, weakeningthe MSZMP and

creating greater space

for political opposition to form.

As mentioned earlier, the incremental process of transition inHun

gary meant that no mass movementalong

the lines ofSolidarity

in

Poland, Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia, the Union of Democratic

Forces inBulgaria,

or the Romanian National Salvation Front ever

arose tochallenge

state socialism. Rather, theprolonged

erosion of the

party encouragedthe rise of smaller, more articulated

political organizations. This

dispersalof

political power also meant that no side was

able to dominate the transition processor elections as

clearlyas else

where in EasternEurope.

Power continued to shiftduring negotiations

between andwithin regime and oppositionas theMSZMP

disintegratedand the newpolitical organizations jockeyed

for power. Political out

comes that thusemerged

came about lessthrough

institutional "craft

ing,"which supposes political authority, than by default, influenced by

changesin the

negotiatingcontext.

Thispoints

to a second area of research, investigatingthe connection

between institutions, transitions, andpolitical reconstruction. Beyond

the transition moment, the patterns of reinstitutionalization that follow

will be influenced by the legacies of the previous order and its failure.61Taking again the

exampleof party formation, in

Hungarythe slow

decayof power that

producedmore cohesive

political parties subse

quently limited the degree of party fragmentation in parliament, in

60Schmitter and Karl (fn. 16), 59-61.

61This last point ismade most

clearly by L?szl? Bruszt and David Stark, "Remaking the Political

Field inHungary: From the Politics of Confrontation to the Politics of

Competition," Journal ofIn

ternationalAffairs 45 (Summer 1991), esp. 19 fn. 11.




contrast to the eventualdisintegration

of mass-basedparties that swept

into power elsewhere. Hungary thus exhibited amuch higher level of

parliamentary stabilityafter 1989: the first democratic coalition gov

ernment held power for its entire term, an occurrence unprecedented

for theregion.

The second set of national elections in 1994 also re

turned the same sixparties

toparliament, indicating

that thepolitical

spectrum has institutionalized ratherearly

in the transition process.

In a secondexample the inability of any

one side to dominate the

Hungariantransition meant that attempts

to create apowerfid, direcdy

electedpresidency

were blocked, asopposed

to other cases in theregion

(Poland, Romania, and

Bulgaria

in

particular),

where

strong presidenciesemerged

as theexpression

ofpolitical

actorsseeking

to institution

alize their ownpower within the state. Instead, Hungary

has apresident

with more limited, butambiguous, political powers, enough

to vex the

governmentat times. This

ambiguitystands as a

legacyof the MSZMPs

strategy in early 1989 to build a strong presidency for itself, an attemptthat was undermined

bythe revolt of the reform circles.62

Organiza

tional patterns that now influence the process ofpolitical

reconstruction

are thus informed by the institutional matrix that gave rise to them.Yet institutions alone will not dictate the form of

politicaltransition.

Chance, individuals, and unforeseen domestic or internationaldevelop

ments can have a tremendousimpact,

one that overrides institutional

forces and turnshistory

in aradically

different direction.Keeping

these

pointsin mind, an institutional

approachcan

complementour current

understandingof the

impactof micro- and macrolevel forces.

Byform

inga more theoretical base without

sacrificingthe

unique aspects of the

circumstances under consideration, we can allow for the broader forces of

theoryto merge with the more

inexplicable aspects of time andplace.

62Patrick "Presidential Power in Post-Communist The Case in Com

o'neil - rev from within. inst approach - world pol 1996.pdf

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