The fall of Communism
Hungary: 20 years after the fall of Communism
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As part of Euranet's Fall of Communism series, correspondent Nick Thorpe reports on perceptions in Hungary, where economic woes are leading to dissatisfaction with how much has been achieved since the country's peaceful "negotiated transition" to democracy.
Moscow Square in Budapest on a weekday afternoon. People are hurrying home from work, while others are trying hard to find a way of making some cash.
Despite the fine weather, there's a heaviness in the air. Twenty years after the fall of Communism in Hungary, most people seem dissatisfied with what has been achieved.
"I don't miss anything from the 1980s," says a man selling books, "but the problem now is that it’s all about money. If you have work, you don’t have time to go out. If you don’t have work, you don’t have the money to go out."
Twenty years ago, Hungarians ate in a restaurant on average once a week. And they went to the cinema regularly. Now, that's out of the question, except for the richer few.
"Nothing is better in my view," said Magsi, who runs a newspaper stand in the same square. "I used to work eight hours a day for a living, now I work sixteen."
A woman selling roses without a permit is moved on by traffic police. A man shuffles past with a hat and the plea, "I'm hungry, please give me money." In the middle of the square, a lone flute player plays so well in the October sunshine, people slow their step to listen.
Twenty years ago, Hungary and Poland led the way with the political changes in eastern Europe. In October 1989, the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party dissolved itself, and turned into the Hungarian Socialist Party. It was a revolution from the top, although the pressure from the street was always present.
Betty Strobl teaches English at the Peter Pazmany Catholic University. She was only 19 in 1989. Despite the problems, she believes the changes were for the best and thing have improved, if not econmically then at least in other areas. "You have the feeling that you really are free, you can express whatever you want," she says.
But sociologist Elemer Hankiss is concerned that people today have traded one set of fears for another. "When we lost our political fears that the secret police can take you away at any time, new fears and new anxieties emerged... People have learned to fear for their jobs, practically every day. So it is a continuous insecurity," he says.
Unemployment in Hungary is now at 10 per cent. The economic crisis is proving a stern test of the new, democratic institutions, set up just twenty years ago.
For more reports on how other Eastern European countries are faring 20 years after the Iron Curtain fell see our Fall of Communism dossier.
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