Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

guests of Imre Pozsgay, minister of state. I knew this man; he was
a person with a strong ego, speaking from his belly and he had
weak political courage. This was very characteristic and other people
had the same experience with social democrats from the West.
The dissidents were not taken seriously. In my opinion, it was not
the political elite with whom a closer cooperation had to be established”.
Konrád shows an understanding for the position taken by west European
social democrats and admits that he shares many of their
views. “There were certain developments in Hungary after 1956.
There were different factions in the Hungarian communist party.
Kádár himself had started as a social democrat in the Unions and
did not belong to the Moscow hardliners. There were more people
of this non-Soviet type. The main political orientation in my country
after 1956 was different from the line chosen in the GDR.
Therefore, it was not stupid of the social democrats to seek contact
with these people and Kádár himself also wanted a normalised
relationship with the western social democrats. Our fear was that
the western social democrats were somewhat naïve. Nevertheless,
in the so-called democratic opposition there were also local social
democrats. I myself once said in an interview with the German
paper “Der Stern” that if I had lived in a free world, I would have
been a social democrat with some green elements. I was of the
opinion that the whole discussion about missiles was leading
nowhere because the main issue, namely the Iron Curtain, was not
touched upon and not dealt with at all.”
Konrád believes that the way in which social democrats organised
their contacts made it difficult for them to find partners after the
Iron Curtain came down. “They did not know who their possible
partners would be after the change. First they supported some
original social democrats but when that did not work out, it was
decided that the renamed communist party – now socialistsshould
become member of the Second International. That was
actually reasonable, and I have nothing against it, but it is a bit odd
that immediately these people became, without any difficulty, social
democrats.”
66