3 IMCWP, Contribution of Hungarian Workers' Party

6/22/01 12:58 PM
  • Hungary, Hungarian Workers' Party 3rd IMCWP En Europe Communist and workers' parties

Hungarian Workers' Party
by Istvan Toth

Very Hon'ble International Conference, Comrades, Friends,

Mr Janos Kadar, the outstanding person of the modern times
history of used to say on the speakers' platform of the
UNO: �I am a Hungarian worker�. Nowadays the leaders of a
few countries would say such words. I am a Hungarian miner,
the son f workers, but I was lucky to live 45 years in a
country, where the workers and their children could
developed if they were talented. This world ceased in
Hungary, the future is simple: the rich man's child will be
rich, the poor man's child will be poor.

The development of the capitalism led from the manufacture
to the modern factories, the capital led from the free
competitions to the trusts. But during the development, the
capital created its antagonist, the proletariat, and the
proletariat created its fighting combats, the trade unions
and the Communists Parties.

The latest form of appearance of the capita is the
globalisation, which is the child of the scientific -
technical revolution, mainly in the field of the
informatics, on one hand, and the child of he profit on the
other hand, the profit is the eternal feature if the
capitalism. The dialectics of the history suggests that the
globalisation will create its antagonist: the world-wide
gathering of the working people.

The new quality of gathering will be not created in
spontaneous way. We have to follow the changes with Marxist
cast of mind and organising skills.

In our country, temporarily, won the counter-revolution.
The capital found here, as in the former European socialist
countries, everything: a relative developed economy and a
well skilled cheap labour force. Hungary became the hunting
ground of the domestic collaborated Mafia new capitalists
and the victim of the international big capital, the
globalisation. This development was helped by the servile
political elite, which participates in the overthrow of the
socialist regime, later in the consolidation of the
capitalism.

The Communist Party, which is the leader against the
capital should count with the fact, that Hungary at present
is a capitalist country.

Hungary ad a relative development industry and a leading
agriculture before the victory of the counter-revolution,
the so-called change in regime. Hungary had an educational
system which surpassed its economic development and the
inhabitants were well supplied with sanitary, social and
cultural goods.

In the industry was dominant the state property, in the
agriculture the co-operative. It is a complicated question
in the problem �who wins over whom�, how could the classes
change as much that the counter revolution could win.

There is no possibility to show the process how our
industry was destroyed, the agriculture corrupted. All this
happened for the sake of a new accumulation of capital with
�blood and tears� as it happened during the original
accumulation of capital represented by Karl Marx.

At present he national industry is mainly dominated by the
international capital, ignoring a few deficit state
company. In the agriculture capital operatives were
destroyed by discriminative law. The international capital
plays a dominant role in the trade and service. The gas and
electricity is in foreign hand but the big chains of shops
hide the goods of the nation into foreign countries as
well.

The bank-system, which represents the blood-circulation of
the economy, got into the foreign property as well. The
veins of Hungary are open and the results of the
self-sacrifying work of our nation are flowing away.

The servile Hungarian governments confiscated the values of
the nation in the order to satisfy their wish for power and
their clients. At present the public health, education and
the intellectual values, respectively their pillage is on
the agenda.

The situation shows why wants the Labour Party to become a
power in the Parliament.

The evaluation of the trade unions is not unified neither
in the party. There are people mean that the trade unions
and their leaders slipped to the right side, they
collaborate with the capital. The reality is more
complicated.

In Hungary the workers force is educated. The roots
originated from the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, which
played a significant role in the Central-European
development of the capitalism, however it was anti-national
as well.

The industrialisation after the Second World War increased
the number of the industrial workers and their
organisation. N the industry the branch-trade unions (metal
worker, miner, ironworker, textile-worker) existed but
other branches (education, public-health) were created as
well.

The members of the co-operatives were protected by the law.
We can say that in the years before the capitalist
restoration the majority of the Hungarian workers was
protected in an organised way.

Analysing the causes and the results of the capitalist
restoration we have to mention the question f
nationalisation in the socialist time. This problem us
rather complicated. The point of view that the trade union
have to pay a role in building the socialism (socialist
emulation, innovator movement, general mobilisation of
workers) was more or less positive, but it was a mistake to
ignore the protection of interests of the workers.

The main problem was that the communist Party wanted to
validate its politics not through the trade union leaders,
i.e. the party leaders decided about the leaders if the
trade union. Ant the trade union leaders participated in
the leading organs of the party.

The consequence: the reformist, later anti-socialist wing
was followed by the trade union leaders. As the party
members, so the trade union members watched the liquidation
of the socialist regime.

The trade union movement and the leaders changed
permanently after the restoration. Some new branch trade
unions were grounded and a federation, led by the ambition
of the grounders.

The fact that number and proportion of the trade union
members dropped significantly, was caused by facts.

In the agriculture the number of the trade union members
was low earlier as well, because the co-operative protected
the members. By destroying the co-operatives the population
down in the country remained unprotected, there is big
unemployment, the Hungarian villages got in catastrophic
situation.

Industrial factories were closed or reorganised into
smaller units, the workers got dispersed. They got
unemployed in masses or were forced getting retired.

In the reorganised factories remained the trade unions but
small private enterprises and the multinational firms have
no trade union organisations.

The retired people remained in the trade unions either. The
big chains of shops do not protect their workers by trade
unions.

He trade unions have a contact with Hungarian Socialist
Party which id rather a civil party. The trade union
functionaries are the members of the Socialist Party and
are the members of the Parliament or the local authority.

But we experience that the trade union leaders loose their
rights to the Socialist Party and they start contacts with
the Labour Party.

The Labour Party protected the trade unions on the basis of
theoretic causes. Therefore more and more trade union
leaders want to build contacts with us.

The restoration governments want to deprive the workers
from more and more rights and serve the multinational
factories. The political protection of interests is very
important, we have to fight against the anti-worker law. In
the parliament there is no other force to protect the
worker, therefore the Labour Party has to get into the
parliament, it is the important for the working people and
the trade unions.

This May our 19th Congress accepted our new program about
the tight contact with trade unions.