Accomplices Without Perpetrators: What Do Economists Have to Do with Transitional Justice in Hungary?

Abstract

The paper begins with the unease one feels witnessing the pride taken by the former agents in serving the communist secret police in Hungary. In retrospect, many of them refuse to regard themselves as perpetrators or, at least, accomplices, and prefer the role of the victim or even that of the hero. In analysing the roots of moral relativism, first the phenomenon of ‘fast forgiving’ will be discussed. Then, turning to the profession of economists, it will be shown how profoundly this métier, normally disregarded in studying transitional justice, contributed to making collaboration with the old regime a legitimate mode of behaviour. Finally, after introducing the term ‘academic remembering’, the paper will ask whether that contribution has reached its end by now.

Notes

1. See András Gervai, “Egy ügynök azonosítása” [Identifying an Agent], Élet és Irodalom, 27 January 2006. Today, the incriminated film director Gyula Gazdag is professor at the Department of Film of UCLA. The financial experts who were dismissed by the minister founded the first private institute for economic research in Hungary before 1989. [See Ágnes Pogány, “A Pénzügykutatási Intézet története” [History of the Institute for Financial Research], in Hédi Volosin (ed.) Lámpások az alagútban. Emlékek a Pénzügykutatóról [Lamps in the Tunnel. Memories of the Institute for Financial Research] (Budapest: Pénzügykutató Intézet, 1998), pp. 9–75.

2. This was the infamous “3T” principle of censorship (in Hungarian: tiltás, turés, támogatás).

3. The word “brick” (tégla) refers to the fact that the agent was built in by the police in the group under surveillance. I will use this term in the following though its synonyms show a great variety ranging from “spy” (spicli that comes from the German Spitzel) through “whisperer” (besúgó) all the way to BM‐es (BM was the acronym of the Ministry of Interior). The word titkosszolga (secret servant) is a post‐1989 neologism in Hungarian language.

4. For works on transitional justice in Eastern Europe (and beyond), see Hilary Appel, “Anti‐Communist Justice and Founding the Post‐Communist Order: Lustration and Restitution in Central Europe,” East European Politics and Societies 19/3 (2005), pp. 379–405; Timothy Garton Ash, The File. A Personal History (New York: Vintage Books, 1998); Noel Ann Calhoun, Dilemmas of Justice in Eastern Europe’s DemocraticTransitions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Roman David, “Transitional Injustice? Criteria for Conformity of Lustration to the Right to Political Expression,” Europe‐Asia Studies 56/6 (2004), pp. 789–812; Istvan Deak, Jan T. Gross and Tony Judt, The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War Two and its Aftermath (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); Jon Elster, Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Jon Elster (ed.), Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Stephen Holmes, “The End of Decommunization,” East European Constitutional Review 3 (1994), pp. 3–4; Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005); Csilla Kiss, “We Are Not Like Us. Transitional Justice: The (Re)construction of Post‐communist Memory,” IWM Working Papers (Vienna: IWM, 2006); Neil J. Kritz (ed.), Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1995); Natalia Letki, “Lustration and Democratisation in East‐Central Europe,” Europe–Asia Studies, 54/4 (2002), pp. 529–552; Charles Maier, “Doing History, Doing Justice: The Narrative of the Historian and of the Truth Commission,” in Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson (eds), Truth versus Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 261–279; Adam Michnik and Vaclav Havel, “Justice or Revenge?” Journal of Democracy 4/1 (1993), pp. 20–27; John Miller, “Settling Accounts with a Secret Police: The German Law on the Stasi Records,” Europe–Asia Studies 50/2 (1998), pp. 305–331; Claus Offe, “Disqualification, Retribution, Restitution. Dilemmas of Justice in Post‐Communist Transitions,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 1/1 (1993), pp. 17–44; Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism (New York: Vintage Books, 1996); Jacques Rupnik, “The Politics of Coming to Terms with the Communist Past. The Czech Case in Central European Perspective,” Transit Online 22 (2002); Aleks Szczerbiak, “Dealing with the Communist Past or the Politics of the Present? Lustration in Post‐Communist Poland,” Europe–Asia Studies 54/4 (2002), pp. 553–572; Ruti G. Teitel, Transitional Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Helga A. Welsh, “Dealing with the Communist Past. Central and East European Experiences after 1990,” Europe–Asia Studies 48/3 (1996), pp. 413–428; Kieran Williams, Aleks Szczerbiak and Brigid Fowler, “Explaining Lustration in Post‐Communist Eastern Europe,” Democratization 12/1 (2005), pp. 22–43.

5. For more on the “my commie/agent is good, yours is bad” game, see János Kenedi, Kis állambiztonsági olvasókönyv [A Concise Reader of State Security] (Budapest: Magvető, 1996); K. belügyi iratfelmérő jelentése a Kastélyból [A Report by Police Documentalist K. from the Castle] (Budapest: Magvető, 2000); Krisztián Ungvári, “Der Umgang mit der kommunistischen Vergangenheit in der heutigen ungarischen Erinnerungskultur,” in Bernd Faulenbach, Franz‐Joseph Jelich (Hg), “Transformationen” der Erinnerungskulturen in Europa nach 1989 (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2006), pp. 201–221; László Varga, Világ besúgói, egyesüljetek [Whisperers of the World Unite] (Budapest: Polgart Könyvkiadó, 2007).

6. From time to time, the Liberals repeat their original suggestion (the so‐called Demszky–Hack bill) to open the secret files, and a handful of historians publish on various kinds of prominent informers (church leaders, journalists, scholars, artists, etc.) in the framework of their research projects. Although the Liberals do not connect the claim of the so‐called “informational restitution” with any kind of legal punishment, except for the pain caused to the brick by the revealing of the secrets, their bill repeatedly runs into resistance by the Socialists and the National‐Conservatives. Below I will only refer to some of the most recent publications of liberal‐minded scholars and politicians: Gábor Demszky, “Amnesztiát az iratoknak” [Amnesty for the Documents], in A szabadság visszahódítása [Reconquering Freedom] (Budapest: Új, Mandátum Kiadó, 2001); Péter Hack, “Az ügynökvilág vége vagy újabb győzelme?” [The End of the Agents’ World or Its Victory?] Élet és Irodalom, 13 February 2005; Gábor Halmai, “A köz érdeke és az ügynökminiszterek titka” [The Public Interest and the Secret of the Ministers of State Security], Élet és Irodalom, 13 January 2003; Miklós Haraszti, “Zsarolási haladvány” [Progression of Blackmail], Élet és Irodalom, 30 June 2000; János Kenedi, “‘Stasi‐operett’ Magyarországon” [‘Stasi Operetta’ in Hungary], in K. belügyi (note 5); “Ügynök, ügynök über alles …” [Agent, Agent Above All], in K. belügyi (note 5); “A megismerés mint büntetési tétel” [Knowledge as Punishment], Élet és Irodalom, 24 March 2006; János Kis, “Az iratnyilvánosság és az alkotmány” [The Publicity of Documents and the Constitution], Élet és Irodalom, 25 March 2005; “Mit kezdjünk a volt ügynökökkel?” [What is to be Done with the Former Agents?], Népszabadság, 19, 21 August 1993; “Illusztráció az ügynökügyhöz” [Illustration to the Case of the Agents], Élet és Irodalom, 24 February 2006; Tamás Szőnyei, Nyilván tartottak. Titkos szolgák a magyar rock körül [The Registered. Secret Servants around the Hungarian Rock] (Budapest: Magyar Narancs, 2005); Péter Tölgyessy, “Az akták megítélése elválaszthatatlan a szocializmushoz való viszonyunktól” [The Evaluation of the Files is Inseparable from Our Attitude to Socialism], Fundamentum 7/1 (2003), pp. 33–36; Krisztián Ungvári, “Der Umgang” (note 5); “Mozgástér és kényszerpályák” [Room to Manoeuver and Forced Routes], Élet és Irodalom, 3 February 2006; “A beszervezés és az útibeszámoló” [The Enrollment and the Travel Report], Élet és Irodalom, 19 May 2006; László Varga, Világ besúgói (note 5); “Gergő … és az ő árnyéka, avagy amikor a jog a politika ügynökévé válik” [Gergő and his Shadow, or When the Law Becomes an Agent of Politics], Beszélő, 7/9–10 (2002), pp. 30–59. For an alternative approach among the Liberals, see Tamás Bauer, “Ügynöklicit” [Bidding for Agents], Élet és Irodalom, 26 February 2005; “Alkotmányos jogfosztás” [A Constitutional Deprivation of Rights], Élet és Irodalom, 18 March 2005; “Illusztráció az ügynökvitához” [Illustration to the Debate on Agents], Élet és Irodalom, 10 February 2006. A special genre of disclosure was invented by the writer Péter Esterházy, who published the reports filed by his own father to the police with detailed comments [Péter Esterházy, Javított kiadás (Revised Edition) (Budapest: Magvető, 2002)]. See also the bibliography of articles dealing with transitional justice in the weekly Élet és Irodalom between 1998 and 2006 (Élet és Irodalom, 3 February 2006).

7. See the transcript of the parliamentary investigation of Medgyessy’s intelligence activities (session: 1 August 2002), http://www.nincstobbtitok.hu/index.php?article=00000103 (last accessed 13 January 2008). It is hard to believe that he did not have to report on his colleagues in the ministry. The suspicion was reinforced by a document leaked out from the police archives, according to which Medgyessy led a party investigation on the potential counter‐revolutionaries in the main financial institutions back in 1976. See Magyar Nemzet 19 June 2002.

8. See Magyar Hírlap, 25 May 2001. While spying, he first became head of section in the ministry, then deputy minister. See also Dokumentumok Medgyessy BM‐dossziéjából (Documents from Medgyessy’s Files in the Ministry of Interior) I, II, III, IV, http://gondola.hu/cikkek/cikkek/11947 (last accessed 13 January 2008).

9. Allegedly, Szabó swore to his friend and another colleague not to reveal this secret any time in the future, and consulted them before filing his reports. According to another version of the story, he actually wanted to save himself. At any rate, he calls his friend in one of the reports a “counter‐revolutionary,” a most dangerous denunciation after 1956 (see “Pokolra kellett mennem” [I had to Visit Hell], Népszabadság, 29 January 2006; http://www.mtv.hu/magazin/cikk.php?id=102923, (last accessed 13 January 2008).

10. Szabó is less lucky than Medgyessy: his reports are available in the archives whereas most of the prime minister’s files are still classified or lost.

11. In 2004–05, István Szabó was among the potential candidates of the left‐liberal coalition in the presidential elections. He shot a whole series of films in the West before 1989, and is still the only Hungarian film director to win an Academy Award (1981). Péter Medgyessy worked as a successful businessman in the periods in which he was out of government, survived a few smaller corruption scandals, and received the Légion d’Honneur in 2000. When he was prime minister, the Parliament passed the so‐called “film law” (a principal lobbyist was István Szabó), a law that granted large public funds to the film industry. The stories of the two gentlemen are not over: Medgyessy published his memoirs [the title is Polgár a pályán [A Citoyen on the Field] (Budapest: Kossuth Kiadó, 2006)], and Szabó promised that he would shoot a film focusing on his own tribulations in 1956 and later. Medgyessy said in an interview the following: “I refuse the claim that I must not like István Szabó because he filed reports to the police.” Népszabadság, 21 February 2006.

12. Ironically, Szabó’s past as an agent might have remained a secret forever if the Medgyessy scandal had not resulted in opening part of the files for the researchers. The prime minister’s case triggered off a passionate debate in liberal circles, and even eminent former dissidents argued for the separation of ethical and political reasoning, and contended that Medgyessy must not be forced to step down on moral grounds. See János Kis, “Az erkölcsi minimum” [The Moral Minimum], Élet és Irodalom, 20 December 2002; Péter Nádas, “Az értelem kockázata” [The Risk of Reason], Élet és Irodalom, 3 January 2003; Endre Bojtár, “Kis‐minimum” [The Kis Minimum], Élet és Irodalom, 3 January 2003; Miklós Haraszti, “A politikai minimum” [The Political Minimum], Élet és Irodalom, 10 February 2003.

13. The signatures show a strange mix, they include the names of famous '56‐ers who sat in Kádár’s prison and of police agents, as well as those of Kádár’s court intellectuals and of leading former dissidents. (See Népszabadság, 30 January 2006.)

14. For a sarcastic counter‐petition (expressing my own sentiments as well), see http://www.petitiononline.com/pityu/petition.html (last accessed 13 January 2008).

15. János Kis, a leader of the anti‐communist opposition before and chairman of the Liberals after 1989, wrote the following: “It would not be appropriate to think of Szabó the same way as of Medgyessy who collaborated with the regime in order to promote his own career twenty years later. Péter Medgyessy was no victim. István Szabó was. But he was not the same kind of victim as those who did not join the police and therefore had to suffer or those who were the targets of his reports.” See “A szembesítés gyötrelmei” [The Pains of Confrontation] Népszabadság, 4 February 2006.

16. A rare exception is provided by Iván Horváth’s article who expressed serious doubts about the aesthetic value of Szabó’s movies. See Iván Horváth, “A múltat végképp” [The Past is to be Deleted for Good], Élet és Irodalom, 10 March 2006.

17. In the public discussion, the names of Martin Heidegger, Bohumil Hrabal, Herbert von Karajan, Imre Lakatos, Carl Schmitt, and, in particular, Wilhelm Furtwängler were mentioned the most often as analogies. The destiny of Furtwängler fascinated István Szabó so much that some years ago he produced a picture (“Taking Sides”) on the postwar screening of the German conductor. Szabó requested the script writer to include a new character in the original plot, a Soviet art historian who utters the following sentences: “In a dictatorship the arts belong to the party. … One does need good connections. One does have to make concessions” (see Gervai, “Egy ügynök”, note 1).

18. In the past couple of years, the biggest excitement among people at large was caused by the unveiling of cardinal/archbishop László Paskai (and five other archbishops and bishops), the most popular journalist of Hungary, György Szepesi, the soccer player and Olympic champion Dezső Novák and the rock singers Gyula Vikidál and Lajos Som. The liberal intelligentsia was most shaken by the cases of the writer Sándor Tar, the journalists Péter Molnár Gál and Tibor Fényi and the film director Gábor Bódy, who were all very close to the anti‐communist opposition in the 1980s. See also note 45. On Molnár Gál’s case, see György Spiró, “A Luzsnyánszky dossziéról” [On the Luzsnyánszky File], Élet és Irodalom, 10 January 2005.

19. See 168 óra 23 February 2006.

20. In consuming the cultural goods produced by the collaborators, it is rather difficult for me to separate the author from his work. Of course, the fact that a soccer player spied on his team‐mates does not invalidate in hindsight the memory of his superb goals. The same applies to a love song performed by a pop idol, to children rhymes written by a celebrated poet or to a theory proven by a natural scientist. Sometimes it is hard to suppress a bitter taste in one’s mouth even in those cases. One feels betrayed, starts suspecting and the pleasure of reception fades. Bitterness may, however, turn into real fury if the pop idol used to sing protest songs, the poet used to write poems with heavy political messages and the theory was put forward by a moral philosopher. In these cases one cannot help raising the question of validity, credibility or, in one word, quality, especially if one has observed the authors from a close vicinity. Maybe, the future generations will look back on them without any indignation just like we do not really care about Villon’s, Goncharov’s or Rimbaud’s wrongdoings today.

21. Ironically, since 1989, only three persons have been convicted in Hungary upon charges related to secret service activities under communism. József Végvári, major of the Ministry of Interior, who betrayed to the dissidents in December 1989 (!) that the surveillance of the “enemies of the system” as well as the liquidation of the secret files were not interrupted (this led to the so‐called Duna‐gate affair), was tried and reprimanded by the prosecutor for revealing state secrets. Two of his superiors got the same mild punishment for the liquidation of the secret materials (see László Varga, “Gergő”, note 6).

22. How on earth could I pass judgements? I grew up in a nomenklatura family and was lucky enough to be sheltered from provocation by the state security services. I have no right to either condemn or forgive anyone. A few ironical remarks are, however, due to show that self‐constraint on my part is not tantamount to affection toward the bricks, especially the proud ones.

23. Moral relativism has also been prompted by the recurrent quarrels between the '56‐ers, the reluctance of the Socialists to break with the Kádárist tradition, and by the hypocritical anti‐communist fervour of the right‐wing parties, which culminated in establishing the House of Terror in Budapest. [See Éva Kovács, “Das zynische und das ironische. Zum Gedächtnis des Kommunismus in Ungarn,” Transit 30 (2006), pp. 88–105.]

24. Debreczeni József, A miniszterelnök. Antall József és a rendszerváltozás [The Prime Minister. József Antall and the Systemic Change] (Budapest: Osiris, 1998), p.270. This is the context of the citation: “You cannot establish democracy and, at the same time, apply dictatorship in the sake of democracy. … Revolution, that’s what you should have made, dear friends. Do not require from those who managed the peaceful transition what one could demand from revolutionary leaders. Before the free parliamentary elections, one did not believe that there would be elections in this country. When we spoke of the secession of the Soviet troops, one did not believe that they would really leave. When we implemented all this, those who come up with very radical demands today, were silent. … Do not expect from me to kick out a head of department in Sátoraljaújhely! … We cannot do that because ours is a controlled, parliamentary government.”

25. See Ferenc Fehér, “Az ‘iskolamester’” [The Schoolmaster], Beszélő, 31 August 1991.

26. This game was also played by József Antall, who handed over envelopes to certain members of his party and coalition government (including those whom he wanted to discipline), and alluded to the fact that some of the envelopes may contain unpleasant information on involvement with the communist secret services. [See Éva Kovács, “‘Hütchenspiel’ – Der ungarische Diskurs über die Restitution der Gerechtigkeit,” in Krisztina Mänicke‐Gyöngyösi (Hg.), Öffentliche Konfliktdiskurse um Restitution von Gerechtigkeit, politische Verantwortung und nationale Identität (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1996), pp. 119–134.]

27. See G. M. Tamás, “Kenedi Jánosnak” [To János Kenedi], Élet és Irodalom, 26 November 1999; Tóth Klára, “Fájni fog” [It Will Ache], Élet és Irodalom, 22 April 2005. Both Péter Nádas and Péter Esterházy took an ambivalent but highly sophisticated approach in making moral judgements on collaboration: they did not reject justice‐making as such but, in contrast to their attitude to the communist rulers, showed a fair amount of compassion toward the agents, and also admitted (just like Václav Havel did) their own responsibility for sustaining the ancien régime. To quote Nádas’s words: “The dark and unchanging rule of the secret police is maintained not by petty informers who can be bought for a song, not by easily conned careerists or other nonentities, but by me.” The same conclusion was drawn by Esterházy: “If … we said that the country (I, you, he/she, we, you, they) exchanged blood spilled in '56 for some money, then it also means that we, for instance, commissioned certain people, our fellow‐citizens, to turn other fellow‐citizens of ours (e.g., my father) into bricks, ‘floor cloths’. This does not provide an excuse to either of the two parties, it is just so. I cannot extract myself from this in a clean state, this is not an issue of ‘the others,’ this is not a separate game between the rotten commies and the rotten bricks but it was played by all of us while we were not all (rotten) commies and bricks.” See Péter Nádas, “Our Poor, Poor Sascha Anderson,” Common Knowledge 8/3 (Fall 2002), pp. 526–547 [Heimkehr (Hamburg, 1999)]; Péter Esterházy, Javított kiadás (note 6), pp.122–3.

28. Actually, there were two conservative cabinets in Hungary between 1990 and 1994. Following Antall’s death in 1993, Péter Boross, a company director under Kádár, became prime minister.

29. From among the former leading reformers László Békesi, Lajos Bokros, Péter Medgyessy, Péter Mihályi, György Surányi and Attila Károly Soós joined the highest echelons of the first Socialist‐Liberal administration while Tamás Bauer and Márton Tardos, influential politicians of the Liberals, supported them.

30. Another important argument originated in the danger of a nationalist/populist/authoritarian distortion of the new democratic regime. Public intellectuals associated with the two parties founded the Democratic Charta in 1991 to face that danger.

31. At the roundtable talks, they often mediated between the hard‐liners of the Communists and the opposition groups.

32. From among the former researchers, György Surányi, for instance, was president of the National Bank when Medgyessy became finance minister in the Horn government, and István Csillag was minister for economic affairs in Medgyessy’s government. For a heroic story of reformism presented from the perspective of the Communists, see Iván T. Berend, A történelem, ahogy megéltem [History as I Lived It] (Budapest: Kulturtrade Kiadó, 1997). Today, the Socialists are coming close to subscribing to the tradition of the '56 revolution as well. The co‐optation of a famous revolutionary and former Liberal, Imre Mécs, in the parliamentary faction of the Socialists in 2006 reflects the ambition of the progressive wing of the party to replace János Kádár with the leader of the revolution, Imre Nagy.

33. See my “A reformalku sűrűjében” [In the Thick of Reform Bargaining], Valóság 27/3 (1984), pp. 30–55; “Reform Bargaining in Hungary,” Comparative Economic Studies, 28/3 (1986), pp. 25–42; “Reform Economics: The Classification Gap,” Daedalus 119/1 (Winter 1990, pp. 215–248); “From Reformation to Transformation: Limits to Liberalism in Hungarian Economic Thought,” East European Politics and Societies 5/1 (Winter 1991), pp. 41–72; “Compassionate Doubts about Reform Economics (Science, Ideology, Politics),” in J.M. Kovács and M. Tardos (eds), Reform and Transformation. Eastern European Economics on the Threshold of Change (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 299–334; “Planning the Transformation? Notes about the Legacy of the Reform Economists,” in J.M. Kovács (ed.), Transition to Capitalism? The Communist Legacy in Eastern Europe (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transactions, 1994), pp. 21–46.

34. Of course, one can start telling the story of collaboration in the period following the defeat of the 1848 revolution, during and after the Council Republic in 1919 or, closer to our times, in the course of the 1930s when part of the left reconciled itself with the proto‐fascist regime of Admiral Horthy. Probably, 1956 could have been the last moment before 1989 to make a fresh start in moral terms, if … if the revolution had not been defeated, had gone beyond the program of democratic socialism cum national liberation, and solved, in its honeymoon phase, the typical moral dilemmas of the time. These dilemmas were rooted in wartime collaboration, communist terror, the opportunism of the fellow‐travellers, the victimhood of Communists under their own regime, the democratic metamorphosis of Stalinists, etc. Too many “ifs,” I know but the ethical choices became even more twisted after 1956.

35. Here let me just refer to some of the most recent works on the Kádár era: György Földes, Az eladósodás politikatörténete [The Political History of Indebtedness] 1957–86 (Budapest: Maecenas, 1995); Péter György, Néma hagyomány [Silent Tradition] (Budapest: Magvető, 2000); Kádár köpönyege [Kádár’s Gown] (Budapest: Magvető, 2005); Tibor Huszár, Kádár János politikai életrajza [A Political Biography of János Kádár] (Budapest: Corvina, 2006); Kádár – a hatalom évei [Kádár. The Years of Power] 1956–89 (Budapest: Szabad Tér Kiadó, 2001–03); Melinda Kalmár, Ennivaló és hozomány. A kora‐kádárizmus ideológiája [Food and Dowry. The Ideology of Early Kádárism] (Budapest: Magvető: 1998); János M. Rainer, Nagy Imre. Politikai életrajz [Imre Nagy. A Political Biography] (Budapest: 1956–os Intézet, 1996–99); János M. Rainer and György Péteri (eds), Muddling Through in the Long 1960s. Ideas and Everyday Life in High Politics and the Lower Classes of Communist Hungary, Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and Societies, No. 16 (Trodheim: 2005); Sándor Révész, Antall József távolról [József Antall from Afar] (Budapest: Sik Kiadó, 1995); Aczél és korunk [Aczél and Our Era] (Budapest: Sik Kiadó, 1997); Éva Standeisky, Gúzsba kötve. A kulturális elit és a hatalom [Tied Up. The Cultural Elite and Political Power] (Budapest: 1956–os Intézet, 2005), Tibor Valuch, Hétköznapi élet Kádár János korában [Everyday Life in the Era of János Kádár] (Budapest: Corvina, 2006); Magyarország társadalomtörténete a XX. század második felében [The Social History of Hungary in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century] (Budapest: Osiris, 2001). As for the behavior of the intellectuals, censhorship, etc., it is still worth while reading Miklós Haraszti’s book The Velvet Prison (New York: Basic Books, 1987). On the legacy of collaboration, see Gábor Gyáni, “A kollaboráció szégyene és dicsősége” [The Shame and Glory of Collaboration], Élet és Irodalom, 10 February 2006.

36. See Éva Standeisky, Gúzsba kötve (note 35); Az írók és a hatalom [The Writers and Political Power] 1956–63, (Budapest: 1956–os Intézet, 1996).

37. The old American anecdote about the smart Hungarian who enters the revolving door behind you but leaves it in front of you, began to spread in Hungary only in the 1980s. For the ongoing political instrumentalization of the myth of Central Europe, see my “Westerweiterung? Zur Metamorphose des Traums von Mitteleuropa,” Transit 21 (2001), pp. 3–19.

38. Until the emergence of market socialism in China, the only serious alternative to the “Pannonian model” of reform economics was the “Illyrian model” of workers’ self‐management. For a most insightful appraisal of the Yugoslav economic policy in Hungary during the 1980s, see Attila K. Soós, Terv Kampány, Pénz [Plan, Campaign, Money] (Budapest: KJK, 1986). Cf. my “Narcissism of Small Differences. Looking Back on ‘Reform Economics’ in Hungary,” in Christoph Boyer (Hg.), Zur Physiognomie sozialistischer Wirtschaftsreformen (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007).

39. See Népszabadság, 24 December 1967.

40. See my “Compassionate Doubts” (note 33); “Reform Economics” (note 33).

41. See Ferenc Jánossy, “Gazdaságunk mai ellentmondásainak eredete” [The Origins of Current Contradictions in Our Economy], Közgazdasági Szemle 16/7–8 (1969), pp. 806–829 (and in English, Eastern European Economics, 8/4 (1970)).

42. See Márton Tardos, “Reform: itt és most?” [Reform: hic et nunc?] Mozgó Világ, 9/2 (1983), pp. 8–23; “Ma jobban tudom, hogy senki se tudja” [Today I Know Better That Nobody Knows It], in Márton Tardos, A liberális reformer [The Liberal Reformer] (Budapest: Pénzügykutató, 1999). Tardos belonged to those few reform economists who could flawlessly harmonize dissidence and co‐authoring papers with the Communist dissenter Rezső Nyers. See Rezső Nyers and Márton Tardos, “Milyen gazdaságfejlesztési stratégiát válasszunk?” [What Strategy for Economic Development Is To Be Chosen?] Gazdaság 13/1 (1979), pp. 5–25; “Vállalatok a gazdasági reform előtt és után” [Firms Before and After the Economic Reform], Valóság 24/3 (1981), pp. 9–19. For the ambiguity of my attitude to the legendary reform Communist, see “Nyers,” Élet és Irodalom, 4 April 2003.

43. See note 6, in particular, the writings of Tamás Bauer.

44. Medgyessy seems to disregard this. I quote him: “There were two options. One of them was ‘the worse the better’ option, that is, to play for a quick collapse of the system. It would have been a great naiveté for someone to think like this in 1978. If one knows history and the international situation at the time, he/she cannot presume it to be a good option. … Well, one can say with a clear conscience that in such a situation the only possible choice was to grant a normal life in the country; to do the work one had been taught, to work in the national economy and use the knowledge one obtained at the University of Economics about financial, professional, economic issues. I chose that way. I think I did it correctly. By the way, about ten million Hungarians chose the same option.” (See the transcript of the parliamentary investigation: http://www.nincstobbtitok.hu/index.php?article=00000103, last accessed 13 January 2008)

45. Among others, the names of the following economists were mentioned by the ad hoc commission led by Imre Mécs: László Bogár, Imre Boros, Szabolcs Fazakas, Zsigmond Járai, Béla Kádár, János Martonyi, Ferenc Rabár and Gábor Szalay (see http://www.nincstobbtitok.hu/index.php?page=0101, last accessed 13 January 2008). Many of them blocked the publication of their files by claiming that they were not public figures and referring to their rights for privacy. Part of them remained silent or said that they had only filed “travel reports” upon returning from their official visits to the West, or talked to certain officers but had not joined the secret police.

46. There were two delicate cases of collaboration (or the lack of it) with or without involvement with the secret police (the Hungarian or the Soviet one), which aroused much suspicion in the profession for many decades: (1) the mysterious suicide of György Péter in 1969, president of the Central Statistical Office after 1956, and the pioneer of reform thinking in Eastern Europe prior to 1956; (2) the “never‐ending” presidency of Béla Csikós‐Nagy in the Central Price Office, a prominent economist who flirted with Nazism before the war and was rehabilitated by the Communists thereafter. See Árvay János and Hegedüs B. András (eds), Egy reformközgazdász emlékére. Péter György 1903–1969 [Remembering a Reform Economist] (Budapest: Cserépfalvi‐T‐Twins, 1994).

47. Besides the above‐mentioned books by Berend and Medgyessy, see also the historical study written by László Csaba and László Szamuely on Rendszerváltozás a közgazdaságtanban – közgazdaságtan a rendszerváltozásban [Systemic Change in Economics – Economics in the System Change] (Budapest: Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány, 1998). József Böröcz’s, László Lengyel’s and György Péteri’s writings are exceptions to the rule. See József Böröcz, “Reaction as Progress: Economists as Intellectuals,” in András Bozóki (ed.) Intellectuals and Politics in Central Europe (Budapest: CEU Press, 1999, pp. 245–262); Lengyel László, “Adalékok a ‘Fordulat és reform’ történetéhez” [On the History of ‘Turnaround and Reform’]. Medvetánc 7/2 (1987), pp. 131–165; Kétszög Hankiss Elemérrel [A Diangle with Elemér Hankiss] (Budapest: Helikon Press, 2002); György Péteri, “Controlling the Field of Academic Economics: Hungary, 1953–1976,” Minerva 34/4 (1996), pp. 367–380; “New Course Economics: The Field of Economic Research in Hungary after Stalin, 1953–1956,” Contemporary European History November 6/3 (1997), pp. 295–327; “Purge and Patronage: Kádár’s Counterrevolution and the Field of Economic Research in Hungary, 1957–58,” Contemporary European History February 1/1 (2002), pp. 125–152.

48. A telling example: after the list provided by the Mécs Commission (see note 45) had been published, not a single colleague of the incriminated persons commented on their alleged wrongdoings, or, in general, on the moral dilemmas of economists under the Kádár regime, publicly. The rare comments concerned the controversial procedures of the commission, and the undoubtedly shaky proofs offered an excuse for silence. (See, e.g., Tamás Bauer, “Taps a kormánypártok padsoraiban” [Applause from the Benches of the Government Parties], Élet és Irodalom, 11 January 2003.)

49. Ironically, his code name was István Szabó.

50. In many cases the contacts with the secret service were not completely discontinued. Bácskai, for example, became an official in the Soviet satellite organization, the World Council of Peace in Vienna during the 1960s. As another agent from István Szabó’s class in the film school wrote in a self‐unveiling essay, the principals from the secret police reappeared in the life of the agents from time to time, keeping them in a state of permanent uncertainty and angst. (See Zsolt Kézdi‐Kovács, “Jelentek” [I am reporting], Élet és Irodalom, 3 February 2006.)

51. János Kornai, A gondolat erejével [By Force of Thought] (Budapest: Osiris, 2005). (The quotations below are my translation.)

52. On this balance act, see, e.g., his “The Hungarian Reform Process. Visions, Hopes and Reality,” Journal of Economic Literature 24/4 (1986), pp. 1687–1737.

53. Cf. A gondolat (note 51), pp.140–41, 225. (Kende, who left Hungary in the wake of the 1956 revolution, became a renown political scientist in Paris.)

54. A gondolat (note 51), p.290.

55. A gondolat (note 51)., p.264.

56. See note 27 on accompliceship as interpreted by two prominent writers in Hungary.

57. In social sciences it is doubtful whether delaying research will make its results more mature. Kornai’s example demonstrates that, although those fields which he had excluded from his research program when writing the Shortage were included in his book on The Socialist System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), the postponement led to a decline in both authenticity of analysis and depth of empirical inquiry. By the time Kornai broke with self‐censorship and completed his book, the “insect” called planned economy died, moreover his interest turned to a new species, the emerging market economy.

58. See my “Business as (Un)usual. Notes on the Westernization of Economic Sciences in Eastern Europe,” in Max Kaase and Vera Sparschuh (eds), Three Social Science Disciplines in Central and Eastern Europe (Bonn/Berlin and Budapest: IZ‐Colbud, 2002), pp. 26–33.

59. Working rather close to János Kornai in the same research institute in Budapest for almost two decades, many of the younger colleagues including myself were convinced that he might have been less cautious without jeopardizing his life strategy. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I am afraid that we were only right as far as the second half of the 1980s was concerned.

60. See Imre Kertész, “A Sorstalanságot a Kádár‐rendszerről írtam” [I Wrote Fatelessness about the Kádár Regime], Élet és Irodalom, 30 May 2003; “A túlélés koreográfiái” [Choreographies of Survival], Magyar Hírlap 13 September 2003.