November 8th, 2017
Commentators draw diametrically opposed lessons from the horrific history of Communism. Both see it as corroborating their political positions.
On hvg.hu, László Seres detects signs of the survival of Bolshevism in today’s world. He accuses the government of having followed a communist pattern in rechannelling compulsory private pension funds into the realm of public finances. He also sees the spirit of Bolshevism at work on the side of the opposition. He cites the slogan launched by the former Socialist frontrunner László Botka who promised to “make the rich pay”, as a prime example. The neoconservative pundit also lambasts the left-wing habit of exhibiting Che Guevara’s photo on t-shirts as a sign of adulating a mass murderer.
By contrast, in his Magyar Hírlap editorial, László Domokos sees the incumbent government as a guarantee that Leninist practices have had their day in Hungary. The last flare-up of Bolshevism, he suggests, was the fierce police attack on peaceful demonstrators on the 50th anniversary of the 1956 revolution in Budapest. Mr Ferenc Gyurcsány, who served as Prime Minister in the left-liberal government from 2004 to 2009 was accused at the time of deliberately tolerating disturbances first and then unleashing his riot police on peaceful Fidesz sympathisers on the anniversary. Since 2010 (when Fidesz won the elections by a landslide) Domokos describes himself as increasingly convinced that 2006 ‘was the last shot of the Battleship Aurora’.
Tags: communism, revolution
