Coming in from the cold?

Hungary still struggles to come to terms with its ignominious past – and future

In mid-february, hungary’s mundane network traffic suddenly came to life for a brief moment. A list of agents of the former communist regime was made public online; within a few minutes over 100,000 people accessed the document from the internet. This is no small feat in a country where internet penetration is still among the lowest within most of the developed world.

The list in question is a short document containing 19 names of those who already have publicly acknowledged that they were once in the service of, or recruited by, the former secret police. A much longer list containing some 97 names is still pending release. These lists have been put together by a group calling themselves political capital, a supposed "policy research and consulting institute". The group is presently looking into the legalities of making the longer list public.

The individuals on the list cover a wide spectrum society. There are politicians from all sides of the political palette, including the leader of the nationalist truth and life party (MIEP) istvan csurka, the former prime minister peter medgyessy, and present member of the european parliament szabolcs fazakas. There are also leading economists such as tamas bacskai and zsigmond jarai, the latter who also happens to be the present head of the hungarian national bank. Other high profile individuals include laszlo salgo, a senior member of europol, and sandor keresztes, former ambassador to the vatican. And of course there are a number of culture figures such as well-known writers, journalists, critics, musicians, rock stars, and even a sports figure, the footballer dezso novak.

The list, unfortunately, is incomplete and doesn’t really contain anything new. In similar situations in both slovakia and poland, lists of former collaborators and agents contained tens of thousands of names. Hence, even the "bigger" hungarian list of 97 names is very small in comparison and doesn’t represent the full list of those who collaborated with the former regime. Admittedly, the full list will never be known as many documents were destroyed in the dying days prior to the regime change. According to experts, a full list of collaborators would contain over a hundred thousand of names; among these are the thousands of informers who were either forced or blackmailed into co-operating with the authorities.

Despite this and other shortcomings, according to a statement on the political capital website, "we are certain that our release provides a legal right to know: who, why, and how individuals worked with the secret police." for this reason, the group argues, they made public their short list. Furthermore, their ultimate objective is to prere politicians to come through with their promise to make public the entire list of agents. They hope that this will finally put closure to the so-called "agent ie", one which has plagued hungarian politics ever since the regime change of 1990.

Yet the legalities of making public the entire list of agents and informers, no less political capital’s list of 97 names, is tied up with ies of privacy and data protection. Attila peterfalvi, the government’s privacy envoy, stressed that only names made public by a voluntary admission can be considered legally acceptable. He added, "it’s not legal that someone is accused and then they confess." in the case of public figures, however, peterfalvi admitted that it’s legal to make public the names of former agents and informers. Moreover, he sees nothing wrong with publicly releasing a list of previously legally publicised names, as was done with the present short list, but warned that any other form of public disclosure would be considered illegal, an obvious reference to the desire of political capital to release their longer list of 97 names.

"The main job of politicians for the past 15 years is to lie to society"

But even some of the names on the short list were originally disclosed in an illegal manner, further complicating privacy and data protection matters. Indeed, some of these names were brought to the attention of the public in order to further a political agenda. Such was the case with csurka when he had a falling out with the first post-communist prime minister, jozsef antall, who subsequently publicly disclosed his former political ally’s name in order to discredit him (it actually had the reverse effect as csurka quickly acknowledged the fact and added that he was forced to be an informer but did not provide any information to the authorities). Likewise, peterfalvi pointed to as being inappropriate how the names of pokorni and peter molnar gal were made public, two individuals which appeared on the short list.

For this reason, the agent ie in hungary is still of great concern; the list is important to some not so much for the protection of former collaborators, but as an effective political weapon and means of blackmail. In fact, it’s ironic how during each election campaign over the last 15 years the agent ie (as well as other standard election topics such as corruption) have always risen to the fore, only to be abruptly pushed aside and forgotten after the election was over.

While those with access to "the list" are reluctant to have it made public for obvious reasons, some see the policy of preventing full public disclosure after such a long period of time as a dangerous game, and one that could ultimately backfire. According to janos kenedi, a well-known hungarian historian, the short list has opened an outlet for public dissatisfaction with how politicians have handled the ie. As far as kenedi is concerned, political capital has reinforced the feeling that "the main job of politicians for the past 15 years is to lie to society."

Kenedi speculates that as a result of the posting of the short list on the internet, within the coming weeks and months there will appear on many sites alternative lists that will contain hundreds of unchecked and perhaps bogus names, akin to what had once happened in poland. If this were to happen, kenedi blames those who had withheld for the past 15 years the publication of the real list of names, foremost the ministers in charge of state security.

Already this forecast has come true, as an unsubstantiated list containing some 219 names was put on the internet. This list is supposed to be the list the first post-communist prime minister (jozsef antall) received from the last communist prime minister (miklos nemeth) when the regime changed. The list is organised according to occupation and although it contains the names of supposed agents and informers in all areas, including the names of priests, not one name from the former communist party (the hungarian socialist party, or MSZP) appears. Not surprisingly, experts and those familiar with the list denies its authenticity. Nevertheless, as kenedi had forecasted, the genie is out of the bottle.

Apart from the list itself, what has worried the likes of kenedi is how the secret service, for the sake of national security, was able to bury its disgraceful pre-1990 past by sealing its records for the next 50 years. Hence, without public disclosure of the former secret police files it will be impossible to know fully what went on during the communist dictatorship in hungary.

Propaganda, political theater or spin doctoring?

Aside from all this, what the release of the short list in february heralded was not so much a renewed interest in the agent ie, but something much less sensational: the start of 2006 election campaign. Next year’s election will no doubt be an ugly affair, so it should come as no surprise that vested interests are starting their propaganda campaigns early.

Along these lines, the political capital release of "the list" turned out to be excellent political theater, raising questions as to who the group really is and what they really represent. For instance, the design and functionality of their website, coupled with the flawless language on the english version of the site, suggest some kind of foreign involvement or assistance in its creation, no doubt by some kind of "communications" agency or expert1, as hungarians are fond of calling agents of spin. Indeed, the fact that the group calls itself by the english name "political capital" is suspect. Usually the CIA uses such meaningless, pseudo-sophisticated terminology, like universal travel as the name for a travel agency front.

In addition to this, one of the leading members of political capital is krisztian szabados, who also used to be the press secretary (i.E., spin doctor) for the alliance of free democrats (SZDSZ), the government’s junior coalition partner. Ironically, the SZDSZ has already launched numerous online campaigns on a variety of ies. It has posted on its own site a number of questions for "debate" in order to gauge the mood of the public on certain subjects, such as views on homosexuality and whether hungary should be considered a "christian country".

Sadly, what is often lost in such political theater is the truth. In terms of the agent ie, not only is hungary unable to confront how the former regime spied on its own citizens, but many are unaware how the ignominious activities of the secret police continue to this day, only this time for different masters. No longer is the surveillance state for the "protection" of socialist society against "the hands of the enemy"; now it’s needed to "safeguard" democracy from "terrorists", be they suicide bombers or anti-globalisation protesters.

As election day in hungary gradually approaches, we can expect to see more and more such political theater bursting on the scene. The difference this time round is the sophistication with which the campaigns are being run coupled with the way in which the internet is being utilised to this extent. Meanwhile, lost within this miasma of politics and propaganda are both meaning and content.