Rolling Transition and the Role of Intellectuals

Front matter

and the ROLEof INTELLECTUALS

Andras Bozoki

- CEU PRESS

Contents

LIST OE TABLES 2 opeepanii eoe N RERU IR aan EOT abu IX LIST OF FIGURES e —————À XI ABBREVIATIONS a eieecinhcirereseriee cevdustestensiuesededtossesasts aS RE sregassastsbeisbeneetiosase XIII ACKNOWLEDGMENT Swisssccsscssscsscssscsssssscscsssscsssssesscssscsscssecscssessecssassenseassesscasscsseases XV INTRODUCTION e ——————— I Chapter I THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS: THEORIES AND INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORKS vessescssssssssesesssssssscsesssecsesesessessaesesessescscaceseseseaees 19 te Whoaretheintellectuals? 4:2 eee enr red eap e am 19 1.3 Theories of the New Class....sssssssssssssssssssssssssssccseesssesssssssssssssessnessscssssceseessseeess 32 Chapter II 1. Censorship and the press in the late Kádár era... 64 LI The practice of controlling the press... 64

1.2 Mechanisms of informal control... 13 The collapse of selective repression...

2. Strategies of co-optation: “Intelligentsia-policy” inthe one-party SySteniss azienda ze arses irte Lun RR URN CUR DRE d 79 2.1 Celebrities, seigneurs, confidents, and his "court"... 82 2.2 Reformers, civilian groups, and sympathizers... Chapter III

I

Opposition: groups m ———— 1.1 The flowers of decay 1.2 The rise of samizdat The dissidents between state and society... ees 105

31 Moral politics...

Contents

3.3. Churches and peace activism... eerte trenes 117 3.4 Environmentalism 3 Cultural Criticise cao et ore m otra rive’ 4.1 Revolution, retribution, and capitulation... 4.2 Anniversary celebrations 43 ‘Central Europe rediscovered nessas nae A E E 4.4 The taboos fall: The situation of minorities .. 47 Historical memory... : s. The debate of the Beszélő circle on strategy... $3 Jhepossible ways of changeant ertet teet Chapter IV 1.1 Humanization of POWER csse tite inii iio eris e eroi iieo reset rest 175 1:2: SÁATTELDODIEICS sisirain eue rara EE RARUS Pre HER 178 i3. Disobedienéesasaasnaemdtiean dua tren a diaeta EARANN 180 WE eus. p —————— EE 185 1:57 Human rig DES coenae ain duisi aded reheat 188 3. Open network-building and party formation... 193 3.1 Forms of OT YANIZACION ————— 193 3.2 The rhetoric of crisis ..c..ccsscsssessssssssssesssssssssssscsesssessesssesssessesssessesssessssssessssseeseses 203 Chapter V REGIME CHANGE AND ELITE CHANGE... eese tnnt tntentntnns 211 2.1 Reform CCONOMISCS ..ssescssssssessssesssesssecssnecssecssscssnecsuccessecssecsscessecssesssscesnecsssesses 219 »3. “TNS LECH MOCLAC Ys sense sinia kisse epe erit UE 229 3. The Roundtable talks as elite settlement... 232 4. Co-optation, cooperation, contestations nete 239 vi

Contents

2.1 Tactical maneuvers 2.2 Preparatory talks between the Opposition Roundtable and the MSZMP niina SERES RU Ub Ae REUS 256 2:3. The reburial of [are Na gy asscssssssnsssessssssossssnnsssconseisinssvsosopenssnbesesasiosnossazennonssn 262 3.1 The structure of the talks... - 3.2. Shifting POSiciONs'...ssrcssscvsvasosovecocennnsstesssvosoobsocsonstsnsbesivecsesauncsnnebivsesbvocognnnenens 3.3 Major steps forward, limited results... 277 From the referendum to the free elections... 286 s.1. Freedom and popular sovereignty «siirretiin 295 §.2. Representative democracy usui eucoetp arp tee ecce 297 53. INonviolences duae io dien pe WO RR ON ERU PER ER LES 298 $t. Broad consensus; suo nce aita e n pO ER ER YER ERU 299 D Eris d ——— 302 The past revisited: Historical teferences ases nime n fen 305 6.1 The revolutionary PLACIGION qiero adr AT 305

6.3 Break and the new beginning

Chapter VII INTELLECTUALS AS LEGISLATORS terere eterni a ee nie eoe eere 319 2.2 The Alliance of Free Democrats ...sssssssssssssesssessssecssccseesssesssnssssccsseesneesseenss 341 2.4 The Federation of Young Democrats... 356 3. The historical Jobu a [lm —————Ó———M—— TÓC 370 3.2 The Hungarian Social Democratic Party ... 25:375 3:3 Ihe Hungarian People's Party scsssssisssissasseasensonossasiessvorsonsersniesssionsqsosoesesbnssso 379 vii

Contents

Chapter VIII INTERPRETING DEMOCRACY: THE NEW MOVEMENT INTELLECTUALS aA E E RE 406 1.2 Mission, sense of duty, brooding: The intellectual politicians: ueterem ttis 412 1.3 tU meena bets —————— 417 2. Movementintellectual politics after 1989: The Démocratie Charter aae ernaria raees reee eii e e rented 424 áá Iheopinion leaders ssis sieniin tavenesbsesntassetseeuisaveiens 425 2.2 Background of the formation of the Democratic Charter aerronenn amana a NNNNA ARARAS 430 2.3 From need to MOVEMENC...sesssssssesssessssecssecssscssnscssecessecssecssscssnecssecssecesnecssseeses 435 Chapter IX ROLLING TRANSITION: ROTATING AGENCY (CO AUTHOR ÁGNES SIMON) aae ttekukudtais ba e eR le ir iun 476 1. Periods and actors unen ocad eon e reta dee o ép CRUCE aia 477 3. Model of the rolling transition «e rentrer 488 31 From beginning to the end (1977-1994) eee 488 3.5 Period of open network-building (1988) 4. Continuity and discontinuity ———— —ÁÁÓ—PÓÓ UPON $14 4.1 Circulation of elites and continuity... ss 3515 4.3 Continuity and discontinuity between the Roundtable talks, sy "Ihe end of transitions. iiia eer ee Rr ted dede ek set ERE o $29 CONCLUSION ezeket ített — € À 535 BIBLIOGRAPHY T ——————— 551 INDE X erene case ——————Á———— M 591 viii

Table 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

Table 4.

Table s.

Table 7.

Table 8.

Table ro.

Table 11.

Table 12.

Table 13.

List of Tables

The timeline of rolling transition: Types of political activities and the role of msellectaale. uos rette II The summary of the opposition activists of the

Intellectual positions by universalistic/

The distribution of social groups in economic

The career background of intellectual experts

working in think tanks aont bnt eri eiecti 45 The historical narrative of the state socialist

The differences between the Polish and

Declared goals and dominant elite networks

during and after the tCabSIElOD sssini 247 The phases of pluralization and the key leaders

Overlap between the 1991 signatories of the Democratic Rate of growth of joining the Democratic

Dominant political groups’ evaluation of the

notion and context OF democracy casses eedem 474

Table 15.

Table 16.

Table 17.

Table 18.

Table 19.

Table 23.

Table 24.

Table 25.

Table 26.

List of Tables

The five-period categorization of the era of rolling transition... 478 List of dissident intellectual activities and events, 1977—1994.. 482 The distribution of events and actions by dissident

The 40 most active dissident intellectuals of

the 1977-1994 CTA m ——9À 491 The correlation between the frequency of participation

The correlation between the frequency of participation

in the period of open network-building and

participation in later periods ociedus sieut n rien $00 The correlation between the frequency of participation

in the period of Roundtable negotiations and SÜbDSEgJÜENEPÉTOGS c — aágésatd an 506 The correlation between the freguency of participation

in the period of parliamentary politics and participation

The patterns of elite circulation «sie tcd cbe 518

Overlaps between the members of Opposition

Roundtable and the members of the newly elected

national assembly eissyoes testes treno P RERO énis 522 Summary of the most active and other activists

abeachrpertad.usien iet bebes Cus ket b usps 523 The average age of the most active individuals in

the five periods of regime change cusan rte 528 The possibility of intellectual protests:

Figure I.

List of Figures

The top 15 most frequent occupations among all

intellectuals compared to the distribution of occupations among the most active participants, 197771994.. 490 The top 10 most frequent occupations among all

intellectuals compared to the distribution of occupations among the most active participants in the period of

dissent 10 90 19ST scious sect idet nd e E ORT 493 The proportions of all intellectuals and the core of the

The top 10 most frequent occupations among all

intellectuals compared to the distribution of occupations among the most active participants in the period of

open network-building, 1088. cunei titio tari inii iesr tns 498 The proportions of all open network-building intellectuals

and their core participating in previous and subsequent

non —————————— — 501 The top 10 most frequent occupations among all

intellectuals compared to the distribution of occupations among the most active participants in the period of

Roundtable negotiations, 198 sisseessstscssssssscotssssectbdesceteoastestesessstess 503 The proportions of all and the most active members of the

four intellectual organizations (Fidesz, Liga, MDF, SZDSZ)

of the Opposition Roundtable that were active in the xi

Figure ro.

Figure II.

List of Figures

The top 10 most frequent occupations among all intellectuals compared to the distribution of occupations among the most active participants in the period of

The proportions of all and the most active members of the three intellectual parties (Fidesz, MDF, SZDSZ) of the period of parliamentary politics that were

The proportion of all and the most active intellectuals of the period of the new pro-democracy initiatives that participated in earlier periods ise

The top 10 most frequent occupations among all intellectuals compared to the distribution of occupations among the most active participants in the period of new pro-democracy initiatives, 1991-1994...

Continuity in the participation of all dissident intellectuals between consecutive and nonconsecutive periods of regime change, 197771994 «epcodbtettiisttes censerent

Continuity in the participation of the most active dissident intellectuals between consecutive and

Continuity in the gender distribution among all dissident intellectuals and their most active subgroups xii

BAL BZSBT CMEA

DC Demisz EKA Fidesz FJF FKGP HNF KDNP

KISZ KMT MDF MDP MISZOT

MKP MNP MNOT

MOP

Abbreviations

Left Alternative

Bajcsy-Zsiliszky Friendship Society Council of Mutual Economic Assistance

Democratic Charter

Alliance of Democratic Youth Opposition Roundtable Federation of Young Democrats Independent Lawyer's Forum Independent Smallholder's Party Patriotic People's Front

Christian Democratic People's Party

Young Communist League Central Workers Council Hungarian Democratic Forum Hungrian Workers’ Party

National Council of Hungarian Youth Associations

Communist Party of Hungary Hungarian People’s Party

National Council of Hungarian Women

Hungarian October Party xiii

(Demokratikus Cbarta) (Demokratikus Ifjúsági Szövetség) (Ellenzéki Kerekasztal)

(Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége) (Független Jogász Fórum) (Független Kisgazdapárt) (Hazafias Népfront) (Kereszténydemokrata Néppárt)

(Kommunista Ifjúsági Szövetség) (Központi Munkástanács)

(Magyar Demokrata Fórum) (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja) (Magyar Ifjúsági Szövetségek Országos Tanácsa)

(Magyarországi Kommunista Párt) (Magyar Néppárt)

(Magyar Nők Országos Tanácsa)

(Magyar Október Part)

MSZDP

MSZMP

MSZOSZ

MSZP MTI MUK

MUOSZ

NDSZ NKA SZDSZ SZETA SZIMA

SZOT TDDSZ

TIB

UME

Abbreviations

Social Democratic Party of Hungary

Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party

National Alliance of Hungarian Trade Unions

Hungarian Socialist Party Hungarian News Agency

Community of Hungarian Journalists

National Federation of Hungarian Journalists

National Democratic Alliance National Roundtable

Alliance of Free Democrats Fund for the Support of the Poor

Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts

National Council of Trade Unions Tudományos Dolgozók Demokratikus Szakszervezete

Committee for Historical Justice

New March Front xiv

(Magyarországi Szocidldemokrata Part) (Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt)

(Magyar Szakszervezetek Országos Szövetsége)

(Magyar Szocialista Part) (Magyar Távirati Iroda) (Magyar Újságírók Közössége)

(Magyar Újságírók Országos Szövetsége

(Nemzeti Demokrata Szövetség) (Nemzeti Kerekasztal)

(Szakszervezetek Országos Tanácsa)

(Democratic Trade Union of Scientific Workers)

(Történelmi Igazságtétel Bizottsága)

(Új Márciusi Front)

Acknowledgments his book is a result of long period of research therefore I owe a debt of

gratitude to many people. On the forms of transitions from authoritarian rule and different aspects of democracy I learned a lot from the classic writings of Juan J. Linz, Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Nadia Urbinati. My research on the political role of intellectuals has been inspired by the works of Istvan Deák, Gil Eyal, Timothy Garton Ash, Alvin Gouldner, Paul Hollander, Bill Lomax, Adam Michnik, Miklós Szabó, Ivan Szelényi and others. As for the history of the Hungarian democratic opposition and the period of democratic transition, I found the writings of Ervin Csizmadia, Janos Kis, Zoltan Ripp, Erzsébet Szalai, G. M. Tamas and Rudolf L. Tőkés most useful.

One of the predecessors of this book was the 8-volume series on the minutes of Roundtable talks in Hungary that we published in Hungarian language in 1999-2000. As the editor-in-chief and contributor, I worked together with Marta Elbert, Melinda Kalmar, Béla Révész, Erzsébet Ripp, and Zoltan Ripp, whose work proved to be essential in discovering the dynamics of negotiations. Later I published the essence of this book series in English, The Roundtable Talks of 1989: The Genesis of Hungarian Democracy, which discussed the Hungarian transition in broader context. Beyond this I conducted another research on the regime change of 1989 due to the generous support of the Department of Political Science at the CEU for which I remain thankful. In this research we interviewed 200 participants of the Roundtable talks. I am grateful to a group of dedicated young researchers who helped me in executing the interviews: Balint Balazs, Marcell Balint, Botond Bitskey, Katalin Füzér, Gergely Karácsony, Borbála Kriza, András Lénárt, Ádám Masát, Csanád Nagypál, Krisztina Schay, Eszter Somogyi,

XV

Acknowledgments

Enikő Szombati, Kinga Szuly, Eva Vajda, and Zsuzsanna Vidra. As for my further research on the democratic opposition I am particularly thankful to Agnes Simon, for her help in advancing a more elaborated analysis as co-author of Chapter IX.

I had several opportunities to discuss the ideas on the political role of intellectuals with active and interested students at the Central European University, Columbia University, Smith College, and Eötvös Loránd University, to whom I am most thankful. I finalized my book as a senior fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, and the conversations with other fellows helped a lot in shaping and reshaping my ideas. In this circle I should be thankful to Luke Cooper, Janos M. Kovacs, Ivan Krastev, Andrei Plesu, Dieter Segert, and Ruth Wodak for sharing their thoughts with me. I owe my gratitude to Balint Madlovics who translated parts of the book (Chapters I, III, IV, V), and I wish to thank Julia Lilian Szabó and colleagues at CEU Press for their help in finalizing the text. Naturally, responsibility belongs to me for any mistakes in the book. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Kati, for all the love, patience, and support that she gave me throughout the period of writing this book.

Vienna, May 2022

XVI his book investigates who were and what was the aim of the most active

participants of the Hungarian regime change and what role the opposition intelligentsia played in the democratic transition. The concept of transition is understood more broadly than the mainstream academic literature considers it. In this book, I cover the period between 1977 and 1994 to highlight the incremental, rolling, and accelerating nature of political change. It includes the late communist period, the disintegration of the system, the regime change itself, and the early post-transition years. I introduce the concept of rolling transition that I consider as the model for those nonviolent, elite-driven regime changes in which the educated leaders of the opposition—the intellectuals—do not take up the role of the vanguard, but keep rotating themselves as the dynamics of transition require. My starting point to approach the emergence of democratic political divisions is that their formation was linked not only to historically determined deep currents but also to certain break points or turning points. Some historical moments have a significant effect on the organization of political forces and the transformation of political systems. These rare moments also form generations.

Various competing narratives of the revolutions of 1989 emerged a few years after historic transformation. On their own, these narratives are one-sided simplifications, each containing a certain piece of the truth. They can be summarized, in a nutshell, as follows.

According to the American narrative, US President Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative displaying economic and military superiority, his political intransigence, as well as his diplomatic skills demonstrated in his negotiations with President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union led to the Western victory in the Cold War. This narrative sees the significance of 1989 in winning the Cold

War and the victory of the liberal revolution." In a broader context of the history of ideas, this also meant the depletion of systemic alternatives to liberal democracy.*

According to the Russian narrative, President Gorbachev turned out to be weak in keeping the territories the Soviet Union had occupied in World War II. To stop the internal economic decay of the Soviet Union, he gave up Central Europe and allowed the satellite states to follow their own way. This is interpreted as a negative phenomenon, as a sign of weakness in contemporary Russian political discourse. Yet the change of Soviet politics was not only the reason but also the radical consequence of the regime changes of 1989. A substantial part of international literature interprets the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the essence of the process that started in 1989.3

According to the Polish narrative, revolutionary changes in Central Europe can be described as a domino effect of consecutive events. The first domino was Poland, due to the selflimited revolution of Solidarity, a unifying social movement and independent trade union, just as the unbiased influence of the Catholic Church, including the impact of John Paul II, the Polish pope, peaceful methods, and moral credibility.* This approach emphasizes the importance of the trailblazer regime change of Poland, and to a great extent deduces the political turns of other Central European countries from that event.

Finally, the German narrative claims that the quintessence—and visually also the most memorable—of Central European regime changes was the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. It represented both the end of the competition between two superpowers and the reunification of the two Germanys. In this narrative, the importance of the regime change is almost subordinated to that of the German unity," which paved the way to the reunification of Europe.

Whichever approach we choose, it is obvious that 1989 was a turn, not of local or regional but of global significance.’ Interestingly, Hungary has its

1 Ackerman, The Future of Liberal Revolution.

Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man.

Sebestyen, Revolution 1989.

Ost, Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics.

Kaminski, The Collapse of State Socialism; Kenney, 1999.

Meyer, The Year That Changed the World.

Dahrendorf, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe; Huntington, The Third Wave; Fehér and Heller, Kelet- Európa dicsőséges forradalma; Rothschild, Return to Diversity; Lawson, Armbruster, and Cox, The Global 1989.

N nu fw N place in almost every narrative, for 1956 was the first anti-totalitarian revolution of history which contributed to the global loss of credibility of Stalinist politics. The Polish-Hungarian cooperation of dissidents impacted the rise of a new, liberal and anticommunist Central European identity. Moreover, the German narrative attributes an outstanding role to the Hungarian reformist communist leadership of 1989, which decided to let go of East German refugees and thus knocked the first brick out of the Berlin Wall.

Even if we put aside the competing global interpretations of the revolutions of 1989, the Hungarian transformation had a conspicuous peculiarity, something that cannot be found in such density in other countries. This was the political activity of intellectuals. The Hungarian-negotiated revolution was mainly the deed of intellectuals: they organized the initial movements and participated in the Roundtable talks, and it was mainly they who filled up the first parliamentary groups in 1990." The process had its antecedents, as the 1980s already saw the outlining of various groups of political intellectuals: the democratic opposition standing outside the system, the reformists representing criticism within the system, and the group of populist writers and cultural critics who occupied an intermediate status between the two former groups. Wider groups of society remained passive until 1988.

After decades of stability, the era of rapid changes—when the rules which had been known before suddenly became relative, and then disappeared— saw the appearance of new social actors. At first, these actors came from the circles that had been outside the system and therefore possessed the necessary moral capital to initiate change. In a post-totalitarian system, such as the state socialism of the late Kádár era, very few people could exist outside the system. Mostly, they were the ones who had lost their jobs due to “renitent” behavior but could ensure their living not only from the state but also from other sources that existed in the shadow of the state. As international elite research has shown, in times of radical changes such actors can be the intellectuals. They are not the ones creating the opportunity for change, but they are the ones who realize it the soonest. In revolutionary periods, the more mobile and cosmopolitan actors come to the fore—because change requires new ideas, visions, and forms of action—whereas the period after the revo-

8 Róna-Tas, "Ihe Selected and the Elected.”

lution typically sees the return of the socially more embedded actors who know the hierarchy from the inside and operate the system routinely.

The period of regime change in Hungary in 1987-1990 was an exceptional historical moment. It radically altered Hungarian politics and the life of the society. My aim in this book is not to give a descriptive account of the regime change, restricted to three years, as it has been the topic of numerous studies as well as Zoltan Ripp’s seminal monograph.’ I do not aim to provide a detailed history of the democratic opposition, which was processed in Ervin Csizmadia’s comprehensive monograph,'? and which other scholars have analyzed from a variety of aspects." My actual aim is to explore how the actors and their strategies changed before, during, and immediately after the regime change. Therefore, this book examines not only the years of the narrowly understood political regime change but also the processes in the previous decades which led to it, and the short movement period which characterized the years following the regime change. I see the period between 1977 and 1994 in general—and the decade from the beginning of the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s in particular—as an era that was characterized by the unusually strong influence of intellectuals involved in politics.

How come the intellectuals came close to forming politics in the period of decay of the Kádár era? In the periods mentioned above, did the same activists fulfill key positions or did they change from period to period? Which opportunities did opposition expression have in the first and second public spheres—how did they divide, and later merge? What was the division of labor like between different groups of intellectuals? How did the

9 Ripp, Rendszerváltás. For further studies, cf. Baba, Rendszervdltoztatds; Bihari, A tobbpartrendszer kialakuldsa; Bozóki, “Hungary’s Road to Systemic Change’; Alkotmanyos forradalom; The Roundtable Talks of 1989; Bozóki, Kórósényi, and Schópflin, Post-Communist Transition; Bozóki et al., A rendszerváltás forgatókónyve; Kerekasztal-targyalasok 1989-ben; Bruszt, “Negotiated Revolution in Hungary”; Király and Bozóki, Lawful Revolution in Hungary; Kis, Politics in Hungary; “Between Reform and Revolution”; Az összetorlódott idő; Mi a liberalizmus?; Lengyel, Végkifejlet; Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation; Schiemann, The Politics of Pact-Making; Szalai, "Rendszerváltás és a hatalom konvertálása”; Tőkés, Hungary s Negotiated Revolution.

10 Csizmadia, 4 magyar demokratikus ellenzék.

11 For example, see Bozóki, Politikai pluralizmus Magyarországon; “Die Politik der Opposition in Ungarn”; “Die Demokratische Opposition in Ungarn”; Csizmadia, “The Hungarian Democratic Opposition’; Falk, The Dilemmas of Dissidence; “Resistance and Dissent”; Körösényi, “The Revival of the Past or New Beginning?”; Laczó, “Five Faces of Post-Dissident Hungarian Liberalism’; Renwick, “Antipolitical or Just Anticommunist?”; Schöpflin, “Opposition and Para-Opposition"; Máté Szabó, “Hungary”; “Dissent and Opposition”; Tamás, “The Legacy of Dissent.”

ideas that formed the thinking of opposition intellectuals change in this era? What regularities can be noticed in the political mobilization of intellectuals in times when the regime changes not by revolution but transitions in a peaceful, democratic way? As my research reveals, there were significant personnel changes within the ranks of opposition intellectuals. The circulation of opposition actors was typical to every circle from the dissidents through the participants of the Roundtable talks to the composition of the new parliament and the participants of post-regime change movements. It is worth mentioning here one of the findings of my research, which showed that the change in the composition of opposition intellectuals was much more significant between the examined periods than its continuity.

The regime change in Hungary did not exactly happen in a revolutionary way but brought revolutionary results. Not only did the political structure change but also the economic system and even the political formula," that is, the vision of the new order about society, history, and cultural context. However, the transformation was not called as a revolution back then either but was seen as a democratic transition that was moderate, built on the temporary mobilization as well as demobilization of the masses, and regarded the aspects of peace, legality, and nonviolence as particularly important. Such transitions differ from classical revolutions in various aspects beyond legality and legitimacy," but it is no exaggeration to call them, following Hannah Arendt,'^ a “new beginning.” Arendt argues that political revolutions have three stages: the first one is the loss of authority, the second one is the experience of liberation, and the third one is the new beginning or laying the fundaments of freedom. An outstanding political and legal act ofthe last stage is constitution-making, which closes the revolutionary process and also is the symbol of a new beginning. Revolution cannot exist without the widespread, social experience and awareness of the new beginning, which is just as important as the expansion of freedom. Unlike classical revolutions, however, this change is not a revolution of “the people” but of citizens. It is not a social revolution but a political one. By their achievements, the transitions of 1989 were revolutionary, but they cannot be regarded as such if we

12. Mosca, The Ruling Class.

13. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions; Kis, "Between Reform and Revolution"; Arato, Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy.

14 Arendt, Oz Revolution.

focus on the process of change and the understanding of the actors of their own position." The result of the change was revolutionary, but the process of change was rather mixed. The following points in comparing transitions and revolutions help in highlighting some differences in the nature of transformative politics.

First, while revolutions tend to start from the outside of the power center and in a bottom-up fashion, transitions represent a more complex interaction of elite and non-elite powers. It is a distinctive feature of transitions that they begin from the inside as well as the outside of the center of power, and in a top-down as well as bottom-up fashion in the society. Second, while most revolutions are violent or use the threat of violence, democratic transitions are typically nonviolent endeavors where the participants deliberately try to avoid the use of violence.'^ Third, while revolutions typically divide society into the supporters of the old and the new regimes, democratic transitions are inclusive toward various types of participants. In the process of transition, both the representatives of the outgoing authoritarian bloc (reformers and orthodox believers) and of the incoming opposition bloc (moderates and radicals) are politically customary." Fourth, while revolutions are based on the mobilization of society (or at least they try to mobilize the people), processes of mobilization and demobilization coexist in the period of democratic transition." And, finally, while revolutions change the elite, or at least attempt to carry out an elite change as completely as possible, democratic transitions bring the more malleable rearrangement of the elite, and they do not bring a radical change of elite at once." In the periods of transition, elite change happened at different speeds and forms in the political, economic, and cultural spheres.*°

These differences make it problematic to assess democratic transitions as processes of comprehensive political change for many. It was quite typical, too, that after the transition many people were dissatisfied with its results, and demanded another, more “genuine,” revolutionary change. Frustrations

15 Onthe interpretations of 1989, cf. Arato, Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy, I-41.

16 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.

17. Przeworski, Democracy and the Market; Stepan, “Democratic Opposition and Democratization Theory"; Colomer, Strategic Transitions.

18 O'Donnell and Schmitter, Tentative Conclusions; Staniszkis, “Political Capitalism in Poland.”

19 Dogan and Higley, Elites, Crises, and the Origins of. Regimes; Stark and Bruzst, Postsocialist Pathways.

20 Eyal, Szelényi, and Townsley, “Post-communist Mangerialism"; Making Capitalism without Capitalists.

regarding the post-transition regime appeared for a long time as criticisms of the process of transition rather than that of the new system. But although transition is closer in style and process to reforms, it is closer to the concept of revolution in terms of the results. Reformers want to save the system while the supporters of transition want to go beyond it. If the reform is successful, the system remains; if the transition is successful, the regime changes.

While we must analytically distinguish reforms and revolutions, these processes are usually more combined: one may stem from or flow into the other, and they can reinforce each other. Revolutionary situations?" can, if they do not lead to revolution, open the way for reforms. Or in the reverse case, the radicalization of reforms can create revolutionary situations. In some cases, the success of reforms becomes the first, preparatory phase of the revolution, but even unsuccessful reforms can lead to revolutions if they provoke society. There are even examples of reforms being "solatium" for the defeated revolutions as it happened in Hungary in the 1960s. Opposition strategies developed for the democratic transition were usually based on the experience of former historical events."

The temporary dominance of the political activity of opposition intelligentsia in the late Kádár era did not come out of thin air. It was related to Janos Kadar’s politics of moderation, which followed the defeat of the Revolution of 1956 and tried to maintain social peace and “legitimize” the system through the co-optation of intellectuals.” More famous intellectuals were in a privileged position due to the state socialist “intelligentsia-policy,” which granted them relative autonomy within the system. However, others were marginalized, and they later became the dissidents who comprised the democratic opposition. This was accompanied by the relative openness of the regime in the 1980s. No wonder some described the late Kádár regime as a “discursive dictatorship.”*+ This relative flexibility was used by certain philosophers, sociologists, historians, freelance intellectuals, and other intellectuals who worked casual working hours to express the demand for the radical reform of the system.

21 Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution. 22 Michnik, “A New Evolutionism."

23 Bozóki, Konfrontáció és konszenzus.

24 Csizmadia, Diskurzus és diktatúra.

Political pluralism in Hungary originates from the cultural pluralism of intellectual groups to a great degree. Unlike previous decades, the 1980s already saw the embryonic form of all those political trends which formed the quickly emerging multiparty system at the end of the decade. Circles, clubs, civil initiatives, environmental and peace movements, as well as the cultural-historical cleavages that divided the opposition and slowly appeared at the level of politics, all showed a fermenting society that was moving toward crisis. This was also documented by the related literature.” For the most part of the decade, the bulk of these initiatives did not aim at open political confrontation but at the revival of civil society.