Can anyone tell me how to contact Zoltan Horvath, met at Egytem on old
named Felszabadulasz Ter, Budapest, 1989 and 1990.  Would like to speak
with any gay-friendly BPers.

Repeat request for information about Zoltan. Anyone with any information
please contact .  Also any gay/gay friendly BPer's.

>Repeat request for information about Zoltan. Anyone with any information
>please contact .  Also any gay/gay friendly BPer's.

have you consulted Masok? (Budapest's major gay publication)

they're at 

good luck!

-Sven

There is an excellent article in the Magyar Narancs #69 which
arrived to subscribers this morning. Unfortunately, it is in Hungarian but
those who can should. It is an editorial and it deals with current politics
and economics. I think that it's on the money.

        Eva Balogh

Joe Szalai:

>Now you're talking about things you know knothing about.  How many hits of
>acid have you done, Eva?  None, I bet.

        You are quite right, none.

> But you feel perfectly alright about
>discussing its effects.

        Well, it seems that he swallowed a few more thing, in addition to
LSD, cocain, laughing gas, fifty cigarettes a day, and alcohol. Perhaps the
combined effect fried his brain and made him look 95. Let's not quibble!


>Just today, in a post about a new Marshall plan you say that you are
>"getting more and more worried about Hungary's economic health".  Now why
>would that be?  Hungary is part of the larger, free market, capitalist,
>corporatist world.  Everything is functioning normally according to market
>forces.

        Now, it is you who doesn't know what he is talking about. The
problem is that not "everything is functioning normally according to market
forces." That's exactly the problem.

>And I bet you thought
>Hungary would be a winner, eh?  But why?

        Unfortunately, I never thought that Hungary would be a winner--just
the opposite. I thought Poland would be eventually a winner and it seems
that I was right. Yes, a year and a half ago I was hoping that with Lajos
Bokros as finance minister Hungary will at last get onto the right track.
But he resigned and there is no real political will to follow in his
footsteps. You misinterpret what I'm saying. I am worried about the
Hungarian economy because there is not enough capitalism, free market, and
competition, and too much bureaucracy, too much leftover of the welfare
state without adequate economic growth.

        Eva Balogh

At 09:09 PM 6/10/96 -0400, Martha wrote:

>Back in '90 or so there had been American companies willing to modernize and
>invest a lot, and they were rebuffed.  It would have been the same type
>of shot in the economic arm as a Marshall Plan, albeit on a smaller scale,
>but a *beginning* just the same.  Somehow Hungarians didn't realize how much
>help they really needed; that they had no time to act cocky, saying that
>they would do things in their own way, and in due time.

        Just to give you an idea what the Antall government meant by "due
time."  In September 1990 the government came out with an economic plan.
They planned to privatize only 30-35% (!!) of all state property by the end
of three years.


>When will the elections be held in Hungary?

        Sometime in the spring of 1998 but the campaigning already started.

>There is every indication
>that the discontent will produce similar election results in all former
>Communist countries.  While (once again) it looks like Yeltsin is an almost
>certain winner, the force of the Communists cannot be discounted.  The
>sad part is that even though it looks like those were the "good old
>days," there is no way the clock can be turned back.  Western ideas,
>including freedom of movement and speech, have already penetrated the
>societies that were once behind the "Iron Curtain."  Next week's Russian
>votes will most likely foretell the story of Hungary as well.

        In Hungary, the real communists (Munkaspart) are a negligible
political force. The right (Christian Socialists, Smallholders, MDF) takes
their place with socialist demagoguery.

>I am a firm believer in educating people; enabling them to do things for
>themselves.  Giving them money is not the answer.  Easy come, easy go.

        My mother used to say twenty-twenty-five years ago: "You could give
these people all the wealth of the United States and even that would be
enough for them." This is human nature, not just in Hungary.


>Me, too.  For decades, most Hungarians didn't have to work hard; there was
>overemployment.  This is extremely hard to unlearn.   Social services
>were provided for everyone.  Their teeth were filled, their appendix taken
>out.  These were their rights - after all, they were citizens!  Now, all
>this is up to them to pay for, - from far less money than before, - or
>they can rot.  My heart goes out to them.

        And in addition, as I just read 5 million taxpayers pay for 900,000
civil servants!!! When the undersecretary of state (Ministry of Education
and Culture) happened to mention that it is impossible to maintain that many
civil servants in such a small country at a meeting of school principals, he
was booed! But, really, it is an impossibility

        Eva Balogh

I guess what I meant by Marshall Plan was at least helping the government
subsidize all the old people with their rent and basic food, since these
people would never become free-market entrepreneurs.  Think of the history
they lived through!--and to wind up with so few resources.

I heard so many sad stories about people in their 80s, too proud to take
help from their children (who didn't have that much anyway), so the
children would say, "I'm going to the market, let me pick you up
something"--and then buy their entire groceries.  It still hurt the older
people's pride.

I also remember seeing a woman at the Astoria subway station late on a
Sunday evening selling flowers.  This wasn't someone from the country,
rather a city-dressed, older woman, very neat in appearance and a
beautiful face.  When I gestured "how much," she wrote down a big 40 ft.
I gave her 100, and I still remember the look on her face.  The old
cliche, but it's true: she could have been my mother.

Yes, it's tragic.

Burian

Hello to one and all -

Still having problems getting the messages on the List in a timely fashion -
first of all it's famine - no messages - relieved only by Aniko sending me
the digests once a day - then every week or so, it's a feast - I get 90 -
100 - today it was 130 (!!!) messages at one time, mostly all from this
List. I guess by tomorrow I might know if the problem has now been fixed or
if I have to wait for Hugh to return from the Czech Republic to start
getting the messages as they are transmitted.

In any case, here is my response to a private e-mail from Charlie Vamossy,
just in case anyone is interested. (Charlie forwarded it - but
inadvertantly, it went to HAL, not to the Hungary List).

TTFN :-) I'm looking forward to really getting back on-line with you all,

Yours,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 

>To:  (Charles M. Vamossy)
>From: "Johanne L. Tournier" >
>Subject: Re: Christian symbols et al.
>
>Hi, Charlie!
>
>Feel free to forward this to the List, if you think it is of interest -
>
>At 19:55 10/06/96 -0700, you wrote:
>>You wrote:
>>
>>>Then it disappears, and in a 1957 issue, the new coat of arms appears.
>>It
>>>was similar in general layout to the earlier one, but the sheaf of
>>wheat
>>>around the outside forms more of a circle rather than a horsehoe
>>design.
>>>It does feature the red star at the top with the rays emanating down,
>>>however, but instead of a crossed hammer and a sheaf of wheat in the
>>>center, it features the shield with the three horizontal bands - red
>>on
>>>top, white in the middle, and green on the bottom
>>(piros-fehe'r-zo:ld),
>>>just like the flag.
>
>>I guess I forgot about the early Kadar emblem.   Am I correct that at
>>some point it was replaced by the Kossuth shield with the
>>red-white-green bands?
>
>I am not an expert on this stuff by any means, so I stand to be corrected
by just about anybody - however, if I understood your earlier description of
the Kossuth shield correctly, this is the same as the *early Kadar* shield
you refer to above. Several issues of Hungarian stamps from 1957 and 58
picture this new version of the coat of arms, and then it just seems to
disappear, at least as far as stamp issues are concerned. My collection ends
in 1968, and I did not see that shield depicted on any issues after 1958.
>
>So, unless there was another shield adopted after 1968, those would appear
to be the only two shields in use during the Communist era.
>
>Hope this helps,
>
>U:dvo:zlettel,
>
>Johanne
>
>Johanne L. Tournier
>e-mail - 
>
>
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>

You wrote:
>
>I guess what I meant by Marshall Plan was at least helping the
government
>subsidize all the old people with their rent and basic food, since
these
>people would never become free-market entrepreneurs.  Think of the
history
>they lived through!--and to wind up with so few resources.
>

Your intentions are, of course, noble, but just for the record the
Marshall Plan, announced by President Truman's Secretary of State
George Marshall had totally different aims.  It was a massive financial
aid program for war ravaged European countries to rebuild their
industrial base.  It offered loans for new businesses, helped repairing
and rebuilding factories, reconstructing their transportation networks.
Social benefits, including the kind you are refering to, were restored
as these new enterprises started to turn a profit, on which they paid
taxes, which in turn paid for these benefits.  Rather than giving them
the fish to eat, the Plan helped them restbuild their fishing industry.

By the way, as I understand it, the Marshall Plan was offered to all
countries in Europe, but Hungary, along with  others in the socialist
camp -- and based on advice from the Marxist economic sages in Moscow
-- proudly turned down the offer, preferring instead to build their
workers paradise.

Later, Moscow's trained Hungarian sages discovered the second coming of
Uncle Sugardaddy. Although no longer offered at the same low rates, but
money -- a lot of money, almost twenty billions of dollars -- rolled
into the country, supposedly for the same purpose:  modernising aging
plants, building hotels, etc.  Unfortunately, according to one American
diplomat who served in Budapest during this time, only one of the
twenty billions founds its way to where it was needed.  The rest
disappeared, some as large sums in a few people's pockets, most of it
as pocket change in everyone else's pockets.  Basically it was used to
crop up a failing economic and social system.

regards,


Charlie Vamossy

I was asked by local barrel maker in the Napa Valley to act as a
translator in his dealings with a barrel supplier in Hungary. I got a fax
that has a phrase that I can not translate: "jo' mino"se'gu" _kocsa'nyos_
to"lgy". I know what "kocsa'ny" is on a tomato plant, but not on an oak
tree. If anyone can help me I would appreciate you reply to my e-mail:
.
Ha'la's Ko"szo"nettel
Jo'zsi

> =======================================================
At Sun Jun  9 16:54:04 EDT Joe Szalai wrote in HUNGARY #694:

>I don't know NPA and I don't know what happened to him.  But tell me this,
>Ferenc.  Do you know of anyone who was fired from their job for making
>non-offensive posts?
>
>Joe Szalai

That's exactly the point, Joe.  He was most likely fired (actually
asked to resign, he says) for non-pc postings, more than simply
using his employer's resources.

Ferenc

George Anthony wrote:

>Indeed, especially the Party apparatchiks and their yesmen who were allowed
>into positions of social privilege such as Csurka, Antall and Boross.

and Konrad and his ilk

>
>> even travel abroad
>
>Actually, travel abroad was not restricted to the wealthy.  Hungarians have
>been allowed to travel even to Western countries since the 1960s and did so
>with a vengeance, on next to no money.
>

How was that again?  Until the very last years of the Kadar regime (say from
the mid-eighties) you needed all kinds of approvals -- from where you worked,
the local police, etc.) to travel abroad, and only if someone from your
immediate family stayed behind, or if you were a pensioner.  I have plenty
of firsthand experience in this, having to go through lengthy procedures to
have my parents, then my brother, and later, my fiancee to visit me.  In my
fiancee's case nothing worked, I actually had to marry her in Hungary, and
even that required getting all kinds of permissions prior to the civil
ceremony.  It then took three long months before they let her leave.  So
please don't tell me everybody could travel.  Only those the regime thought
"reliable" -- and sometimes even they failed to return.

You may be looking at this issue from your own perspective, if you left
Hungary in the waning days of the Kadar regime.

>> and send their children to be educated in the West.
>
>Well, not even high-ranking Party officials had extensive foreign-currency
>accounts necessary for the Western education of non-residents.  The only
>people who had such accounts were those who sold something in the West
>(artists, scientists with royalties from Western sales of their works) or
>foreign-trade officials who put their kick-backs into Western accounts.
>

Those foreign trade officials were officials of the communist system, right?

>>  Unfortunately, until 1989 only such loyal types and their offspring were
>> allowed to come to the West,
>
>"allowed" by whom ?  You are hopelessly misinformed about the consolidated
>Kadarism.  As I already pointed it out, the regime mostly allowed people to
>travel: denial of exit permits was the exception, not the rule.

See above.  Do you have any firsthand evidence to support what you say?

>You sound like an embittered man,

?????????

>Most (not all, but most) people who wanted to leave could do it with the
>relative dignity of a pretence trip to Vienna.

See above.  Obviously you are talking very late Kadar-regime.

>Moreover, some people actually managed to do well due to their intellect.
>To be sure, the latter was only available for a brilliant minority without
>joining the Party or becoming its lackey.  But to deny that there were such
>people is merely sour grapes on your part.

Of course there were exceptions.  There always are.  But your remark about
sour grapes sounds silly to me.  What on earth are you trying to say?

Ferenc

Eva Balogh writes in HUNGARY 694:

>        NPA's sudden trip--away from the computer--sounds suspicious to me.
>Just when his admirers offer to write a letter to his employers on his
?behalf, he disappears. I wonder why!
>
>        Eva Balogh

Eva, this is really disingenuous.  As you know, the man lost his job.  What
is
so suspicious about him packing his bags?  You didn't think Gabor Elek's
sudden trip worthy of innuendo!

>        You are wrong. The Magyar Nyelv Ertelmezo Szotara says the
>following: "Szabadsagharc = Elnyomott nepek szabadsagaert, fuggetlensegeert
>vivott harca. A magyar nep ilyen harca 1848-49-ben.

Was that dictionary published during the Kadar regime?  If so, you can hardly
expect it to mention 1956 as an example of the fight for freedom.

>>There is another group, the one-time liberal
>>communists as well as non-communists who, in exchange for certain
privileges,
>>agreed to serve, or at least not to oppose, the Kadar-type "soft
>>dictatorship".
>
>        Who were the liberal communists? The two words can't really appear
>?together. Do you mean "reform communists"?

Yes, that's what I meant.  Thanks for the correction.

Ferenc