Muh socialist breadlines

These are pics from today's >le_charity_food_distribution in our country's capital (Budapest). Since the regime change the general welfare of our country plummeted to third world levels…

Merry fucking Christmas, fucking charity workers, fucking politicians, fucking regime changing intelligentsia!
kepek.444.hu/2017/12/24/iden-is-tomott-sorok-alltak-az-ingyen-ebedert

If communist nostalgia is so strong in Hungary then why did they elect one of the most right wing governments in Europe?

Genuine question. Most former combloc countries have communist parties that manage to secure at least a few seats in parliament and even some regional governments. Is this not the case in Hungary?

take that slogan to the charity and tell it the people waiting there for food

at this rate you're going to get overtaken by fucking Malaysia in most economic rankings

If you are wondering why so many people are sceptical towards socialism in Poland, it is because the last 20 years of the Polish People's Republic were shit and Jaruzelski (the last leader of socialist Poland) actively repressed any worker movement, including those that actually wanted socialism. Also, socialism in Poland had gone really bad from 70s onward. Interestingly, Jaruzelski himself said that he was not a socialist, and that he only cares about his fatherland.

Ironically after the fall of the Jaruzelski's government the GDP (and standard of living) has been slowly, but steadily increasing, as you can see from the first image, mainly due to the shock therapy (as bad as it was it has caused some short term economic boost) and later on due to the EU funds. You can see here that the country has gone from one of the poorest in the eastern bloc to a one that is relatively well off.

In the second image however, you can see that something has gone horribly wrong during the 60s. To be honest I am not an expert, I wish someone could elucidate it for me. As far as I know one of the main reason is that the country has taken loans from the western countries, but there were also other factors, since the whole eastern bloc was affected

There's no real democracy under capitalism. The fact that most people want socialism back doesn't matter.

I can't blame them for choosing right-wing populists over neoliberals. At least the populists pretend to care about the people's problems.

Proletarians have no control over bourgeois states.

Because the refugee crisis is seen as a big threat to the way of life/culture of Eastern Europe and center right parties are the only ones claiming to have solutions for this issue. Since fascists are an extreme niche and most leftists are retarded "WELCOME REFUGEES" types with no nuance and limit to placed on migration, the average worker goes with the safest and most status quo option. Which is essential neoliberal capitalism with a strong nationalist rhetoric on borders. I think one of Hungarians communist parties is essentially Nazbol, they want strict quotas and whatnot but idk how popular they are.

When I visited Hungary three years ago one thing I noticed was, everyone in the countryside and dead industrial city I visited wanted the Siviet model back, whereas everyone in Budapest was happy to be capitalist (as in, they love their Apple stores and McDonald's). Meanwhile there were murals of Lenin in the dead factory town.

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There's a noticeable increase in the rate GDP rises year after year after Poland joined the EU in 2004. Being a low-cost, deregulated jurisdiction means that capital is probably going to shift from high-cost countries in the west to Poland. New industries can manufacture widgets in Poland for a fraction of the cost and export to the rest of the EU tariff-free.

Same thing with labour. The Polish labour market was (prior to the Ukraine crisis, anyway) tightened by migration of more than a million Poles to other EU countries. This means that Polish porky has less of a domestic surplus army of labour to keep down costs and threaten workers with unemployment if they get testy. I mean, look at this graph - Poland is getting close to statistical full employment (4% unemployment).

What happens if the EU disintegrates or goes through a Melenchon-style reform? What happens if wage gains do what they did in the US circa 1970 and decouple from productivity gains? Do you think that Poles will continue to support a conservative government with autocratic tendencies when they lose jobs to tariff barriers or their real wages decline relative to living expenses?

the thing u miss: approx. 1 mill polish youngsters work abroad, similarily, around 200-300k hungarians…

People don't want the Soviet model back, they want goulash communism back. The murals you saw are remains, they are not new. You can find some in Budapest too.

Honestly of these three answers Mutualist user had the best one. People seem to think that this is the 19th century where proles have absolutely no influence over politics. If this were the case then Fascism would never bother to abolish bourgeois democracy, nor would social democracy exist, since it’s a clear example of workers forcing concessions.

The rule of the bourgeoisie is hegemony, not dictatorship.

Caused by the political disintegration following WW1, civil war, and western intervention

Would have been a footnote if hysterical kulaks hadn't slaughtered farm animals en masse, or left harvest to rot, and fields unplanted. Regardless of whether you think the peasants were justified in their resistance or not.

Caused by the destruction of WW2, would have been prevented otherwise.

Successive natural disasters destroying harvests, reserves and infrastructure. Unless people believe nature is "communist" somehow.

Of all the listed examples the Chinese one is the most damning, and even they eventually ended the periodic famines that plagued the country for thousands of years.

Except all answers are wrong because the question was faulty to begin with. There's no widespread nostalgia in Hungary, everyone hates communists with a passion. There is some little nostalgia for the "law and order" aspect among the far right of all places, but that's all. The "nazbol" Munkáspárt that the mutualist mentioned always gets under 1% of the votes.

There is no communist nostalgia in Hungary.

t. increasingly nervous soros

except there obv. is

where?
imo russia, germany, ex-yugoslavia, bulgaria and romania have it to varying degrees. i don't see it in poland, hungary or the baltics though

I've never seen it anywhere

t. Hungarian

What was the impetus behind the regime change?

I'm polish and there is a fair bit, particularly among the elderly who actually experienced it. I just spent christmas eve with my family and my great aunt was reminiscing about how much better working conditions were under the commune.

hahaha yeah, go on

I mention that here:

Mate, before saying that there is no pro-Communist opinions somewhere just because you don't see it, please check if Communism is not being actively suppressed there.

In Baltics it is thoroughly banned - and yes. Ban is quite vigorously enforced, over and beyond what is necessary by law: Estonia did not hesitate to arrest and deport Chiesa - a citizen of Italy, EU-level politician - just because of his Communist background. And when some Lithuanian government clerk suggested on his Facebook maybe (just maybe) it's not a great idea to openly glorify murders of Lithuanian civilians (women and children, yes) by Nazi collaborationists, there was a scandal and he got fired. All those civilians (or members of their families) were guilty of working in kolkhozs. Voluntarily. How can they not deserve death?

In both Poland and Hungary it is less intense, but it is still there. For example, Hungarian Communists had to rename party recently.

A. There was no socialist option.

B. Right wing populists are the lesser of two evils when compared to neoliberals.

A is false, Munkáspárt, the local tan‌kie party, did run and received 0,58% of the votes.

WHY? Explain before I decide that Hungary deserves to suffer.

If they did so badly it’s probably because there bad at campaigning. As far as I know Hungary doesn’t have America’s retarted Electoral System.

Because everyone hates communists in Hungary. Only Holla Forums thinks there's widespread support for communism in Hungary. Many even blame communists for the current problems and think that the peaceful transition was a mistake because with a violent overthrow they could have at least murdered the old communist guard that supposedly still corrupt Hungary.

Now I understand why commies go full-reactionary. Normies barely deserve liberal democracy, nevermind workplace democracy.

IN order to win an election you have to go out and talk to people, hand out pan flips, have energetic rallies, and be a populist. Things reactionaries, are good at.

Are they going to pursue their class interests at some point or will they literally everything else beforehand?

If they hate communists so much then why do polls show such high numbers of people saying things were better under communism?

i think this is the flag you were looking for

Honestly, what is the fucking difference?! Do you think that 21st century communism won't give the ordinary bloke like a ~4hours workday?

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Actually, it doesn't

"Hungary" is a fake country. It should be absorbed into Germany.

That doesn't reflect on the voting patterns in the slightest, since the most left-wing party they have are neoliberals, and the most right-wing are literal neonazis.

You clearly never talked to a single Hungarian

No, you can't simultaneously hate communism and think life was better under communism. Those are two mutually incompatible sentiments.

71,5% of Hungarians disagree.

Now I have to google what country Budapest is in.

It's not as if there isn't historic precedent for this

You sent your tanks there

he rolled right into that one

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It's proven by scientific data that 72% of Hungarians say socialism was better than capitalism.

You've provided no proof whatsoever for your claim that most Hungarians hate communism, only speculation and personal anecdotes.

It's more like they missed the old system, but not the people who were running it.

Nice source

That's all well and good, but total rightist dominance in Hungary predates the refugee crisis by half a decade. There has to be another explanation.

The revolution of 1956 was a worker’s revolution, at least in a significant part. It was led by the social democrats, the peasants party, and a large section of the ruling communist party. It was also organized around worker’s councils.

Then that means they like communism, they just think it could have been executed better.

There is nostalgia, but only the old folks experience it and they are easily manipulated into voting for right wing parties.

Really makes you think

They are nostalgic for their youth

hmm..

Yeah, and the kids don't know any better, and the ones who are neither also have some reason that has nothing to do with Socialism, and statistics are falsified by Communists.

There is an excuse for everything. Just don't ask anyone to prove any of the excuses. You are supposed to believe not check, yes?

What the fuck are you even talking about

Elections under capitalism are a farce, particularly in East Europe. In both Ukraine (1999) and Russia (1996) the Communist party won the election fair and square. But the emerging capitalist class didn't want to give up their newfound wealth and power, so the elections were falsified.


Just think about it for a minute

That's the magic of liberal democracy. It manages to subvert popular will with impressive regularity while maintaining a perfect facade of legitimacy. It's an illusory democracy that's ultimately worse than a dictatorship, as it keeps people mistakenly thinking that this bullshit is as free and democratic as it gets and there's nothing else to fight for. That much is already known, but no philosopher has managed to quite elaborate on this yet, the way Marx did with capitalism, for example.

In most Eastern European countries, researches and surveys always say that people had better living standards under communism and a good number of people want it back in some form, yet they keep electing the most boorish petty-reactionaries that send them further into third world standards. But this happens in all liberal democracies in the world. Not a day goes by in any such country where the news doesn't have an item like "Proposal 247-5, which is opposed by over 80% of the populace, has passed the senate with an overwhelming majority. The whole point of a putatively representative democracy is to keep people as away from power as possible while having them think they matter.

This is a charade that can only be solved by either incorruptible politicians or direct democracy, and I don't need to tell you which one is the feasible option.

Replacing representation with participation is a crucial step for socialism and for the withering away of the State, so you can bet no government will ever make concessions to participatory democracy. By definition, ruling classes will only ever make concessions equal to, or lesser than, absolutely necessary to keep the system running. Mind you, these concessions don't need to be to people and their demands, but to economic dilemmas, cultural shifts and whatever else.

And on that note…

You have a point, but I'd like to argue two points.

Not all concessions came thanks to people's growing power, as I mentioned above. Female entry in the marketplace came more thanks to economic expediency than whatever puny protests were mounted.

In the complex mixture of demands for which Porky made concessions, social democracy (by which I geuss you mean the welfare State) fulfilled a strategic role. No capitalist concession did more to disarm the left than the welfare State. Porky didn't just throw proles a bone so they would stop snarling, they effectively killed the demand for a radical solution by making the problem seem smaller. In that sense, workers' who campaigned for the welfare State contributed to kill socialism, ironically.


You have a point, but these Eastern European countries have been electing porkies almost nonstop since 1989, way before mass immigration went from verboten to mandatory.

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The thing about that though is that it’s possible for social democracy to be both the strategic appeasement by the bougeoisie as well as a demonstration of proletarian power simultaneously. After all, porkies wouldn’t have bothered to give concessions unless they were actually afraid of the proles. It may have been designed to pacify them, but it could easily be viewed as a strategic retreat on porky’s part, and thus is proof of the ability of proles to influence the direction of liberal democracy.

None of those claims contradict each other. The fact that elections were rigged proves that elections under capitalism are a farce, and don't reflect the actual wants and desires of the people.

They didn't even have to rig elections in Hungary, though.

Except they did. By default, elections held under capitalism are fraudulent.

In combination with what you said, I think the famine was also caused by the fall of the USSR, they relied on imports because there physically isn't enough arable land. And being associated with the USSR; grain embargoes. So much for free markets.

Munkáspárt never even got 5% of votes

I'm not too surprised tbh. When I visited Budapest (which is a pretty nice city) this summer I was shocked by the number of homeless people. I've met two young couples who have been thrown out of their apartement. I expected people to be worse off in Romania but that wasn't case.

Hűrr dűrr

That's probably not how most Hungarians see it though.

The communist party did win Ukraine's first two legislative elections however: 1994 and 1998.

How is that relevant to the situation in Hungary?

Money determines politics. It's the bourgeoisie who holds political power. They won't allow a communist party to gain power.

no, bad idea. really bad. direct democracy works only in communism as it is supposed to. otherwise far-right reactionaries in germany and switzerland wouldn't push for it. in liberal "democracies" porky owned media and hordes of porky's shills wield A LOT of influence both in real life and online on who is going to enact laws and what laws get enacted. however in "direct democracy", under capitalism, porky, who owns most of the media, would just put more effort into propaganda. politicians and political parties with ideological dogmas would become mostly redundant, essentially corporate, private media would dictate politics.
what's more, arguing about certain political decisions would become almost impossible, porky's shills would just point at the offender and call him "undemocratic" because he dares to argue against the majority vote.

as someone from a former communist republic, it doesn't matter whether it's logical or not, people do think like that
if you think you can "by your logic" them then you've been spending too much time on the internet