There seems to be a huge amount of nostalgia for the Kádár-era, in which most people regret the passing of a secure and straightforward life. A life in which, deep poverty was non-existent and people had the chance to climb up the social ladder. Although the Democratic Coalition thinks differently of the Kádár-era, we can fully understand the sentiments and experiences of our countrymen. That said, it must be clear to everyone that this regime was a dictatorship which grabbed power by murdering and incarcerating its opponents. The Kádár regime had the usual traits of a dictatorship: freedom of the press was non-existent and there was a wide security police network. However, the gravest sin must have been the one which was done to people’s minds. Just as the raison d’etre of the regime was based on a lie, so were the lives of the people. They were forced to make false compromises. They were denied their past and present. If they wanted to climb up the social ladder, they had to make compromises. One such compromise was membership of the Hungarian Socialist Labour Party. The most harmful heritage of the Kádár regime was that it taught people how to accept and make do with a small amount of liberty at the expense of political participation and self-realization. This is the kind of false historicism which the Orbán regime wants to bring back by letting Miklós Horthy’s cult flourish once again. The resurgent extreme right threatens to bring back painful memories from the past, which has led to an increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks. As a progressive, left-of-centre party, the DC cannot share any of the aforementioned ideas. Today’s Hungary should be neither Kádár’s nor Orbán’s. We think that the Hungary of today should be an open and western society where prosperity is not just the privilege of the richest ten-thousand. We want to create a society which can be free from the heavy burden of Kádár and Orbán.

Ferenc Gyurcsány/Niedermüller Péter; Népszabadság; June 16. 2012.