Central Europe's unsentimental education

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the reburial of Imre Nagy, the leader of Hungary's failed anti-Soviet revolution of 1956. The reinternment, organised by Hungary's anti-communist opposition on the 31st anniversary of his execution, drew more than 100,000 attendees, heralding the beginning of the end of the country's sclerotic regime. We Hungarians, and central Europe in general, have come far since those heady times, but the past 20 years have also given us much cause to question the path we took.

Hungary played a special role in the collapse of Communism, accelerating the process by opening its borders for East German refugees. But democratic transformation in Hungary required an opposition strategy throughout the 1980s: revolution wouldn't work, as the Soviet invasion in 1956 showed. Nor would internal reforms work, because the Soviets would intervene to save the system, as they did in 1968 in Czechoslovakia.

Instead, the new strategy was to sideline the issue of political power. Rather than attacking communist rule directly, we would create small islands of freedom, interconnected social circles and associations, which, when the moment came, could all be connected in order to change the system. In Hungary, several youth organisations existed and were aware of each other, so the political community that took part in the political changes in Hungary in 1989 was organised on this basis.

History also played a part in the success of the Hungarian transition. The 1956 revolution was a real one, with barricades. In no other central European country did Communists experience the possibility of paying with their own lives for the suffering and oppression that they inflicted on others. This historical experience was good for reform capability.

A new generation was also needed. It appeared symbolically on June 16, 1989, when I had the opportunity to speak on behalf of the young generation. A whole generation felt that the moment had come when Hungarians could at last determine their own future.

So, what kind of future did they determine?

The past 20 years can be divided into three phases: first, a market economy was created, the rule of law established, and democratic institutions built. Next, we applied for admission to Nato and prepared for European Union membership, with all of the institutional reforms that these goals implied. The third phase was one of economic catch-up, which, unlike the first two phases, has not really been successful in Hungary and which today may even be falling back. But, for central Europe as a whole, the past 20 years have been the best since the Peace of Westphalia, with Slovakia and Slovenia even joining the eurozone.

Nevertheless, the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Communism is overshadowed by the global financial and economic crisis. And it is now clear that the biggest winners of globalisation are no longer the Europeans or the Americans, but the Asians. The world market is being re-divided - peacefully, because territories and markets are separated, so that no power occupies another power's territory.

But Europe must nonetheless recognise the need to distinguish clearly between partners, competitors, and opponents, and to formulate a more sophisticated and articulated policy towards Russia, in particular. For example, we central Europeans are opponents when we do not accept Russia's policy of renewing "spheres of interest" and "security zones."

Moreover, after all that has happened in the past six months, central Europeans can no longer look up to old countries representing the moral values of Western civilisation. This crisis was not caused by bad luck or some professional misunderstanding, but by character problems, especially in the United States and later western Europe. Money was stolen, not merely "mismanaged". Investments were not simply bad, but unacceptably risky. The moral state of business leaders caused this crisis, and you cannot find central Europeans among those leaders.

Central Europe has found itself in a completely new situation. Crisis management measures undertaken in the Western world are practically cutting our countries off from the EU market. In this situation, central European countries must cooperate to defend their own interests, as well as their dream of a common Europe. The question for the European elite is whether we believe in the work of the past 20 years, whether we believe in an integrated European market and an ever-widening European community. If not, then first the biggest and the strongest countries, and then the central Europeans, will turn away from the European dream.

Those of us who believe that the past 20 years made sense, and that we are on the right track, are still the majority in Hungary. Everyone in Europe and the world needs a unified, robust Europe. If our faith is strong enough, we can survive this crisis without destroying what we have built together by opening our borders, destroying the Wall, unifying Germany, and completing our democratic transitions.

The author was Prime Minister of Hungary in 1998-2002, and is currently Leader of the Opposition FIDESZ party.

© Project Syndicate, 2009. www.project-syndicate.org