Published : 2023-12-29

Anti-Polish propaganda of the Kádár regime. Reception of the “Solidarity” phenomenon in Hungary

Abstract

The historically strong Polish-Hungarian relations entered a different level of dependency after the end of the Second World War. The People’s Republic of Poland and the Hungarian People’s Republic, as “friendly socialist states”, maintained close relations being important actors in the entire Eastern Bloc. The situation began to change in the decade of the 1980s. The main impulse for the change in perception, especially among the Hungarian power elite, was the consequences of the Polish workers’ strikes. This was due to the creation of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union “Solidarity” and the subsequent “carnival” of Polish freedom, which lasted for several months, followed by a social and economic crisis and the imposition of martial law in 1981, which resulted in strong anti-Polish propaganda from the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP). At the time, it was aimed at the entire Hungarian society. The Hungarian communists feared the decomposition of their position in the state. They did not want to lose power and lead to a wider exposure of the internal problems of the Hungarian People’s Republic. They therefore maintained a strategic partnership with the allied Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), pointing to all the activities of the Polish opposition as a factor of destabilisation and growing crisis. Although Hungarian society, and its new opposition representation to the authorities, was extremely positive towards Solidarity, communist propaganda in various channels of communication proved effective, both in the short and medium term. From a sociological point of view, the accounts of Poles living in Hungary at the time about the above phenomenon and its consequences, which they also

Keywords:

oral history, János Kádár, Csaba Kiss Gy., György Krassó, media, opposition, propaganda, Solidarity, martial law, Hungary



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Balázs, I. M. (2023). Anti-Polish propaganda of the Kádár regime. Reception of the “Solidarity” phenomenon in Hungary. Polonia Inter Gentes, (4), 167–186. https://doi.org/10.56583/pig.2477

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