The initiative was proposed by Latvian European Parliament (EP) observer Liene Liepina, and was based on a document submitted to the Council of Europe that was worked out, in several steps, by a team of European conservatives. The final resolution was born after a long struggle stretching into the night at a two-day congress of the largest party grouping of the EP in Brussels.

Although some former anti-communist intellectuals found the final resolution “rather mild and half-hearted,” the idea of excluding such individuals provoked “nervous reactions” from the circles of reformed communist party successors – including the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party (HSP) and its allies.

Authors of the original EPP resolution – including Hungarian József Szájer (Fidesz) – requested that “all those who intend to assume a political function in European Union (EU) institutions to disclose their professional and political activities in former communist states, and to refrain from taking up a European post if they were part of the repressive communist enforcement agencies, or were involved in crimes against humanity.”

The original draft not only focused on moral censure, but called upon political groups of the EP and other EU institutions to literally expel from their organizations eminent supporters and leaders or former leaders of communist dictatorships.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at 16th Congress of European People’s Party

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed his opinion in a straightforward manner, claiming that some people deny having been communist, “even their [communist] past, and perhaps even their mind-set and moral standing has not in fact changed in the course of time.”

The modified document also strongly condemns crimes committed during Communism, and states that – unlike Nazism – “Communism has not yet been condemned from a moral perspective.” At the same time, the draft leaves it up to the consciences of former Bolshevik leaders, KGB agents, secret agents and party secretaries to voluntarily stand down from EU posts.

“The birth of the EPP resolution was inevitable,” says political scientist Tamás Fritz, “Since in many ex-socialist countries leaders of the former communist establishment are still in leadership positions to this day.”

Political scientist Tamás Fritz

In addition to Hungary, Poland and Romania are also currently governed by reformed-communists, and until the ousting of Vladimir Meciar a similar situation existed in neighboring Slovakia. The only exception is the Czech Republic, says Fritz, where the influence of the former communists was moderated, resulting today in a social democratic party “truly suited to represent cleansed left-wing values.”

In contrast to Nazism, which was eliminated from political culture the world over, many communist states still exist today. The BBC recently presented a shocking film on reported concentration camps in North Korea. In Cuba, many intellectuals have been imprisoned for their views, while the Chinese government continues to leave questions unanswered about its own human rights record, despite recent changes to its constitution. We have only to remember the events of 1989 in Tienanmen Square, where demonstrators were shot at by government forces. We can also mention the proletarian dictatorships of Laos and Burma.

Berlusconi’s logic presented at the congress was based on his statement that “the awareness must remain in all of us that to this day many parties in Europe turn towards Communism which we – along with Nazism – are regarded as the most criminal and inhumane ideology in the history of humanity.”

While these lines were primarily addressed to legally existing European Marxist parties, like the Italian Communist Party or the Hungarian Workers Party, the representatives of reformed post-communist parties received similar criticism.
In Berlusconi’s view, these groups represent the ideology “which reproaches democracy, market economy and religious values with contempt.”

Hungarian Foreign Minister László Kovács (HSP) responded saying that it was unprecedented for any EP group to attempt to prescribe who should or should not be accepted in their ranks.

Political scientist Attila Ágh

Political scientist Attila Ágh agrees with the foreign minister. He said the demands of the newly acceding states are definitely a challenge for the EPP, that have difficulty dealing with for the moment.

The seriousness of the resolution was questioned from the beginning as there were insurmountable legal and practical obstacles in its implementation – which the EPP must have known about, Ágh said. As it stands, the issue can only serve campaign purposes for Fidesz and other Eastern European conservative parties, he says. The final form of the resolution no longer contains concrete measures.

The resolution was softened partially due to Fidesz, which fell into its own trap by having several members of its own who also once belonged to the former system’s political elite.

“I am thinking of János Martonyi in the first place - who is otherwise a politician worthy of respect – but who had a rising career under the previous regime as a middle manager,” Ágh said.

Fritz and other liberal thinkers said it is in the interest of former communists to confuse the responsibility of simple party members and middle managers with crimes committed by leaders of the former dictatorship. Meanwhile, Fritz said “many former leaders of the communist regime are to this day present in government circles.”

The primary consideration was a moral one: whether the presence of former dictatorship leaders is justified in governing democratic systems? Can former communist leaders be eligible to fill leading roles in the institutions of democracy?

Eligibility can also be questioned from a political point of view, argued Fritz, “because the representation of Hungarian and European interests are not quite evident for post-communists, as they try in an almost subservient manner to live up to the expectations of the current world powers, like we have seen lately in the case of the Iraqi crisis.”

Communist leaders were used to being subjugated to the larger powers, and this could well have persisted following the fall of the Soviet Union, he explains, with the method of “always meeting the requirements of the most powerful states.” Foreign policy, therefore, can become unpredictable and the countries led by former communists may become “unreliable and even deceptive allies in the long run,’’ Fritz said.

Political scientist Ervin Csizmadia, who researched political networks, asked whether political leadership or media representatives active under Communism maintained their former political networks. He looked into the economic power that may have been strengthened through the privatization process, not to mention the still active or discharged members of the former secret services. He questioned the importance of investigating whether the continued working of this “political network” could eventually limit the development of democracy?

Historian Ádám Modor

Historian Ádám Modor, who researched Hungary’s political transition, and is a member of the former Democratic Opposition Party was a former contributor to szamizdat publication, “Beszélő.” Modor said the only factual point in the current EPP resolution is a plan for the setting up a European research and documentation center.

“Even 15 years after the so-called systemic changes the files of the communist oppressive apparatus – the secret police section III, cooperating with the KGB - are still not available for research, in contrast to Germany or the Czech Republic where their availability is open,” he said.

It is truly significant that since 1990, the Hungarian Parliament has failed to pass a comprehensive law similar to Germany and the Czech Republic allowing for historical research to be available to investigative journalists and the general public. This is all the more significant since to this day one of the most important questions in Hungarian political discourse surrounds the communist past and the crimes of the former system. As the German Stasi (ex-East-German secret police) expert Hubertus Knabe said, “Should Hungary not examine the actions of their secret services past, as Germany did, then they are doing nothing but allowing the dictatorship to live on.”