By Phil Clarke

Hungary's May 29 elections brought a triumphant return to government of the Socialist Party (HSP), the “reformed” Communists, who ruled the country from 1945 until 1990. But it is unlikely that this victory of the HSP will give Hungarians anything in the way of “socialism”.

The HSP won 209 of the 386 seats in the Assembly, way ahead of the next party, the Alliance of Free Democrats, which won only 70. The ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum collapsed from first to third place, its number of seats declining from 165 to 37.

The new prime minister will be Socialist Party leader Gyula Horn, foreign minister in the last Communist government, before the first free elections in 1990.

The victory of the Socialists confirms a trend, already seen in Lithuania, Poland and Belarus, towards “reformed” ex-Communist parties returning to power because of mass disillusionment with the effects of the attempt to restore capitalism.

Like the former Communists in Poland and Lithuania, the Hungarian Socialist Party promised to continue market reforms, but at a slower pace, so as to alleviate the austerity and unemployment which these reforms have brought about.

Tamas Krausz, a leading figure in Hungary's Left Alternative movement, argues that the results in Hungary are part of a general political drift to the left which will continue. “The results of the Hungarian elections reflect the fact that the nations of eastern Europe have begun to understand the real meaning of the change of regimes ... the new system offers them worse economic, social and cultural prospects than the old state socialist system”, he says.

However, Krausz warns against illusions that the ex-Communist parties represent a real democratic socialist alternative. “The pro-capitalist socialist parties in eastern Europe try to attract support with promises of `capitalism with a human face'. But the leaders of these parties know how illusory this aim is ... they do not genuinely want to turn to the left, despite pressure from the masses, but they are reluctant to continue the neo-liberal tradition which has failed so dismally over the last five years.”

The minority of the ex-Communist party, which refused to join the Socialists and maintained its old-style Stalinist ideology, got 3-4% of the vote, insufficient to elect any deputies to the new parliament.

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