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Hungary Relations with the Soviet Union
In the postwar period, several factors contributed to
Soviet
influence in Hungary. The Soviet Union maintained a large
troop
presence in Eastern Europe
(see Soviet Influence
, ch. 5).
The
structural characteristics of the Warsaw Pact minimized
the
independence of East European military establishments and
the
CPSU exercised significant political influence within the
HSWP
and the government.
Relations between Hungary and the Soviet Union also
depended
on a series of more personal factors. Thus, before
Gorbachev
assumed power in the Soviet Union, the conservative Soviet
leadership disapproved of Hungarian reform efforts, and
relations
between the two countries were therefore cool. After
Gorbachev
became general secretary of the CPSU and initiated his
reform
program, the leadership of each country found in the other
an
ally for its program of economic and political change.
Consequently, beginning in mid-1986 relations between
Hungary and
the Soviet Union warmed considerably.
At the Thirteenth Party Congress, the HSWP stressed the
decisive importance of relations with the Soviet Union. At
this
congress, however, Grigorii V. Romanov, then a hard-line
member
of the CPSU Politburo and Secretariat, criticized Hungary
for its
relations with the West. Romanov supported "businesslike
contacts" with capitalist countries, but he warned that
the
socialist countries could not "allow the imperialist
forces to
use economic levers as a means of political pressure and
interference in the affairs of socialist states." Romanov
advised
Hungary not to go too far in increasing trade and
cooperation
with the West.
The Twenty-Seventh Party Congress of the CPSU in March
1986
marked the beginning of a steady improvement in relations
between
Hungary and the Soviet Union. Kadar endorsed the Soviet
reform
program and drew parallels between the CPSU's party
congress and
the HSWP's Thirteenth Party Congress. Hungary also
supported the
Soviet Union's foreign policy and disarmament proposals.
In June
1986, Gorbachev visited Hungary for talks with Hungarian
party
and government leaders. According to the joint communique,
both
sides shared "fully identical views" on foreign and
security
policies. Each side pledged to assist the other in
accelerating
socioeconomic and scientific development.
In the mid- to late 1980s, the Soviet Union sought to
expand
bilateral economic relations and scientific-technical
relations
with Hungary. The Soviet Union needed Hungarian scientific
and
technical expertise as well as economic assistance to
strengthen
Soviet economic reform. Hungary, by contrast, sought to
devote
more resources to its trade with the West and with the
newly
industrialized countries of the Third World.
Soviet efforts to tie Hungary more closely to the
Soviet
economy and to Comecon have achieved some success. In 1985
Hungary and the Soviet Union signed a long-range economic
and
scientific-technical program of cooperation to last until
the
year 2000. The Kadar-Gorbachev talks in 1985 called for
the
strengthening of scientific-technical cooperation and the
development of new forms of cooperation between each
country's
research institutes, economic enterprises, and work
cooperatives.
At a meeting between Grosz and Gorbachev in July 1987, the
two
countries agreed to expand bilateral trade in the 1986-90
period.
The two leaders also commissioned a fifteen- to
twenty-year plan
for developing economic and scientific-technical
cooperation
between their two countries.
In 1988 two high-level meetings took place between
Soviet and
Hungarian leaders. In April, Soviet then-President Andrei
A.
Gromyko visited Hungary to promote the expansion of
bilateral
ties in light of the changes taking place in both
countries.
Gromyko met with Kadar, and they expressed a common
interest in
implementing reform in their own countries and in
establishing
new kinds of cooperation. Grosz was the first East
European
leader to visit the Soviet Union after the CPSU's
Nineteenth
Party Conference in July, a sign of Hungary's close
relations
with Moscow. Gorbachev praised the HSWP party conference
and drew
parallels between the reform efforts of both countries.
Grosz
called his meeting with Gorbachev "useful and valuable"
and said
that the two countries had never been more in harmony.
Data as of September 1989
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