W 011 F

Introduction

In June 1979 Leonid Brezhnev paid a visit to Hungary. It was an official, goodwill visit. Brezhnev arrived with several followers, the principal Soviet leaders. They spent three days here and signed a Hungarian-Soviet communiqué and an international agreement of culture and science. This was considered for one of the most important political events of the year.
Was this visit only a protocoliar event? Did it have any significance in the political life of Hungary and the Soviet Union, or in world politics?

Method
The Hungarian daily papers Népszabadság, Szolnok Megyei Néplap, Dunántúli Napló, Népszava, Magyar Nemzet all informed about the events of the visit. Since the articles seemed to be rather similar to each other, I did not use all of them, only Népszabadság, Magyar Nemzet and Népszava. I looked them up in the library of the Faculty of Arts. The articles I found were mostly accounts. Nor I want to comment or evaluate the facts, though it would be possible in retrospect. To find an answer on my question I decided to put this visit in context somehow. To do this, I looked for some historical books. I choosed Brezinski's work from the Central University Library and my friend advised me to use Nash's book. To find further assess of the results of the visit I looked up the periodical Heti Világgazdaság. I used some sources published in the U.S.A. That's the reason why some contradictions can be found among the quotations.

Results and Details
While the delegation was here, they had several programs besides the negotiations. They went sightseeing to Kelenföld where a new housing estate had been opened that time. According to Népszabadság, ...passers-by, housewives or inhabitants of Budapest were staying at home at the moment were greeting with much love Comrade Brezhnev, the members of the delegation and János Kádár, who was in the suite of the delegation (Befejezodött szovjet...). The guests paid a visit to a kindergarten, where the children sang Hungarian and Russian folk-songs and performed some poems. The visit took an end with a ceremonial farewell at the airport in the afternoon. So far about the protocoliar part of the visit.

The negotiations ran on two fields: the biternal relations and the questions of international politics. Both discussing parties emphasized that they agreed in every fields, all through the negotiations: There is friendship and utility between us, our point of view is the same - said János Kádár in his speech on television (Kádár).

It was a fact that the condition of the development of the Hungarian economy is the cooperation of the Comecon countries and that the main principles are: equality of rights, the mutual advantages, the sovereignity of the states and the equal representation (Közös célok...). The communiqué stated that this cooperation can materialize in the long run. The two countries' economical relations were developing dynamicly: 30% of our exchange of goods were arranged with the Soviet Union, and Hungary is the fifth of the Soviet Union's foreign trade partners (Tamás). Brzezinski disproves all this:

Economic reforms sputtered and even started to turn sour. International dept mounted, and economic activity flagged. Inflection and unemployment appeared, giving rise to growing social unease, while corruption within the bureaucratic elite reached massive proportions. Tensions between the political and the economic dimensions of Hungarian life inevitably comlicated the search for acceptable economic remedies, unleashing an intense struggle between doctrinarians and technocrats. The overall trend, however, continued to point in the direction of additional decentralization, the further expansion of the market-mechanism, the adoption of personal taxes, and intensified efforts to develop joint ventures with foreign capital, all resulting in the further dilution of the Soviet version of socialism (133).

The other field, the international politics, was more complex. It had five main topics: peace, détente in politics, a Pan-European conference, the question of armament race, and the problems with China.

Peace must be the most important intention of all the politicians. Kádár and Brezhnev thought that the only way to save it was the building and extension of socialism and communism. Peace is necessary for people to turn all their effort and energy to produce useful things to raise the standard of living and to create secure circumstances in their worlds. The determining political factor of the twentieth century was the continually changing relation between the two Great Powers, the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union.

After the years of cold war, under János Kádár's leadership this relation could be cathegorized with the process of détente. The two countries seemed to approach each other and to be willing to discuss their interests. This was a positive tendency not only in these countries' relation, but in the general international atmosphere, too. In order to stabilize these pursuits, Brezhnev declared in his speech on television: We are ready for active and constructive discussion, and we expect the American party to have the same point of view (Brezhnev).

In spite of this, according to Nash and Jeffrey, "...Russian leaders resisted working with Carter on concrete disputes between the two superpowers" (1048).

There arose a plan of a Pan-European congress on the Hungarian-Soviet negotiations. It would be organized in Budapest, and delegations of all European countries, the U.S.A. and Canada would be ivitated to it to discuss the questions of détente.

The question of armament race is one of the most important topics of the process of détente. The restriction of strategic arms had begun in 1972, when the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) realized. Kádár and Brezhnev both applanded that the discussions about the SALT-2 between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union were coming to an end. They succeeded to sign the contract in Vienna still in that year, since the American partner seemed to be willing to do it, too: "Negotiations for a more comprehensive strategic arms limitation treaty than the agreement of 1972 threatened to break down. Misjudging the Russians, the U.S. president offered new weapon reduction proposals that went further than the Soviet Union was prepared to accept. when this threw matters into confusion, Carter backed off, patient negotiation succeeded, and the SALT-2 agreement was reached in June 1979" ( Nash, 1048 ).

The last topic was the question of China. The problem was that China was the only country which turned its back on the negotiations about the restriction of strategic arms. Moreover, China levelled strategical summons to the NATO, and hadn't extended the time of the Soviet-Chinese contract. These were the reasons why Brezhnev regarded China as the obstacle of the global détente. In spite of this, we are ready to examine conditions of negotiations seriously and positively - claimed Brezhnev (Brezhnev).

On 2 June the delegation left Budapest. Brezhnev sent a telegramm from the board of his aeroplane, in which he informed his Hungarian party that: The results of the visit fill us with deep satisfaction (Leonid Brezhnev...).

According to Magyar Nemzet, "the visit of the party- and government-delegation leaded by Brezhnev in Hungary was in the centre of the attention of the international press"
(Nemzetközi...). The newspapers of foreign countries dealt chiefly with the international connections.

The Soviet press placed the visit in the centre of the interest. They broadcasted the speech of Brezhnev and Kádár. According to Népszabadság, the Polish "Trybuna Ludu" emphasized that this relationship could be cathegorized by taking the feature points of the two countries completely into consideration (A látogatás...).

The uniform opinion of the NATO conference of Foreign Ministers was that a more positive discourse could begin between East and West, as a consequense of the agreement in aim of SALT-2. The Foreign Ministers dealt with the motion of Foreign Ministers of the Warsaw Pact about the congress in Budapest.

Conclusion
This visit of the Soviet delegation was an important event either in Hungarian and international politics and the different organs presented it in different ways.
I found an answer on my question, as it is obvious that this was a real political event. Not only the countries of the socialist block dealt with the consequenses seriously, but the West also applanded the real results.