Interview with József Kajdi – Episode 6

Now I’ll have to talk about the 56’ memorial event on the 23th of October, 1992. The division of labor in Kossuth Square, based on a preliminary agreement, is that the President of the Republic will deliver the ceremonial speech in Kossuth Square, and in the evening, the Prime Minister will speak at the opera house, where official guests, starting with the diplomatic corps, will also attend. Árpád Göncz stepped up to the microphone, where he was greeted by a chorus of boos, which deeply offended him, and instead of speaking, he turned on his heel and essentially walked away from the podium without saying a word.

Now let’s take a look at what’s behind this, shall we? Apart from the fact that the Esti Egyenleg (Evening Balance) broadcast, which was called Napzárta (Closing Of The Day) before, and is now headed by Bánó, presented the events in such a way, that a handful of skinheads wearing Árpád-striped caps and flags appeared and booed the President of the Republic, preventing him from giving his speech. The truth is that this group was removed by the police before Göncz’s speech. They were no longer there by the time Árpád Göncz arrived at the stage.

he truth is that thousands of elderly people, jailed in 56’, were the ones booing, because Árpád Göncz had previously sent the law providing moral and financial compensation for the victims of 1956, as well as the law on justice for the victims of the 1956 revolution, to the Constitutional Court, and the Constitutional Court overturned it and sent it back to parliament. So they felt that their comrade from ’56, who sat with them in ’56, since it is common knowledge that Árpád Göncz was first sentenced to death and then to life imprisonment, and he was imprisoned together with the others from ’56, they felt that the President of the Republic has betrayed them, and yes, thousands of people, I was there myself, so it wasn’t just a handful of people, unfortunately, but thousands of old people from ’56, who started booing Árpád Göncz, who was under the impression, being in that environment for so long, as Uncle Árpi of Hungary, everyone’s grandfather, practically the most popular personality and politician in the country, was simply stunned to find himself being booed before his speech, and he was completely shocked and unable to speak. He was unable to speak despite Péter Boross, who was there, and I will quote him verbatim for the sake of historical accuracy, started yelling, “Fuck, Árpád, say something!” It should be noted that the microphone and the audio was set so loud that if he had spoken, he could have easily drowned out the boos and been able to deliver his speech.

But I repeat, he was stunned to find himself being booed as the country’s most popular politician, and that is why he left. It is another matter that a parliamentary committee of inquiry was subsequently set up, and the opposition tried to prove that the government had hired some skinheads and some old 1956 revolutionaries to boo and humiliate the president of the republic. However, all investigations proved that this was not the case.

The Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, led by Kálmán Györgyi, also conducted an investigation and found that the facts were as I had just described. Despite this, for many months, the press and media at the time tried to pin it on the government, saying that the prime minister was once again trying to stir up tension. They said that they tried to complicate matters and humiliate the president because they cannot stand how popular he is and how unpopular the government is, including the prime minister.

But when we talk about the relationship between the president and the prime minister, there is unfortunately a previous incident, the taxi blockade. As I mentioned, at the end of May, the government began to focus on how low the country’s oil reserves were. We were trying to procure more, but the possibilities were very limited, and therefore the solution was that if the news comes out that the reserves are so low, then a buying frenzy will start, which would immediately deplete those remaining reserves, and as I mentioned, factories would have to be shut down, including huge mammoth factories, hospitals, etc., and everything from schools onwards would have to be closed because we cannot provide the fuel needed for them to operate, and traffic would also be shut down, starting with public services.

Public transport, trams, buses, everything would have to be shut down. This would mean national bankruptcy. That is why the government began to secretly consider liberalizing fuel prices, essentially bringing them in line with world market prices. On top of that, there was an unfortunate historical event, the oil crisis in the Middle East.

Iraq invaded Kuwait, oil prices skyrocketed, and the United States got involved in the conflict, so the international situation was not helping either, with fuel prices already extremely high at world market prices as well. And before József Antall left for his visit to the United States, which is scheduled for October 19-20, where, by the way, the Hungarian prime minister was received at such a high level, which was the personal decision of Bush Sr., in a manner befitting the heads of state of the world’s greatest powers. So it is as if he were receiving the German chancellor or the French president, and it was not just József Antall, but this small country as well, that was receiving enormous recognition through József Antall.

The Hungarian media was not reporting on this adequately, as is typical. He wanted to see this through, even though he was very ill, and unfortunately we will have to talk about his illness separately. He was coming home from the United States. There was a two-day government meeting that weekend, he wasn’t going to be present on Saturday, which is why we were scheduling the agenda item on fuel prices for Sunday, October 21.

There were two positions: Rabár was in favor of an immediate 60 percent increase, while Péter Bod thought it should be done in two stages, half now and half on January 1. However, given that reserves are so minimal, the majority clearly prevails, and József Antall also decided on a one-off increase, effective immediately, and since three days are needed for the transition, unlike today, when the government decision is made at 11:59 p.m. when the gasoline price increase takes effect, the new prices are already out at the gas stations at 0:00, here it took three days to make the transition, so the decision was made to announce it on the 25th, the day of the government meeting. That is why, when the news leaks out, and in fact the public knows days in advance that gasoline prices are about to rise, people start hoarding fuel.

The television news were already showing images of people collecting fuel in bathtubs, life-threatening conditions like this were beginning to develop, but we were keeping it a secret that the gasoline price increase will take place on Thursday, because, I repeat, if this actually got out, then within a day, the remaining reserves would’ve been depleted. That is why the 23rd celebrations would still go ahead, József Antall was admitted to hospital on the 23rd for tests and surgery, and on Wednesday 24th, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry was asked whether the gasoline price increase will be on the agenda at the government meeting the following day, And poor Mrs Kardos, being completely correct, or at least legally correct, said that “it is not on the agenda”. Indeed, it was not, because the decision had already been made on Sunday, and it was not on the agenda of that government meeting.

That is why the government finished very early that day, but it was announced that the gasoline price increase would take effect at midnight, and what’s more, it would be a very harsh, very severe 60% price increase, which caused an outcry among the public, especially taxi drivers, as they were the ones who felt it most acutely, if only because at that time there were 7,000 taxis in Vienna and 22,000 in Budapest, so they were already struggling to make ends meet, and they felt that if gasoline prices were raised, they would have to raise their fares, making it even harder to survive. That is why they organized a spontaneous demonstration in Kossuth Square that evening, which was illegal in the sense that, according to the law on associations that I mentioned, which I drafted and prepared, three days’ notice must be given for a demonstration to be legal. Now, obviously, this three-day advance notice was not given, and that is why I was surprised that evening when I went out to buy dinner for myself, when I noticed the police pushing aside the flower beds on the edge of Kossuth Square in front of the Parliament, and a police officer told me that it’s because the taxi drivers are coming to protest.

And I wondered how come they’re coming to protest. I asked him who gave them permission, the police officer said it was Sándor Barna, the chief of police in Budapest. I didn’t really think about what that meant at the time.

I started working, when the taxi drivers occupied Kossuth Square with their cars, and the demonstration began, with people standing up… I was inside the parliament building, and my window looked out onto the lion gate, so I could hear what was going on, and I went downstairs because I was curious about the demonstration. I asked one of the security police officers if they were continuously relaying information to headquarters, and they said yes, they were on the hotline. To be on the safe side, I also called Sándor Barna, the Budapest police chief, who told me to stay calm, that they were on top of the situation and knew everything.

Okay. When I felt that the crowd below was becoming a little more agitated, I went back down, and just as I was there, I heard someone shout that “We should occupy the bridges.” A young gentleman stepped forward with a hand-held loudspeaker, whom I later learned from Pár Horváth in a club radio interview not long ago that, to this day, the taxi drivers don’t know who that man is. While the taxi drivers know each other personally, they know everyone from the taxi companies, yet no one knows this young man, but he is the first to say that “We should occupy the bridges”, and taxi drivers started getting into their cars. I rushed up to my room, called Sándor Barna again, and told him what I had heard. He said that he had also been informed, and as a complete layman, not understanding these things, since I am not a police officer or a law enforcement professional, I asked him not to let the taxi drivers go there, to have the police occupy the bridges, and not to allow a blockade to form.

Sándor Barna’s response was that I shouldn’t take it seriously, that they would go home in the morning anyway. Now, by morning, it’s well known that not only had they not gone home, but a blockade had been set up, not only on the bridges, but essentially throughout Budapest, and by Friday, throughout the country, at the borders and in the most important and significant cities. It is my firm conviction to this day that if Sándor Barna had taken the danger seriously at that time, and the police had acted decisively and not allowed the taxis through, there would have been no taxi blockade, and there would have been no such crisis in the budding period of Hungarian democracy, and this story, which clearly undermined the Antall government, would not have happened.

But I mentioned that the president of the republic also played a role in these events. On Friday morning, when the blockade began, I was still able to get in from the Pest side, as I was living in Pest at the time, and a colonel in the army, the head of the legal department of the Defense Ministry, whom I knew well from before, came up to me, and suggested that we draft a resolution, which we then did, requesting that the army provide large vehicles, snowplows, cranes, etc., from road construction units to deal with certain blockade situations. We thought that first of all, at least one lane of the Árpád Bridge should be cleared and traffic ensured there, of course these vehicles would not be driven by conscripts, but as these vehicles arrived in Budapest, the soldiers would exit them, and be manned by professional police officers from then on.