The Hungarian Conservative: Hungarian Conservative Thought: A Competitive Advantage

The guiding thread of Hungarian conservative thinking has always been to represent the Hungarian national interest, and thus the preservation of the country’s sovereignty and freedom—this is understood to supersede any theoretical concepts.

To say that our world is undergoing a radical transformation is hardly more than a commonplace. Like most commonplaces, the statement does not warrant such a dubious epithet because it is not true. On the contrary, the problem is its very unarguability. It is in times of radical change that we take the full measure of people, countries, and ultimately ideas, which we might also call ideologies, worldviews, or lifestyle choices. They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we are about to get our first taste. Does it really have enough nutritional value to keep us going on the long, bumpy, difficult road ahead?

It is somewhat less of a commonplace to observe that the current pandemic did not cause many of the changes we see, but only accelerated processes that were already under way. What is happening would have happened anyway, in other words, it is just happening faster. But the coronavirus pandemic also draws our attention to another, related issue: the real question is which civilization’s or nation’s values, which way of life and political system, appear more crisis-resistant, based on whether they coped well or badly with challenges of the pandemic. Of course, comparisons of this sort between different countries are frequently made, showing the relative success or failure of each in protecting its citizens. Equally naturally, this data supplies ammunition for political battles, and this may be inevitable, but the cultural and civilizational significance of these events is of greater long-term interest. It may be relatively easy to see whether a country has been successful in fighting the pandemic, but much harder to recognize the reasons for success or failure. The pandemic is actually a sort of stress test, putting both our values and cultural characteristics to the test.

There is no space for a detailed analysis here, but even so we may risk the broad claim that, based on all the above considerations, the most important Anglo-Saxon countries under conservative leadership—and other countries where Anglo-Saxon conservative ideas predominate—have responded rather chaotically to the crisis, while conservative-led Central European nations have, albeit on a wing and a prayer, made the landing. We need only mention the United States and the United Kingdom, and perhaps also Brazil, where the government follows predominantly Anglo-Saxon libertarian ideas. At the beginning of the pandemic, the leaders of these countries were ideologically committed to minimizing restrictions on personal freedom, and, when the situation deteriorated, they were forced in several instances to introduce stricter measures than those in place in continental European countries. In addition, these measures often differed from region to region, and at times seemed to change by the week. Meanwhile, large numbers of citizens refused to follow precautionary guidelines, not infrequently employing methods of civil disobedience. The countries of continental Europe, by contrast, and in particular those of Central Europe with conservative governments, chose to act pragmatically, though they too see freedom as an indispensable value. The result of this was that hospitals were not overburdened and chaos did not prevail, due in large part to adequate measures taken in good time and, no less importantly, a willingness on the part of citizens to follow the rules.

I consider this observation important only because it helps us to understand how Anglo- Saxon conservative thinking has become so ideological, and why conservative thinking in Central Europe, including Hungary, is much more pragmatic. The fact is, the underlying attitude for which intellectual circles sympathetic towards Anglo-Saxon conservatism used to berate Central European politicians and populations has suddenly become a competitive civilizational advantage. Taking this idea as our point of departure, in this article we shall examine why the conservative tradition in Central Europe— including Hungary—can be a competitive advantage in a changing world. Using four criteria, we will outline the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Hungarian conservative traditions based on historical and geographical characteristics, and their relationship to modernization and liberalism.

WHAT EXPLAINS THE NATURE OF ANGLO-SAXON CONSERVATISM? 

At first glance, it may seem surprising that ideology emerges as a criterion for Anglo- Saxon conservatism, since both apologists for and critics of this school of thought tend to emphasize its pragmatism. The facts of the matter, however, are by no means so straightforward. Another difficulty is that in many respects the conservative culture of each Anglo-Saxon country is not the same: for example, conservative thinking in the United States differs markedly from that in the United Kingdom. There is nothing surprising in this, but our current analytic perspective will tend to seek out common features, since only by reference to common problems can common solutions be found.

Historical Reasons

Anglo-Saxon conservatism is a political tradition with core values that include the protection of the personal liberty of the individual against the power of the state and the upholding of the institutional system which guarantees the continuity of this liberty, while in economic terms it focuses on the inviolability of private property and the importance of free trade, production, and other economic activity, with as little state interference as possible.1

The fact that these values have a long tradition also means that in different periods they manifested differently, and with differing emphases. Principles were interpreted differently when first the gentry and then the people employed them to demand rights from their sovereign, when the state founded upon them became a vast colonial empire in the nineteenth century, or when another state no less reliant upon them became one of the superpowers of the twentieth-century Cold War. Thus, understandably, in each era the Anglo-Saxon conservative tradition has been interpreted to fit the needs of the time, and, as a result, accrued ever more new meanings. The extension of freedom, which began essentially as a political movement, later became a political philosophy and ultimately an ideology. After all, the society which espoused it was forced to confront the question of whether and to what degree its values, which were rooted in a specifically English context, could be considered universal. In other words, could these principles be considered valid in some timeless, metaphysical sense, or were they merely well-suited to the contingencies of the British state and its later colonial possessions?2

Geographical Reasons

This is why Anglo-Saxon traditions and values have increasingly lost their pragmatic character, becoming instead a kind of political ideology with expansive political aspirations. These ideologizing processes were present during the heyday of the British Empire, during the Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, and after the emergence of the post-1990 neoliberal world order, and all have left their mark on Anglo-Saxon conservative thinking.5

Attitude towards Modernization

As we will see later, from their earliest manifestations, industrial and social modernization has posed dilemmas for Hungarian conservatism. These dilemmas were not so marked for Anglo-Saxon conservatives. The first Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the middle class in the British Empire and the United States were home-grown, essentially domestic developments, meaning that there was no need to confront the question of whether adopting the trappings of modernity would change the way of life of those living in these countries, since the change was not experienced as the importation or adoption of foreign ways, but rather as the sort of organic development which plays such a prominent role in conservative thinking.6

Attitude towards Liberalism

The Anglo-Saxon conservative tradition sees classical liberalism almost as a brother. For Anglo-Saxon conservatism, which considers freedom a core value, classical liberalism, which proclaims individual political and economic freedom, has always been a natural ally.7 So much so that classical liberal authors are considered integral to the tradition of Anglo-Saxon conservatism, and criticism of the former began to be expressed only from the second third of the twentieth century onward.8 In addition, and regardless of the era, classical liberal authors have done much of the ideological work of making Anglo-Saxon conservative values universal. That is, while from a conservative point of view, Anglo- Saxon values were ‘created’ specifically for the British Isles, and possibly for the societies ofAnglo-Saxon colonies, some classical liberal authors sought to continually expand the scope of these values, seeing them as essentially universal and with global applicability.9

For the above reasons, Anglo-Saxon conservatism and liberalism, at least in their classical forms, went hand in hand. They saw each other as allies against far-right and far-left ideologies, and considered their shared, partly overlapping heritage a value to be defended. Only recently have we seen conservative voices critical of classical liberalism in the Anglo-Saxon world.10 This phenomenon is important, because a similar critique of classical liberal ideas was made a century and a half ago from a conservative Hungarian perspective. And this change in attitude is, in no small part, a consequence of a changing world, as Anglo-Saxon countries, after several centuries of expansion, appear to be on the defensive on multiple fronts.

WHAT EXPLAINS THE NATURE OF HUNGARIAN CONSERVATISM? 

The guiding thread of Hungarian conservative thinking has always been to represent the Hungarian national interest, and thus the preservation of the country’s sovereignty and freedom—this is understood to supersede any theoretical concepts.11 The Hungarian conservative tradition is in this sense pragmatic, in that it makes flexible use of the means at its disposal to attain its ends. One might remark that there is nothing surprising in this, since conservative thought is taken to be pragmatic in principle. But how does this attitude manifest itself in Hungarian conservative thinking? In the fact that Hungarian conservative thinking is essentially defensive in character. If the central problem has always been the protection of Hungarian sovereignty, national and individual freedom, and the attainment of the national interest, then the economic and cultural expansion which has come to seem natural and self-evident in Anglo-Saxon countries has here taken a back seat. Indeed, Hungary’s experience has rather been one of being conquered by foreign powers, and of alien ideas and social phenomena entering the country despite having no organic roots within the local culture, meaning that the defence of Hungarian values and the attainment of the national interest became the guiding motives of Hungarian conservatism. As in the Anglo- Saxon example, it is also possible in the case of Hungarian conservatism to outline in four regards why Hungarian conservative thinking has become essentially defensive in nature.

Historical Reasons

The last five centuries of Hungarian history have essentially been the history of a struggle for independence. Since the Battle of Mohács in 1526, when the Hungarian Army was defeated by the forces of the Ottoman Empire, the country has enjoyed only a few decades of fully sovereign independence. Nevertheless, the Hungarian elite has always considered it a priority to secure the Hungarian interest, increase Hungarian manoeuvring space, and maintain or regain the rights of the nation—even against a legitimate ruler. This is a tradition of Hungarian political thinking that modern conservative (and initially liberal) thinking considered a basic tenet. This is because, in a strict sense, we can talk about conservatism only following the Enlightenment, as well as, in part, the French Revolution, and as an essentially reactionary idea.12 Hungary was in a very special situation at the beginning of the nineteenth century. After the failure of Ferenc Rákóczi’s War of Independence (1703–1711), the national idea had lost prestige among the nobles of the country: a significant proportion of the elite sought the favours of the imperial court, and Germanization was widespread. This was most evident in the declining use of the Hungarian language and Hungarian customs.13

Even if there was resistance in aristocratic circles, they were formulated mainly against the modernizing measures of the imperial court, which encouraged the development of bourgeois society, while the goal of this resistance was precisely to maintain the old Hungarian hierarchical order. This group, called ‘order conservatives’, sought to maintain the formalities of a hierarchical society, thus rejecting any formal modernization, whether public, social, or industrial. They were opposed by the new wave of nobles and bourgeois of the Reform Era (1825–1848).

At this point, a Hungarian author generally brings up Count István Széchenyi, and it is impossible to omit him indeed, since it was in his thought that both the modern liberal and conservative traditions of Hungary, which had not yet diverged, reached maturity.14 (The reasons for their ultimate divergence will later prove decisive in forming the character of Hungarian conservatism.) The essence of Széchenyi’s political and economic programme was as follows: if we do not wish to disappear forever from the stage of history due to competitive disadvantage, we must take the modernization of the country into our own hands. At the same time, Count Széchenyiand the intellectuals of the Reform Era hoped to preserve Hungarian values and way of life, and to regain sovereignty and freedom. It is also worth pointing out that while the ‘order conservatives’ focused on formal conservatism, the leading personalities of the Reform Era concentrated instead on content issues. In other words, they recognized the pattern arising from Hungary’s aforementioned historical peculiarities, according to which the possibility of Hungarians shaping their own way of life depended on re-establishing a Hungarian state which was as strong and independent as possible.15

Geographical Reasons

Hungarian—and, incidentally, continental conservatism in general—developed in a completely different geographical environment than Anglo-Saxon conservatism. The cultural significance of this self-evident fact is a perennial topic within the field of political geography. The importance of geography is particularly marked in Hungary’s case. The Carpathian Basin is a closed unit, over which the Hungarian state extended its power for a thousand years. Although the former Kingdom of Hungary naturally had—in modern terms—spheres of interest and vassal states, the extension of borders beyond the Carpathian Basin was never part of the political programme of the country’s rulers. Rather, the primary goals of Hungarian national strategy were the protection of borders and the preservation of territorial integrity and the sovereignty of the state. The Hungarian state needed this defensive attitude in almost every period of its history, starting with the Mongol invasion of the late thirteenth century, continuing through the ever-greater threat posed by the Ottoman Turks from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, culminating in the occupation of most of Hungary by the Habsburgs and the Ottomans until the late seventeenth century, and the dangerous proximity to the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. In some ages, the defence was successful, in other ages, it was not, but for the purposes of this study, the question of success or failure is incidental. What is interesting, however, is that defensiveness as an attitude has been present throughout the history of the Hungarian state.16 And defence is a practical activity. It results in situations in which certain fundamental principles must at times be given up—even if only temporarily—so that when peace returns life may go back to normal.

Attitude towards Modernization

The Hungarian elite wanted to modernize Hungary, but at the same time to preserve a way of life they saw as according with the nation, and stemming from its own values. These values included freedom and sovereignty, and, closely linked to these, the social order arising from the historical Hungarian constitution—in other words, that modus vivendi which, to a greater or lesser extent, characterized Hungarian society as a whole.

Attitude towards Liberalism

It is beyond the scope of this article to explore all the debates and intellectual histories of the liberal–conservative tradition of the nineteenth century, which broadly favoured Hungary’s modernization. What is certain, however, is that this political alliance actually came to power with the 1867 Compromise—the arrangement which gave birth to the Austro- Hungarian Dual Monarchy. It did not take long, however, for internal splits to emerge as to the direction this political programme should take: this essentially led to the separation between Hungarian conservatism and liberalism. At the same time, it remains indisputable that both Hungarian liberalism and conservatism formulated their political programme with Hungarian national independence and the enforcement of national interests in mind.

The first governments of the post-1867 era were formed by the dominant party of the time, the Deák Party, later known as the Liberal Party. Glancing through the list of prime ministers from Gyula Andrássy to Kálmán Tisza, we see an ever more rapid turnover of office holders, all from within the Liberal Party. One does not have to be a political expert to realize that there must have been a political, economic, and governmental crisis behind the increasing frequency with which the office of prime minister changed hands. Disagreements between the ruling party and members of the government were common, and economic performance, in contrast to the favourable assessment of posterity, showed very dubious results during the first years of Dualism. In the first half of the 1870s, the threat of state bankruptcy was a daily topic of conversation. It was in this situation that János Asbóth, a former government official and Member of Parliament, published a book entitled Hungarian Conservative Politics, which— as the name suggests—emphasized the need for a conservative change in political direction.19 The significance of Asbóth and his work cannot be overemphasized, as his ideas are, in a sense, echoed in Hungarian conservative thinking to this day. The essence of Asbóth’s critique is that the bankruptcy of liberal politics stems from the fact that liberals consider theory more important than practice.20 In other words, they are more interested in whether liberal principles prevail in a political decision than in whether the decision is truly to the benefit or detriment of the nation, or in line with Hungarian interests.

It is worth noting that Asbóth’s criticism is directed against the excessive liberalism of the governing elite. He criticizes the rapidly alternating liberal administrations for adopting Western patterns in the belief that these will bring automatic benefits, without considering their long-term effects on the life of the nation. For example, Asbóth cites the regulation of economic conditions.21 Governments expected so much from free competition that they introduced all the elements of a laissez-faire economic system almost at once. According to Asbóth, this was a mistake: at that time Hungarian economic actors were not yet ready to compete with better-funded Austrian and Czech industries, and the domestic economy, far from flourishing, entered a period of recession. This is a painfully familiar phenomenon—we need only consider the missteps of the Hungarian liberal administrations in the post-1989 period.22

Asbóth’s polemical volume was published in 1875. It did not achieve its aim, in the sense that no conservative party of the sort seen in Britain was established in Hungary. At the same time, the debate it provoked did not fail to elicit a response. The policies of Prime Minister Kálmán Tisza, who came to power in 1875 and had one of the longest terms in office of any Hungarian prime minister, owed much to certain elements of Asbóth’s criticism. Though still formally liberal, Hungarian governments became more and more conservative, more focused on national interests and practical results, and the period of spectacular economic growth in the Hungary of the Dual Monarchy can be dated to the period in which these principles were operative.23

The system of Dualism, with all its lasting and temporary successes, survived in Hungary until the end of the First World War. The fall of the system coincided with the devastating trauma of the Paris peace treaties, including the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which drastically truncated Hungary’s territory. In response, Hungarian conservative intellectuals placed the blame for the calamity on the political principles followed during the era of Dualism, which they considered excessively liberal.24 The leading figures of this trend includedGyula Szekfű, Pál Teleki, István Bethlen, and Tibor Joó. In addition to their criticism—and this is especially true for Szekfű and Bethlen—these men made it their mission to lay the foundations of true Hungarian conservatism, and to generate a kind of modern conservative awakening.25

Another thread in this conservative revival was the elaboration of a response to the new circumstances of the twentieth century. As we have seen, as early as the nineteenth century, some Hungarian intellectuals were already formulating critiques of both capitalist and socialist economic models and the ideologies underpinning them, which viewed progress as a series of steps on the ineluctable path towards modernity.26 Then, from the 1920s onward, criticisms of these economic and social models were supplemented by critiques of fascism, national socialism, and communism.27

Curiously—and yet typically of the era—the alternative to modern, alien ideologies came from the ecclesiastical world. The Hungarian conservative perspective was shaped by a number of prominent ecclesiastics such as József Mindszenty, Ottokár Prohászka, or László Ravasz. Despite their religious background, the familiar, pragmatic aspect of Hungarian conservatism emerges in their writings. They saw in Christian social teaching an idea that fundamentally aligned with the Hungarian mindset, and through which the socialist and national socialist-inspired social organizations, which were essentially mass-based in nature, could be countered. It was at this time that the Hungarian conservative tradition, in addition to its national ethos, finally acquired a culturally Christian character; the tenets of Christian thinkers of the time still resonate on the political right today, as do the pragmatic, conservative voices criticizing the liberalism of the nineteenth century.28

WHY IS THE HUNGARIAN WAY SO ADVANTAGEOUS?

If we consider the patterns outlined above, several conclusions can be drawn. First, it is now clear that post-1989 conservative thinkers picked up a thread that was severed, at the latest, in 1949. National independence and national interests, sovereignty, economic development, Christian cultural foundations, and pragmatic scepticism towards foreign ideas—all these aspirations emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century and came to define Hungarian conservative thinking. Then, in the post-1989 period, as the symptoms of crisis began to multiply within the political and government system based on left-liberal principles, the critiques formulated by an almost 150-year-old conservative tradition began to be voiced once again.

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