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Article: Leading Article: Why the old guard is back in Hungary
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- May 10, 1994
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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THE SUCCESS of the Hungarian Socialist Party in the first round
of the general election seems to confirm a trend towards the return
of former Communist parties to power in the area. They are already
back in Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, strong in Bulgaria, and even
doing fairly well in the eastern part of Germany. In Romania they
never left government.
Although conditions vary enormously among these countries, the
former Communists have in common that they can exploit the pain of
transition, or the fear of it. But they also gain from being more
organised, politically experienced and sometimes wealthier than the
amateur parties that grew out of opposition movements.
Their Communism was, in ...