IT
HR
NL
FR
JA
RO
RU
ES
TR
What Christmas was like in Hungary’s Kádár era: Escapes, secret masses and silenced longings
For many people, Christmas during Hungary’s Kádár era was less a time of peace and warmth and more a period marked by tension, deprivation and unspoken fears. Whether for conscripts, children confined to hospital beds or adults working long shifts, the festive season often meant something very different from what official propaganda portrayed.
Christmas behind barracks walls in the Kádár era
During the years of compulsory military service, the Christmas period was considered one of the most critical times within the Hungarian People’s Army. Due to constant combat readiness, only about one-third of conscripts were allowed to go home for the holidays, while the rest remained in the barracks – at least on paper. In reality, the festive season saw a sharp rise in escapes, disappearances and extraordinary incidents, according to a report by Blikk.
Political officers closely monitored soldiers’ mental states weeks in advance. Rather than psychologists, informants were used to identify those who might attempt to flee or even harm themselves if leave was denied. Soldiers deemed psychologically unstable were often placed in detention “as a preventive measure” during the holidays, kept under constant supervision.
Around Christmas, the number of escape attempts multiplied. Conscripts often covered for one another, even when climbing the perimeter fences. However, if a deserter got into trouble as a civilian – through an accident, a fight or a more serious crime – it could no longer be kept quiet. In some years, tensions ran so high that guards were deliberately not issued live ammunition to prevent tragedy.
Silence instead of pine branches
For many years, any hint of Christmas spirit was forbidden in military barracks. In the early period, even bringing a pine branch into sleeping quarters was prohibited, and festive meals were out of the question. By the late 1970s, restrictions began to ease: Christmas decorations appeared in common rooms, followed later by Christmas trees. Fish was served for lunch on Christmas Eve, while dinner usually consisted of cold food. After the regime change, sparkling wine also became available, and in more modern barracks, soldiers could even prepare their own festive meals.
Communism is perhaps the greatest evil ever foisted on mankind. It is at its roots an anti-human ideology, stripping the individual of his identity, ambition, and spirit. While Communism was understandably born as the antithesis to entrenched classism and monarchism, it went on to cause more misery and death than any other ideology in human history, exceeding even Islam during its periods of conquest and far surpassing Nazism.
In a sane world, Communism–in all its many iterations–would be viewed with the same mixture of disdain, bemusement, and amusement with which we espy feudalism. As in, WTF was that?!? Yet, hordes of people, especially the impressionable youth, flock to this toxic ideology. A huge majority of that youth (and not just youth) lives in the developed world, enjoying a standard of living never before seen in the annals of this planet, courtesy of capitalism and libertarianism. That they should crave Communism is a stark indictment of the atrocious inefficacy of the first world’s education “systems.”
Unfortunately, even the apparently smart and educated people, even in the comments on this site, advocate globalism, which is merely the latest guise of Communism. They extol that Soros, that German b…h in Brussels, the E.U., the U.N., and all their agenda. To them, Trump and Orban are the enemies. They need to wake up and connect the dots. It is the globalists who are plotting to have people spend not just their Christmases like they did under Kadar, but EVERY day.
Jézus Mária, Steiner!
Nem gurult el a gyógyszered?