Now It's Gulyas Gyula-Style

The Communist leader least likely to be accused of promoting a personality cult is Hungary's Janos Kadar, a man as cold and colorless as the sour cream with which Magyars anoint the spicy stew they call szekely gulyds. Ever since he crushed the 1956 revolt, Premier Kadar has kept his picture off office walls and newspaper pages, remains so unfamiliar that even today he can walk the streets of Budapest without being recognized by many Hungarians. All the same, the new style in Communist circles these days is separation of party and government leadership, and so Kadar last week turned his government into a duumvirate.

Retaining his most powerful position as party First Secretary, Kadar, 53, handed the premiership to black-haired, moon-faced ex-Journalist Gyula Kallai, 55, his lifelong friend, sometime jail-mate (between 1951 and 1954, under Stalinist Matyas Rakosi), and longtime foreign affairs adviser, who since 1960 has been Deputy Premier. Kadar also reshuffled his Politburo, replaced creaking party stalwarts with younger men. Janos Brutyo, 54, and Sandor Caspar, 48, two tough administrators, were named respectively president and secretary-general of the trade unions, and Zoltan Komocsin, 42, editor of the Communist organ Nepszabadsag, became party director of foreign affairs.

The changes were not merely for appearances' sake. While Kadar has earned tolerance of his regime by easing travel restrictions, making consumer goods available, and in general promoting gulyds Communism, Hungary's economy is in serious trouble. A decidedly ineffectual administrator, Kadar confessed recently that, because of "unevenesses, difficulties and mistakes," scheduled improvements in farm and industrial efficiency had not materialized. Moreover, agricultural exports to Western Europe, Hungary's traditional market, are steadily being trimmed by the Common Market's rising tariff barriers. Thus, Kallai and Komocsin are plainly better suited than Kadar for such tasks as negotiating more favorable trade arrangements with the West; Brutyo and Gaspar have obviously been picked to boost labor productivity. They will have no easy job. Goldbricking and moonlighting have become the nation's favorite sports. As a popular gag inquires, "Why are Hungarians so happy building socialism?" Answer: "It's easier than working."

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