Hungary The New Reality

Days after Janos Kadar's replacement as Communist Party leader by Prime Minister Karoly Grosz, the mood in Budapest was still euphoric. "We won," exulted one party member last week. "It went beyond our expectations," said a high-ranking government figure. Agreed a Western diplomat: "The change is unprecedented in the Soviet bloc."

As if to test the limits of dissent in the post-Kadar era, some 3,500 environmental activists took to the capital's streets late last week to protest the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Danube River. In the face of bobbing placards and charged speeches, the police kept on the sidelines, and the march was orderly. But it signaled the restlessness that Grosz, 57, will face as he tries to cope with economic stagnation. During his first week as party General Secretary, Grosz vigorously repeated his support for the market-directed policies he insists are necessary to revive the Hungarian economy, which is weighted down by an $18 billion gross foreign debt and double-digit inflation. But Grosz warned Hungarians not to expect too much too soon. "Many think reform will change everything," he told a Budapest daily. "It is only work that will change our situation."

Sober admonitions come naturally to a man who dutifully supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and rose to become the party's propaganda chief in 1974. As the economy faltered in the late 1970s, however, Grosz converted to market economics and the notion of democratic reform -- under the party's aegis.

Grosz is virtually guaranteed support from the eleven-member Politburo, the party's top decision-making body, where his allies are in the majority. Imre Pozsgay, 54, the outspoken head of the People's Patriotic Front, a Communist- led umbrella organization of some 100 special-interest groups, and Reszo Nyers, 65, Hungary's most prominent reform economist, were among those elected to the Politburo during the same party conference that ousted Kadar.

Once the East bloc's chief reformer, Kadar had run Hungary since Moscow installed him in power in 1956. Now he has the largely ceremonial post of party president. Few Hungarians seemed to care; all eyes were on his successor. "This is a talented and politically skilled crowd," said a senior Western diplomat in Budapest of the country's new power elite. "What they might do now is wide open."