If the gulag stands for the Soviet kind of repression, in Hungary during the late sixties a set of economic changes turned the totalitarian system in another direction, toward goulash communism.
It is hard to understand any of these changes without mentioning Stalin—even if a history book, rather than a cookbook, offers perhaps a more appropriate place to learn about Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. By removing everyone who stood in his way to ultimate power in the early thirties, he rose to the position of a Communist dictator whose nom de plume, Stalin, was given to this specific type of Socialist government—not only in the USSR. But to simplify the explanation, the reader should imagine Stalin as a kind of Darth Vader, the lord of the “dark force.” On the other hand, his army did defeat Hitler. The experience of living under socialism teaches us that political leaders are neither heroes nor villains—but sometimes even both. And to go back to the Star Wars movie metaphor I just used, Luke Skywalker came very late to the USSR, only in the late eighties. He appeared under the name Mikhail Gorbachev, and he was not a hero from the start either, just a party bureaucrat, but that is another story.
The so-called goulash communism started when János Kádar, the general secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party—who remained in office for more than thirty years—introduced his New Economic Mechanism, or NEM, in 1968. Not that he was such a good guy—he himself had skeletons in his closet; for instance, mass arrests right after the revolution in 1956. First students rebelled against the Stalinist type of government. When the police shot at them, the uprising spread throughout the country, and the government fell. But then the Soviets decided to step in, and the Soviet army invaded the country on November fourth. The revolution, which lasted only a few weeks, was crushed at the price of thousands upon thousands of civilians killed. A new, pro-Soviet government was installed, with János Kádar as prime minister. As Americans would say: There is no such thing as a free lunch! So Kádar ordered (or, better said, was ordered to order) the persecution of some 26,000 rebels, of whom 13,000 were imprisoned and several hundred even executed. Some 200,000 people fled the country.
On the other hand, he knew that the whole of Soviet-style socialism was hated, and he needed to introduce compromises in order to keep socialism going. And Hungarians knew that Kádar knew, and he knew that they knew that he knew.
When he introduced the new economic plan, Kádar was confronted with the same question of ingredients: How far could one go in introducing various additions and changes—and still call it socialism? His unorthodox mixture of ingredients from both the planned and the market economies made our bellies full, our newspapers more liberal, our piggish rights more respected. Our life improved. Obviously, he decided that it was better to offer a meager goulash—with somewhat unconventional ingredients—than the gulag. The main principle of goulash communism became, to quote him: “He who is not against us is for us.” Instead of weeding out “counterrevolutionary” elements, Kádar sort of dumped them into his stew, which only made it thicker. It worked in the same way as when a cook adds some flour to the sauce: “With us” functioned just like that, like a cohesive element in the society, a glue of sorts. Out came a bearable, edible stew based on compromise—a golden cage of a sort.
Thus, two similar words canceled each other out: There was no goulash in the gulag—and there was no gulag in goulash communism. The reader must admit that there is a remarkable difference between these principles, marking the distinction between life and death. In a Socialist country, generally speaking, life boiled down to politics; we did not exist outside of the political realm. A wrong word and one was demoted, lost a job, or was gone forever. I happen to know this not only because I read about it, but also because this was why my cousin had grown up without a father. He was executed in the Stalinist purges in Hungary in 1949. Yes, the Communist revolution did eat its children, after all. We pigs could bear witness to that…
If you ask me, the era of Kádar started in 1970, when my family first bought a car, a Trabant made in the GDR. It was small and ridiculous from today’s point of view, but it took us to Grandma’s village, to Lake Balaton to swim—which we pigs particularly liked—and as far as the Adriatic coast of what was then Yugoslavia. At the border, though, we did encounter some minor problems, as Yugoslavs did not expect pigs to be driving a car or to have passports. Thanks to father’s knowledge of their pig language, and even more to the American cigarettes he had obtained illegally, we always crossed over. Swimming in the Adriatic Sea, at the coastal town of Baška Voda, was simply a fantastic experience for us piglets. The sea was warm, blue, and transparent, and I remember seeing a tiny fish swimming close to me. Ah, those were good times for pigs! But it doesn’t mean that my generation grew up politically unaware of the kind of political circumstances we lived under, especially as it was not easy to cross the border toward Italy or Austria.
By the way, let me tell you that I was among the first Hungarian pigs who, together with citizens of the GDR, crossed that very border, near Sopron, where in August of 1989 Austrians and Hungarians together cut down the barbed wire and let us cross over to the western side. How euphoric we were then… We believed that everything would change overnight. In fact, instead of goulash communism, we got goulash capitalism. That is, capitalism with a lot of leftovers from Kádarism, if one may say so. However, there is hope! Because, to paraphrase Heraclitus, one could not step twice in the same goulash. But I did not get too far. I came back home soon afterward. However, since with my qualifications I couldn’t get a suitable job, I went farther west. Twenty years later, here I am in London, writing about goulash and, inevitably, about goulash communism.
Allow me, please, one more explanation: Besides writing a Hungarian cookbook, I also want to draw the reader’s attention to another, if not political then important social aspect of cooking: to the fact that women usually cook for a family, and they cook every day. Even though many women would probably prefer to do it only from time to time, like men. That they have to feed us on a daily basis doesn’t mean that women are not good, solid cooks and even excellent chefs. But, in contrast to men, they don’t consider their daily meals as masterpieces that deserve to be admired.
Male cooks primarily want to show off. Did you ever notice that almost all great chefs are men? Why? Because males of all kinds need spectators. To them, preparing a fine meal is yet another way of demonstrating their egos. Therefore, they cook for special guests, while females do the everyday cooking. However, I have noticed that there is hope for men and other males, because a change is taking place among youngsters. You just can’t overlook the fact that female and male roles in the kitchen are rapidly changing.
I think that cookbooks should be divided into male and female. Call me a feminist pig if you want, but my cookbook is a feminist one! Does that sound contradictory? The reader must wonder what a feminist cookbook really means? Does it have something to do with frozen food from a supermarket, since feminists certainly are not into spending their lives in the kitchen, as women did for generations? No, it has to do with simplicity. By the way, let me declare here and now that I consider all females of all kinds to be emancipated if they can earn their own living and can make their own decisions independently. To me, economic independence is the main criterion for emancipation.