Gyula Horn

Gyula Horn (5 July 1932 – 19 June 2013) was a Hungarian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary from 1994 to 1998.

He is remembered because as the last Communist Foreign Minister of Hungary, he played a major role in the demolishing of the "Iron Curtain" for East Germans in 1989, contributing to the later unification of Germany, and for the Bokros package, the biggest fiscal austerity programme in post-communist Hungary, launched under his premiership, in 1995.

Early life and education

Horn was born in Budapest in 1932. He first studied in a lower technicians' school in Hungary. He graduated from the Rostov-on-DonCollege of Economics and Finance in 1954. He is married and has two children: a daughter and a son.

Administration and party career

In 1954 Horn joined the Hungarian communist party, then called the Hungarian Working People's Party. In November 1956 he joined theHungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSzMP) established by János Kádár to lead the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian revolution against Soviet occupation and communist rule.

He worked in the Ministry of Finance from 1954 to 1959. He got a job in the Foreign Ministry in 1959, first as an official in the independent Soviet department. In the 1960s he was a diplomat in the Hungarian embassies in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

In 1969 he became an official in the foreign affairs department of the MSzMP Central Committee. By 1983 he rose to the rank of department head. In 1985 he was appointed secretary of state (deputy minister) in the Foreign Ministry. In 1989 he stepped forward to become foreign minister in the country's last communist government led by Miklós Németh.

Gyula Horn

Horn was one of the leaders of the radical reformers who transformed the MSzMP into theHungarian Socialist Party in 1989, and became its chairman in 1990. As a minister he was in charge of foreign affairs when Hungary decided to open the western border (the "Iron Curtain") to East Germans wishing to emigrate to West Germany. He is often credited with having a major part in the decision and, consequently, a role in German unification. He was first elected to Parliament in 1990 and has retained a seat ever since.

Horn led the Socialists to a huge victory in the 1994 parliamentary election. The MSZP leaped from a paltry 33 seats in 1990 to 209, enough for an outright majority. However, Horn suspected he'd have trouble getting needed reforms past his own party's left wing. He also wanted to allay concerns both inside and outside Hungary of a former Communist party winning an absolute majority. With this in mind, he went into coalition with the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats, giving him a two-thirds majority.

In 1995, Horn's government enacted the "Bokros package", a major austerity program. This was a difficult decision for a social democratic party, and Horn had to expend considerable effort to get most of his party to agree to it.

Although he relinquished leadership of the party after the Socialists lost the 1998 elections to Viktor Orbán and Fidesz, he was for a long time considered to have considerable influence in the party, partly because of his personal popularity among elderly voters. In the years after 2002, he hasn't taken a very active role in politics.

Horn has received several awards for his achievements in foreign relations, among others the Charlemagne Award of the city of Aachen in 1990.

He did not, however, get the Magyar Köztársaság Érdemrendjének Polgári Tagozata prize in 2007, suggested by Ferenc Gyurcsány, as it was refused by Hungarian President László Sólyom, who explicitly stated Horn's views on the 1956 revolution as the reason.

In a recent polling survey, incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was found to be Hungary’s best premier since the political changes two decades ago. József Antall, the leader of a conservative governing coalition from 1990 to 1993, came second while Gyula Horn (1994–98) and Gordon Bajnai (2009–10) tied for third place.

His role in 1956

Although the fiscal austerity package under his rule eroded his popularity heavily, the most controversial part of his life is his role after the 1956 revolution, which started on 23 October and was crushed in the days following 4 November.

At the end of October he joined the National Guard, the armed body of the revolution consisting soldiers, policemen, and civic freedom fighters. In December he joined the "pufajkás" brigades (in German Steppjackenbrigade), a communist paramilitary body set up to help the invading Soviet troops restore the communist regime, and he served there until June 1957. His alleged role is controversial in some circles because such squads were accused of involvement in torturing, harassing and even executing civilians during and after the uprising.

According to him his elder brother was killed by the revolutionists during the uprising. However, his brother's death certificate states he died in a traffic accident in the countryside. His daughter was born on 30 October, "The conditions were bad. The uprising released many criminals who endangered public safety. In the pufajkás squad I defended the legal order," he told German paper Die Welt 50 years later. "First, I would like to make it clear that 1956 was not a fight against communism. Even the rebels did not want to wipe it out. This is incorrectly depicted today."

Horn's precise role in crushing the revolution is unclear as the reports of his brigade have gaps; however, in 1957 he received the award "For the Worker-Peasant Power", which was only granted to those whose services earned satisfaction. When decades later, already as a prime minister he was questioned and criticized over this part of his life, he only said: "I was a pufajkás. So what?"

Illness and death

Gyula Horn was hospitalized in August 2007 with a serious illness. Horn was being treated at Budapest’s Honvéd Hospital for a sleeping disorder, according to official reports, but other sources say he had a serious brain malfunction. According to newer informations his condition had deteriorated to the point that he was unable to leave the hospital. His condition had worsened to the point that he couldn't leave the Honvéd hospital where he was being treated, and thus missed out on the World Political Forum being held in Budapest, which has also seen the arrival of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Budapest. The website tried to find out if Gorbachev, a longtime friend of Horn’s, would visit him in the hospital, but was unable find confirmation of this.

On 9 October 2007, Hungarian daily newspaper Népszabadság's online version reported mistakenly that Gyula Horn died.

As of 2008, Gyula Horn was no longer able to recognise his friends and was suffering from an illness similar to Alzheimer's disease. There were also reports that although Horn has lost weight, though he was in good physical condition. Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was the last senior party official to visit him, the daily added. On 5 July 2011, the day of Horn's 79th birthday Népszava reported his state of health had not deteriorated; it continued to be stable. Senior Socialist Party officials presented him with a gift-parcel on the occasion of his birthday.

After years of struggling with his illness, he died on 19 June 2013.