Interview with Gyula Thürmer, chairman of Munkáspárt (Hungarian communist party): “With Kádár gone, Soros arrived.”
Gyula Thürmer, having completed his studies and worked for the Communist Hungary’s diplomatic services in Moscow, was a close associate of János Kádár, dealing essentially with international relations. He then became an advisor to Károly Grósz, who succeeded Kádár at the head of the party in 1988. During the period of regime change, Thürmer was at the head of Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt (MSzMP – the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party), the party that governed Hungary between 1956 and 1989. Presided over by Gyula Thürmer since 1989, the Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt changed its name to Munkáspárt (Workers’ Party) in 1993 and then to Magyar Kommunista Munkáspárt from 2005. In 2013, following the ban on the use of references relating to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, the party’s name changed once more to become Magyar Munkáspárt. The Munkáspárt secured substantial scores in the 1990s, peaking at 4% of votes casted, before suffering a split in 2006 and then disappearing in political oblivion (never earning more than 1% of the vote thereafter). Along a national communist political line, the Munkáspárt was the only left-wing party that supported the government’s position against migrant quotas during the October 2016. In this interview granted to TV Libertés and the Visegrád Post, Gyula Thürmer recalls this decisive period of Hungarian history and shares his thoughts on the current situation in Hungary and his support for some of Viktor Orbán’s policies.
