Demokrata editor-in-chief András Bencsik.

In the most recent issue of the nationalist weekly Magyar Demokrata, editor-in-chief András Bencsik published an appeal for the organization of another pro-government Peace March (source in Hungarian). Below is an Orange Files translation of Bencsik’s appeal: 

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. . . As if a change of roles has taken place, as if America has begun to take on the role of the Soviet Union as it came to its inglorious end.  Rather than an ambassador (1), it [America] is sending an arrogantly confident governor, instructor, commissar to the subjugated country, whose task will not be to transmit the petty thoughts of the enslaved people to the imperial capital, but to use all its weight to force this primitive people to adopt the prescribed lifestyle: “checks, balances and marijuana.” 

Russia is the home of tolerance compared to this. Everything bad that could be said about the Soviet-Russians has been said over the past decades. And? They just signed the deal of the century with us regarding the expansion of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, thanks to which Hungary’s energy dependence will end for a half century (2). President Putin did not voice even a word of objection to Hungary’s domestic political situation, although Russia is still the world’s second greatest power and in light of the visible trends it could easily become number one again within a century.  

Use of the system of checks and balances is, as a matter of fact, part of Hungarian thought. The Princes of Transylvania last used it magnificently between the Austrian and Turkish great powers. It looks like it is no different today: Hungary’s freedom of movement will again increase with the strengthening Russian connection. Of course this doesn’t please everybody, Izsák Schulhof (3) lamented the expulsion of the Turkish occupiers from Buda because for him it was better with them around at the time. 

The balancing ability of Hungarian politics is important to us. Present indications suggest that we must soon hold another Peace March in support of this. March 29, the Saturday before the weekend of elections, seems to be an ideal time.

This would be the sixth Peace March since Bencsik, fellow pro-government journalist Zsolt Bayer and businessman Gábor Széles organized the first such pro-Orbán demonstration in January 2012. The appeal offers an insight into the widespread sympathy among Fidesz supporters toward Putin’s Russia and its highly centralized political and economic systems.         

 Notes

1-Reference to United States Ambassador-designate to Hungary Colleen Bell. 

2-Hungary and Russia signed an inter-state agreement on January 14 to have Russian state-owned company Rosatom build two new reactors at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant in south-central Hungary with 10 billion euros in Russian financing. 

3-Rabbi Isaac Schulhof, author of the Buda Chronicle recounting the expulsion of the Ottoman Turks from Budapest in 1686. 

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