Tamás Szőnyei
Kept on File
The Secret Service and the Hungarian Rock Scene, 1960-1990
Excerpts
As if the world were waiting for just a sound
As the city sinks we hear the music's stroke
Dirty little story, they'll dig it out of the ground
Rock 'n' roll was just a fatal joke
Song by Európa Kiadó
...
From the documents it transpires that some of those in leadership positions at
the Buda Youth Park were official contact points for the state security service.
From 1961 to 1984, the largest outdoor entertainment venue in Budapest
operated in one of the most beautiful parts of the city, on the slope of Castle Hill,
below the Royal Palace and reaching
down to the Danube. Here one generation
after another danced its way through the
months from spring to autumn. It would
be impossible to write the history of
Hungarian pop music, from the appearance
of beat music to the era of punk
rock, without mentioning the Youth Park.
In those years, a strict dress code was in
force. Fonográf, established in the early
seventies as the successor to the pioneering
sixties Hungarian beat group Illés,
evokes the era in one of its songs, "White
shirts and ties were still mandatory". In
1971, László Gyurkó, the writer, magazine
editor, theatre manager and member of
parliament, protested in an open letter
written to the Young Communist League
against the practice of distinguishing
people on the basis of external features
and excluding young people with long
hair or wearing jeans from opportunities
for entertainment. It was in opposition to
the principles of socialism, Gyurkó
claimed. It should be added that the
founding director of the Youth Park - who
reigned over it until 1974 and who was so
strict about the "cultured" appearance of young people that he customarily
dished out a good fatherly slap to the delinquent - was given a prison sentence
for fiddling the books. (Much, much later, his character was immortalized in a
nostalgic-ironic song by Tamás Cseh, a cult singer whose name often figures in
the interior ministry reports of the sixties, seventies and eighties.)
In the late sixties and early seventies, the police had to deal with the appearance
in Hungary of the hippie phenomenon. The greatest scandal was a demonstration
that channelled itself into the chanting of Nazi slogans. One of the
reports of the state security service in August 1969, regarding the hippie groupings
that attached themselves to the Buda Youth Park, made special reference to
two of the bands that were the most popular of the time, Sakk-Matt (Check Mate)
and Kex. Sakk-Matt was the band of Béla Radics, to this day considered the
greatest Hungarian rock guitarist. The band was the first in Hungary to offer credible
versions of the music of Jimi Hendrix and Cream. The leading figure in Kex
was its singer János Baksa Soós, who performed spontaneous happenings on
stage, the likes of which had not been seen before. Both bands achieved extraordinary popularity very quickly, but the state monopoly, the Hungarian Record
Production Company (later better known as Hungaroton), did not release an
album from either of these two groups. The background to this snub is at least
partly clarified by the secret service documents that show that Radics and Baksa
Sós were equally targeted by the state security apparatus: informers (including
both known and unknown musicians)
submitted reports on them.
The aforementioned agent "Ferenc
Papp", for example, wrote:
On the occasion of one meeting,
Baksa Soós said that he was not able
to express the content of his thoughts
as he might be able to in England,
because the chanson committee
would not accept his compositions.
They would return them to have the
lyrics modified. His improvisations
are of a political nature.
The "chanson committee" mentioned
in the 1970 report really
existed. At least in principle, no
song could be performed on stage,
on record, on radio or television
without being authorised by the
committee. The same informer
reported on Béla Radics at approximately
the same time:
In October 1969, in the Radnóti
Culture Home, he made the following
statement loudly into the microphone:
"We cannot buy decent
equipment, because... because that
Communist son of a bitch set our fee
so low." Then, having solved the
technical problem, they played on.
Just as the chanson committee was
set up to act as a censor, performance
fees were determined within
the framework of the state-controlled
structure of popular music.
Amateur bands - of course only
theoretically - could only perform
for free. For a band to be able to receive money, it had to undergo an audition,
after which it was awarded a temporary or permanent licence to operate, and a
performance fee was determined. The National Programming Bureau, the authority
organizing the auditions, issuing licences and handling programme management,
was, like all other institutions of rank, under the direction of the Party. This
is what the guitarist's careless words refer to when he mentions the "Communist
son of a bitch" setting their fee at a low level.
...
After 1970, the Hungarian "dance house" movement began to blossom. Young
people from the cities set out, sometimes to Hungarian regions outside
the country's borders, to learn from ageing village musicians - from the authentic
information providers and in this instance this is an ethnological term and not
state security speak - all that could not be learned from musical scores alone.
In contrast with beat or rock, which one could claim was musically primitive
and inspired immoral erotic practices, this renaissance of folk music - in the
country of Bartók and Kodály - should, in a cultural sense, have been unimpeachable.
However, there were problems with it, and not just narrow-minded
"professional" but political objections. From the outset, the theoretically
unquestionable musical value of the renaissance in the dance house was linked
to classical and contemporary Hungarian literature as a number of these groups
regularly set poems to music. But a poet's words can be used as weapons, of
course, and the clubs where city youngsters congregated in ever greater numbers
to listen and dance to folk music - music that was revived and reinterpreted
partly in an urban spirit - became venues just as suitable for the spread of
anti-establishment sentiment as radio programmes that aired beat, rock, pop,
etc., or even, rather later, discos. The dance houses were seen as hotbeds
for nationalist, right-wing ideas. All this is easily discerned in state security
documents.
The dossiers reveal particular attention being paid to the dance house involving
the Sebő group in the Kassák Club in Budapest. I encountered reports on this
from six different informers, but there may have been even more. One of these,
the informer operating under the code-name "András Rigai", based his autumn
1975 report on what he heard from a friend, who frequented the club evenings
held by Ferenc Sebő:
On the way home Klári talked about
the history of the Sebő Club. She
explained that the initiative was born
in good faith with the intention of
protecting and exploring folk traditions.
Despite this, they believe that
on behalf of official organisations
(she named no particular organisations)
they keep an eye on the activity
of the Sebő Club, probably because
they are afraid of tendencies appearing
that are of a nationalist nature. For
this reason they even considered closing
the club, but, to their delight, this
did not come about; indeed, it was
given recognition and held up as an
example to other clubs. It was at the
end of the last season that they felt that
a ban might actually come into effect.
She also said that Sebő himself
avoids any kind of activity that could
in any way be connected with
nationalism.
Hearing this, the lieutenant evaluating the report noted with satisfaction that
their measures "of a disruptive nature" had proved effective.
Effective, but not effective enough. So much so that word about the Kassák
Club reached such prominencies as György Aczél (the most influential figure in
Hungarian cultural policy in the decades after 1956, whose name is associated
with the ingenious three-pronged directive of tolerance-prohibition-support, the
guiding principle of his cultural policy), and Iván Vitányi (currently a Socialist
Party member of parliament, an emblematic figure of its liberal wing). Ferenc
Sebő, leader of the group and a key figure in the revival of Hungarian folk music,
a first-rate musician and folklorist, recalls events as follows:
It must have been difficult to get a hold on this whole thing, but they tried. In the end
it was a very cheap report that set the cat among the pigeons. I only know of it by word
of mouth as I never had the original document in my hand, but they accused us of
conducting sexual activities under the piano in the Kassák Club. They called the kids
into the police station two at a time, and worried parents asked me what was going on
at the club. This was going too far, I said, and, fully aware that truth was on my side,
I tried to do something. I contacted Iván Vitányi, the director of the Public Education
Institute, who arranged for György Aczél to come and visit the club.
They did not tell us in advance when they were coming, but one club evening
Vitányi just turned up with Aczél and the cultural minister of the time. Fortunately,
it happened to be a packed event, with full lighting, kids dancing beautifully, their
faces flushed, and the Master was a little taken aback - he probably hadn't seen such
a good atmosphere since his youth.
He started to talk with me, in what I can now say was quite a provocative fashion.
I remember Vitányi sitting in the corner in a cold sweat; he knew what the whole thing
was about, but I didn't really have a clue. It was probably my stupidity that saved me,
for I did not pay heed to any kind of authority, I just answered the questions Aczél put
to me, in the same style in which I talked to journalists at the time, for in the beginning
there were many who treated us in a distinctly malicious and provocative way. I did not
make an exception. He asked questions like, "Why isn't everyone here in folk costume?"
"But Comrade Aczél," I said, "these are not fake peasants, these are city kids,
who find enjoyment in these dances. There are those who put on something folksy, but
you see, they are in jeans, they are not narodniks. And you don't really think this is how
these dances were danced in peasant life? For one thing, you couldn't just dance whenever
you pleased; according to the church calendar, certain things could only be done
at certain times. We have just picked out the dances that appealed to us - you see, this
one right now is the country couples dance, which is the closest relative of rock 'n' roll,
just a bit better." These were the kind of answers I gave. "We are having fun, and for
this we have chosen the valuable material close at hand. Quite simply because it is
beautiful, useable, lovable." Aczél was a sensible man; he understood. Vitányi relaxed;
they looked around a bit more, then left.
Later, I don't know quite when, we got some kind of award in the parliament. I was
standing around in the crowd, and all of a sudden Aczél came up to me. "I hear they
are persecuting the Sebő group", he said, ironically. "Comrade Aczél", I said, "that's not
true, no one is persecuting the Sebő group, the only problem is that those idiot agents
reported that in the Kassák Club, kids are fucking underneath the piano, but you paid
us a visit and you saw that there is only an upright piano there, and there's no room
under that." To this he blushed to the ears and said, "I'm sorry, Comrade Sebő, but I
can't be standing there at the back of every police post." That wasn't a bad choice of
words, either. From that point on I found that they left us alone.
...
First on the list was the town of Szeged. In 1982, the guitarist and one of the
founding members of CPg, the then nineteen-year-old Zoltán Benkő, was brought
before the court. He was charged with incitement, for on a cassette found on him
which he had listened to with friends, the political commentary of Radio Free
Europe was recorded between songs. The programme covered the situation in
Poland. On a summer evening, at a quarter past seven, in front of his home,
Benkő was asked for his papers. The procedure begun against him was based on
the RFE broadcast found on the impounded cassette. The interviews and interrogations
concerned from where and from whom the cassette had come (the
authorities never managed to find out), who had heard the text, when, and how
many times (as to understand the text would have been a near miracle, this line
of investigation was anything but profitable). According to the indictment, Zoltán
Benkő had committed the crime of harming the community, in violation of point
c. paragraph 160 of the Criminal Code, and he was to be punished. However, first
Benkő was acquitted, and the cassette previously taken as evidence was returned
to him. The judgment claimed that Zoltán Benkő and his partners were only interested
in the music, not the news report - when the tape reached a certain point,
its listeners stopped and rewound it. The small part of the recording they did listen
to was not of interest to them, and they did not comment on it - something
the witnesses attested to unanimously. So, despite the fact that the words on the
cassette could in their own right have generated hatred for one of the allies of the
Hungarian People's Republic, harm to the community did not in fact take place,
contrary to what the charge claimed. According to the court, the defendant was
not guilty of the crimes he was accused of. Zoltán Benkő could breathe a sigh of
relief - especially when, on 6 October 1982, the Szeged County Court rejected the
prosecutor's appeal, endorsing the judgment of the district court.
The CPg band still lived in Szeged, but by now their name was known beyond
the boundaries of the city or of Csongrád county. When things became stifling for
them there, three of the band's members moved to Budapest; they looked for
lodging, work and concert opportunities, and found all three. If the indictment of
September 1983 is correct, they gave a total of six public concerts following
their arrival in Budapest in September 1982: one in Veszprém and the rest in the
capital. The following report dealt with one of these:
The young people present, aged 16-20, consumed large amounts of alcohol, and their
behaviour was scandalous from start to finish.
The atmosphere reached its climax as CPg got on stage. The group "fired up" the
audience with lyrics and associated comments which all amounted to incitement. A key
part of the concert was the presentation of the "chicken sacrifice": while playing their
last song, a chicken was cut up with a dagger.
The intelligence service recorded some parts of the concert on audio tape and
took photographs.
After the secret investigation under the code-name "May-fly", begun on 23
December 1982, police procedures were instigated against CPg on 21 July 1983.
It was in this month that Péter Erdős, one of the most influential figures in the
Hungarian Record Production Company Hungaroton, published an article in the
monthly journal Kritika. He referred to the activity of some musical bands as a
tide of garbage. He indignantly reported on the indecent and anti-Communist
lyrics performed by a number of bands, on how certain journalists supported
them, and how even the Young Communist League was their partner in crime, to
the extent that it tried to make itself more popular by supporting such troublesome
groups. One CPg song was about how they wanted to rough-handle the
director of the record company (tear off his ears, push out his eyes, pull out his
hair, smash in his face; this is how it literally was, but in his article Erdős quoted
an even more abusive version). The lyrics were unquestionably personal and of
threatening brutality. In the context of punk music, Erdős personified the entire
system of cultural policy and political institutions, a hated figure representing a
hated system. Furthermore, Erdős sought personal contact with his verbal
aggressors. In his version of events, on one occasion he went to the Mozaik Club,
where, like everyone else arriving for the advertised concert, including the
members of CPg, he found himself up against closed doors. All sat down in a
nearby park and talked. According to the band, Erdős offered to discuss things
with them at a meeting, but they turned away because they realized that he had
placed a cassette recorder in his bag, even though it had been the band's condition
that he should not record the conversation.
Could the article in Kritika have motivated the police procedures and the arrest
of the CPg members? We can imagine so, but it is a fact that already during
a meeting of the parents' cooperative at the primary school in Keve Street in the
3rd district of Budapest, on 11 May, an eighth-grade boy was overheard singing
the following to the tune of the Russian folksong "The Little Birch", overplayed
and oversung at the time, "Stands a young hero worker in the forest / This week
even Saturday will be Communist / Dirty, smelly Communist gang / Oh when will
you all hang". The following day the boy had to write down what he had heard,
it was discovered that the lyrics - which were quoted accurately, if not
perfectly - had been learned from a cassette borrowed from another boy in eighth
grade on which a CPg concert was recorded (admittedly without the part about
hanging). The headmaster duly reported all this to the official responsible for
educational affairs at the local council, first by telephone and then in writing, and
the council informed the police.
Of the members of the band, the Central District Court of Budapest convicted
Zoltán Benkő, Béla Haska and Zoltán Nagy all to two years' imprisonment, and
the under-age Zoltán Varga to 18 months, suspended for four years. The judgement
makes it very clear that the members of CPg attempted to inflame feelings
against the constitutional order of the Hungarian People's Republic and its international
allies, and that their publicly performed songs were aimed against the
police, the Communists and the country's leaders. At its sitting of 23 May 1984,
the Court of Budapest rejected defendants' appeal, finding no basis in law to
reduce any of their sentences.
Tamás Szőnyei
is a journalist on the weekly Magyar Narancs. The excerpts above are taken from Nyilván tartottak. Titkos szolgák a magyar rock körül 1960-1990 (Kept on File: The Secret Service and the Hungarian Rock Scene, 1960-1990. Budapest, Magyar Narancs, 2005) rewieved by Tamás Torma on pp. 91-95 of this issue.
