All this destruction, and we weren't even at war
All this destruction, and we weren't even at war
The story of the post-socialist destruction of former COMECON industries demonstrated by chocolate.
Hungarians are not really fond of their Western allies. It’s a long story, just like the story of us joining the free market after 1989 and its consequences, and there’s an overlap between the two. Some of this hard feeling is the result of the non-stop antagonization we get from the West since 20101 (the beginning of the absolute rule of Fidesz), a Hungarian experience shared by the Poles thanks to their nationalist government, but some of it is a well-entrenched suspicion that slowly developed over the past 30 years in the whole of the former Eastern block, East Germany included, centered around the term “privatization”.
Being fucked by privatization.
The false song of free market capitalism
The nature of contemporary Hungarian Russophilia is complex, especially on the nationalist Right, who - one would expect - should be predetermined to hate those damn Russkies that forced Communism on us for 40 years. Once the Soviets left however, their tails between their legs, the 90s happened, when Russia was just as screwed by free market capitalism (local anarcho-capitalism combined with foreign looting) that it made us brothers in agony. Not a deep love, but a story we understand, and a major force of behind Putin’s domestic legitimacy.23
We’re a quarter of a decade into the 2020s, and it’s pretty shit for everyone globally, including you the reader, so fortunately now you also have a personal frame of reference; the 90s lasted 4 times longer, and were just as bad if not worse in the Eastern Block, and outside no one really cared about the injustice that befall on us. It’s overlooked, denied, relativized, it’s old news, get on with it. Our looters, both local and foreign, never had to face justice.
It’s not just the West we blame: it started with our own, home grown cronies, they sold everything to begin with, and we should have been more vigilant about them, — victim-blaming aside — that’s on us, but the sellers need buyers, buyers with hard currency: those were supplied by the West, and the whole process was approved by the same free market capitalist doctrine that still prevails today. These buyers didn’t go anywhere either, they’ve only become stronger.
Since this topic could - and should - fill books, I’ll focus on a single industry: Hungarian chocolate manufacturing. Something we had, during the socialist era.
It was making products, as factories did in a command economy. It might have been inefficient, the products uncompetitive on the global stage, but we had it, it was ours! Some were okay, some carved out their own peculiar segment in the sweets market that no Western brand could substitute, so many old school brands survived the transition to capitalism and are still around to this day. Once such brand is “Balaton”.
Which brings us to the news we got two weeks ago:
The Balaton bar has fallen in the war in Ukraine
Many of you may have noticed in the past few weeks that the popular Balaton bar [classic Hungarian brand] has disappeared from the shelves of most major grocery chains. Nestlé is the producer of the sweet, we asked the Hungarian subsidiary of the Swiss company about the reasons. 4
The factory, located in Lviv in western Ukraine, was not attacked. Nestlé decided to shut down the factory for the safety and security of its colleagues at the plant, as well as for the extremely limited production that will affect the Balaton and Boci [another classic Hungarian brand] portfolios. It has now reorganised the production of Boci chocolates to Nestlé's factory in the Czech Republic and the production focus of Balaton bars to the [different kind of Balaton bar] portfolio, which is sourced from Poland, until the situation returns to normal.
So, apparently these two classic Hungarian brands are produced everywhere but in Hungary. Why can’t we produce it? Are we too dumb, lazy or expensive to make chocolate bars? Apparently we are, or were at one point since privatization, and at the new owner, Nestlé, somewhere in an Excel sheet it was decided to move manufacturing elsewhere.
Digging a little deeper, an article from January 2013 came up, explaining the circumstances behind a meme that was circulating on Facebook5, lamenting that no Hungarian chocolate brand is made in Hungary anymore.
Note: while most of this shuffle took place after we joined the EU, these brands and the factories were privatized in the early 90s, so I highlighted the giant conglomerates that owned them:
Boci chocolate bars are indeed made in the Czech Republic. The production of chocolate bars was moved abroad in 2004, after Nestlé merged its factories in Szerencs and Diósgyőr.
However, not all Boci chocolates are made in the Czech Republic, for example Boci Sandwiches are made in Bulgaria.
Nestlé was not the only company to take advantage of EU accession. Kraft foods also moved its Piros Mogyorós [another classic Hungarian brand] production to Slovakia in 2004, together with its Sport bar [another classic Hungarian brand], after closing down its Hungarian factory, which employed 320 people.
The Balaton bar was bought by Nestlé from Kraft in 2008 and only then was production moved to Romania. Despite this, the packaging of the Balaton bar only states that they come from the EU.
Recently, the last Hungarian chocolate factory was also taken over by foreigners, Bonbonetti was bought by the Ukrainian confectionery company Roshen.6
That might have been the last factory in 2013, but it wasn’t owned by Hungarians by then, Bonbonetti had been owned by the German company, Stollwerck, since 1992.
Here’s some news from 2002, we had these news every damned day back then:
“We will not throw anything in the bin," said Hans Imhoff, owner of Stollwerck AG, in 1992, when asked about his plans for the various divisions after the privatisation of the Budapest Confectionery Company. He kept his word: what he didn't need was sold. Stollwerck sold the coffee business to Jacobs, and the biscuit and wafer division was also sold.7
And if we’re doing sweets, why not some biscuits:
In 1991, Győr Biscuits was bought by British United Biscuits, and in 2000 it was taken over by Danone, who wanted to close the Győr Biscuits factory, but the idea was abandoned due to protests. In 2007, Kraft Foods bought Győr Biscuits and moved the production of some products to Slovakia and Poland.
The candy production in Győr was transferred to Poland and Turkey in 2019.
Production does not take place within the borders of Hungary any more.8
All these brands, all these factories, all these jobs sold for pennies in the 90s, then slowly gutted by international, big capital neoliberalism. Nothing remains but the brands, puppets of foreign giants wearing the skin suit of something that pretends to be Hungarian, that was once dear to us and ours.
It’s understandable that a factory in Ukraine, at war, might have to shut down. Hungary in the past 30 years wasn’t at war, in fact, we were enjoying our ascendance to the capitalist world, that was supposed to make us as prosperous as the movies promised on pirated VHS tapes. Halfway we became members of the EU, which was supposed to - famously said by our former PM - allow us to open a pastry shop in Vienna, to participate in this exciting race as a legit contestant.
By the time we joined the EU in 2004 however, most of our industries were sold, some dismantled, and the trend only sped up afterwards. Mismanagement of our national wealth by a select few that we had to witness helplessly, economical and moral destruction equaling that of a war, and no recourse.
There was a point, a low point in the Hungarian psyche, when we accepted that we’re just too shitty to hold onto these industries, to run them, a time when learned helplessness prevailed, aiding those who bought and sold and gutted our industrial base in front of our eyes.
Today the prevailing sentiment is quite different: today most of us believe that we can in fact produce chocolate bars, build and maintain our infrastructure, and do many other things, and we also believe, looking back at the anarcho-capitalism of 1990-2010 that we were tricked and robbed, and the perpetrators are still around, and they’re either the old Hungarian elite, in opposition, still servile to the Western elites, or the Western elites themselves.
We are a bit vary of our allies and their intentions. We’ve been burnt by blind obedience, by an overly naive belief in Western benevolence, many times before, and we’re still paying the price for those mistakes to this day.
Some skepticism on our part - including other former Eastern Block members - is understandable.
To quote an anonymous commenter after this year’s election:
Why did Hungarians choose Orban, despite the West's disapproval of his regime? Because in our experience, having a regime that the West approves of costs more.
Crusade against Hungary - by Marion Smith, Nation Review, March 5, 2012
Thoughts on Ukraine (Updated and Remastered) - The Martyrmade Podcast (the original version explained Putin’s domestic legitimacy to outsiders pretty well, this should also do it)
The Rest Is History podcast episode 159-163 about the rise of Putin
The 2013 meme:
