Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority

In 1938, the Hungarian party had realized that, while it had voters (by then it had won the support of 80 percent of the Hungarian voters), nevertheless, the party was no mass organization and hence not suitable for the kind of activities the Sudeten German party led by Henlein came to be engaged in. Consequently, no significant, irredentist demonstration had ever taken place in Slovakia's Hungarian populated regions. This was noticed by both the Budapest Government and the Sudeten German Party, whose representative, Kunzel, had this to report to the German Foreign Office in Berlin on his interview with Kalman Darányi, the Hungarian Premier, in the spring of 1938: it is necessary to build up the real political strength of the Hungarian minority of Czechoslovakia, as well as its own economic organization. For that purpose, Darányi requested that we should help the Hungarian minority without advice and actions.²⁴ Indeed, in the spring of 1938, the Hungarian Party's capacity for action was limited to politics as usual; it was not fit, either morally or organizationally, for the provocation of incidents, let alone terrorist acts on the Sudeten German model.²⁵

Following the Vienna Award of November 2,1938, about 70,000 Hungarians remained in Slovakia, while an estimated 300,000 Slovaks were attached to Hungary along with 700,000 Hungarians. Of the Slovaks, about 50,000 had left voluntarily. Of the remaining 250,000, according to the Hungarian census of December 1938, only 121,000 declared themselves as Slovaks. The difference of about 130,000 can be explained by the flexible attitude of the so-called "bilinguals" - mainly inhabitants of towns-who spoke Hungarian and Slovak equally well.

The political evolution of the Hungarians who returned to Horthy's Hungary differed, of course, from that of the minority Hungarians who remained in Tiso's Slovakia. The population reattached to Hungary became the target of various Hungarian political parties; the workers movement was liquidated; disaffection of the masses was exploited by extreme right-wing movements with a varying degree of success. In Tiso's Slovakia, on the other hand, the Hungarian Party had to organize itself for self-defense. It was a party in opposition, often voicing openly anti-Fascist opinions.

Wholesale racial persecution started in Tiso's Slovakia already in 1942. That year, at Slovak initiative, 65,000 Jews were handed over to the Germans. The Slovak historian, Daxner, describes the situation as follows:

"The whole persecution was carried out, until May 18, 1942, without any legal grounds. The Fascist elements, however, wanted to equip their action with the semblance of legality. Therefore they adopted the constitutional law 68/1942 which legalized the deportation of persons of Jewish extraction into death camps."²⁶

A memorable episode involving the Hungarian minority had occurred on the occasion of the adoption of the law regarding the deportation of Jews. A Slovak eyewitness, Ivan Kamenec, described the episode as follows: "The Slovak National Assembly voted by acclamation, by show of hands. It was easy to note that the only representative who did not raise his hand was the representative of the Hungarian National Party, János Esterházy. Consequently, he came instantly under the attack of the [German] Grenzbote and the [Slovak] Gardista as well."²⁷ Kamenec added, however, that in the preceding years Esterházy had made anti-Semitic statements in the Slovak Parliament, "approving the isolation of Jews and the discrimination against them."²⁸ Kamenec's effort to incriminate Esterházy does not alter the fact that the only member of the Slovak Fascist National Assembly condemned to death after the war was the Hungarian Esterhazy, who alone voted against the deportation of Jews.²⁹

Esterházy's vote duly expressed the Hungarian public opinion against Slovakia's total barbarization. The temper of the Hungarian minority had turned against the Fascist regime, a trend so well expressed by the well-known Hungarian anti-Fascist, Zoltán Fábry, in his postwar dramatic appeal quoted in our Introduction.³⁰ Other documents and facts, too, which have come to light only recently are proofs of the Hungarian minority's anti-fascist attitude. Foremost among these is a situation report of the Central Committee of the illegal Slovak Communist Party, carried to Moscow in July 1944, by K. smidke. This report convincingly contradicts the postwar theories regarding the "Fascist" Hungarian nation. It says: "It can be said that the Hungarians, unlike the Germans, behaved decently in Slovakia, the majority of them were democratic, and many among them of left-wing tendency . . . in general it can be said that, with the exception of the Germans, all national minorities are against the regime."³¹

Incidentally, the text of the July 1944 Communist report had been known to Slovak historians for a quarter of a century. Yet is was published only in 1969. It had to be suppressed because it did not fit into the justification of the anti-Hungarian article VIII of the Kosice program of 1945.

To understand the objective tone of the Communist report, it should be kept in mind that, in July 1944, the mode of "solving" the Hungarian problem had not yet been synchronized between the illegal Communist Party at home and the Moscow emigration led by Klement Gottwald. (The story of synchronization will be told in Chapter 3.) At that time, the Communists at home could still report objective on the democratic attitudes of the Hungarians. They did not know that the émigrés in Moscow, in agreement with the Benes-led exiles in London, decided to brand the Hungarians collectively guilty as 'Fascists" and solve the Hungarian minority problem by total expulsion.

The tone of postwar nationalist Slovak historiography condemning the Hungarians is pregnant with hatred and prejudice. For instance, this is how historian M. Vietor describes the attitude of the Hungarians at the time of the deportation of German occupied Hungary's Jews in 1944:

" they looked on apathetically and without feeling while the gendarmes and the carried out their bloodthirsty doings. The servility inculcated during centuries by means of the whip, twenty years of official anti-Semitic propaganda, the Hungarist official nationalism and anti-Bolshevism had blinded the overwhelming majority of the population, while it drove large strata of the ruling circles and exploiters into a hysterical, irresponsible, cruel, immoral, and cowardly rage."³²

Should we remind Vietor that in Slovakia, in 1942, the roundup of Jews for deportation to the Nazi death camps was carried out by the Slovaks themselves, and - unlike in German-occupied Hungary in 1944 - without the presence or assistance of the German SS, yet the Slovak population made no attempt to save the Jews? According to Vietor's distorted "comparative analysis": In Slovakia it was only the ruling minority that was Fascist. But in Hungary and in the community of Slovakia's Hungarian minority as well the society as a whole was Fascist. Also, Vietor emphasizes the "Czechoslovak traditions" and the "strength of the Communists" in Slovakia.³³ But he takes no notice of the fact that the Hungarians of South Slovakia, too, lived, until 1938, under Czechoslovak democracy and gave twice as many votes for the Czechoslovak Communist Party as the people in the Slovak regions.

More will be said about Hungarian Fascism in a later analysis of Hungarian conditions. Here it should be pointed out only that the Fascist seizure of power" in October l944 - favorite evidence in Slovak denunciations of Hungary as a "Fascist nation" - is no proof of Fascist strength. The Fascist Arrow Cross movement was actually in total disarray in Hungary toward the end of the war. Whatever mass appeal Fascism ever had in Hungary, it rapidly declined after the German defeat at Stalingrad. Rather than "seizing" power in 1944, the Arrow Cross "leader" Ferenc Szálasi was a Nazi puppet, maintained in "power" by the German and armed forces in Nazi-occupied Hungary.

In contrast to the biased nationalist Slovak interpretation, there are a few scattered objective opinions from other sources dealing with the history of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia before and during the Second World War. For instance, the Czech historian R. Hoffman argues forcefully against the theory of a Hungarian "Fascist nation." In his opinion: "Except for the most extreme periods of the Horthy era (in 1919-1920 and 1944-1945), the advocates of a totalitarian Fascist system never obtained key posts in Hungarian political life. And, with the exception of the radicalized petite-bourgeoisie, the Fascists were unable to find a mass basis either among the workers, or among the peasants. "³⁵

Indeed, the Slovak view of seeing the Hungarians as a "Fascist nation" does not fit the facts. Here is an oft quoted example which proves the very opposite of what the haughty Slovak theory, spreading contempt of the Hungarians, is advocating: The Slovak daily, Slovenská Jednota, published in Hungary during the war, was a much sought after paper in Slovakia during the war. It was called the "free-est Slovak paper of the times, the one in which it was easiest to read between the lines."³⁶ This is not an isolated opinion. In a collection of documents, edited by the Slovak historian V. Preèan, a letter dealing with the life of Slovaks in Hungary says: ". . . Slovenská Jednota is the most widely read paper in Slovakia, because it provides information with greater freedom and flexibility on politics and on the war."³⁷ According to another opinion: the Slovak readers considered the Slovak daily of [the Slovak minority in] that Hungary a progressive organ; within limits of course - [but] in Hungary it was possible to write more openly about certain things.³⁸ The political significance of this fact was not overlooked by objective observers: "The Slovenská Jednota cleverly took advantage of the possibilities afforded by Hungarian constitutionalism, and became the interpreter of anti-Fascist thought, not only among the Slovak minority of Hungary, but in Slovakia under the Slovak People's Party rule as well."³⁹

The case of the Slovenská Jednota is not the only proof that refutes the Slovak theory of the Hungarian "Fascist nation." More recently, Hungarian historians have dealt with several aspects of Hungary's anti-Nazi wartime record. The treatment of Polish refugees and of Allied prisoners of war who found refuge in Hungary is by now a particularly well-researched topic. "National self-criticism" preached by Hungary's Communists (unique of its kind in the postwar Soviet orbit), opposed the publication of such works when they were most needed. But it is still timely to quote some of these Hungarian views in opposition to the Slovak views, because the Slovak theory of the Hungarian "Fascist nation" is still around.

Thus, Ferenc Z. Nagy, writing about the Polish refugees, says: ". . . the force of public opinion was such that [Prime Minister Pál] Teleki was able to maintain the care and decent treatment of the refugees. Nor, after his death, were his successors able to change this policy."⁴⁰ Endre Kovács draws the moral implications of this policy out of oblivion: "The number of those who arrived in Hungary amounted to about one hundred thousand . . .. Both the authorities and the population showed warm sympathy towards them. In their camps, under humane supervision, the Poles could carry on the national culture; they had their schools, organizations, newspapers . . ."⁴¹ It is characteristic of the postwar hate campaign of Slav nations against the Hungarians-in which Benes's Czechoslovakia took the lead-that after the war the Hungarians have so belatedly been given credit publicly for their friendly treatment of the Polish refugees. Even in Poland, only very recently has the subject been broached (in a book by J. R. Nowak). It should be sadly noted, too, that during the 1946 Paris Peace Conference, victorious Poland supported victorious Czechoslovakia's demands against Hungary, dictated by hateful vengeance.

Hungarian communist regime-historians have inadvertently refuted the hatefully propagated image of Hungarians as a "Fascist nation" while studying the fate of Allied prisoners of war who found refuge in Hungary. Thus, for instance, Zsuzsa Boros, has come to the conclusion that " official measures taken concerning French prisoners, as well as their treatment in general, was rather humane . . . Unlike Germany's other allies and in the defeated countries, despite strong Fascist influence, Hungary's political life was not completely gleichgeschaltet [streamlined the Nazi way]. Although their freedom of action reduced, the opposition parties, including the Social Democrats, were allowed to function; and, although its freedom curtailed by censorship, the Hungarian press had more than one color."⁴²

And, since we are dealing with the Slovak-concocted charges against Hungary as a Fascist nation," jet's remember (as did a Hungarian periodical recently) the difference between Slovakia's and Hungary's attitude the day after the outbreak of the Second World War: " . . . the Hungarian Government sharply rejected a demand Slovakia's vassal Government made, in conjunction with a similar German demand, to allow their troops to cross Hungarian territory against Poland, declaring that any such attempt would be regarded as an aggression."⁴³

All this is relevant to the postwar history of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, because all reprisals against the Hungarians were explicitly taken as a punishment of the Hungarian "Fascist nation" as a whole, not just on the basis of charges of the Hungarian minority's betrayal of Czechoslovakia. The Slovaks, on the other hand, in line with a Panslav dogma, were treated a members of the democratic peace-loving Slav family of nations. This was, so to speak, the ideological justification of the double standards in punishing the "Fascist" Hungarians. And what were those "Fascist" crimes committed by the Hungarians?

The foremost Slovak charge is that the Hungarians expelled masses of Slovaks who came under their rule as a result of the Vienna Award in 1938, expropriated their properties, and, in general, cruelly persecuted them in one way or another. The fact of the matter is that, after World War I, many Czechs and Slovaks were given land in the course of the Czechoslovak land reform in Hungarian-populated territories which came to be known as "Southern Slovakia." They were, not unnaturally, regarded as an alien body in a purely Hungarian ethnic territory. After 1938, a good part of the Czech and Slovak settlers left voluntarily. Another part survived undisturbed until the restitution of Czechoslovakia after World War II. Still another part was forced to leave under the threats or direct force. According to Loránt Tilkovszky, the number of families thus removed was altogether 674.⁴⁴ Also, former Czechoslovak civil servants were expelled. Their approximate number is not hard to determine. According to the Slovak State Statistical Office, in 1938, before the Hungarian authorities moved in, some 81,000 Czechs and Slovaks moved out voluntarily with the support of Czechoslovak authorities, who helped them remove their belongings.⁴⁵ It was estimated that 31,000 of the 81,000 were Czechs; thus the number of Slovaks must have been around 50,000. In addition, of the 1088 Slovak teachers working in Southern Slovakia in 1938, only a "small fraction," according to Slovak sources, heeded the order of the Slovak Ministry of Education to stay and to assume the fate of a Slovak minority under Hungarian rule.⁴⁶ Thus, the number of those who stayed could not have been more than a few hundred. (Loránt Tilkovszky's statement that the Hungarian gendarmes "threw 900 Slovak teachers across the borders,"⁴⁷ must be termed unreal, since it is hardly possible to expel 900 from a "small fraction" of 1088.) Altogether, therefore, the forcible expulsion of some 1000 Slovak families (settlers and teachers) can be accepted as a historical fact.

Slovak nationalist propaganda and historiography, however, is consistently talking about "several tens of thousands," or (see Vietor), even about a "hundred thousand" of "rudely expelled" Slovaks. As for the manner of expulsion, I was one of the eyewitnesses in Komarno, in October 1938, and I can testify that the Slovak civil servants who feared Hungarian rule left peacefully, in good order. with the help of the authorities, using trucks provided by the state, and bade goodbye to their Hungarian friends and acquaintances.

The anti-Hungarian exaggerations and groundless accusations of some Slovak historians were never corrected, and authors kept quoting the in. vented stories from one another, such phrases as the "several tens of thousands of expelled," or the "terrible sufferings" under Hungarian rule. At the same time, many facts concerning the Slovak Fascist regime's doings were conveniently forgotten. For instance, nobody mentioned the roughly 120,000 Czechs who were expelled from Slovakia following the proclamation of Slovak independence in March 1939. in 1937, some 161,000 Czechs lived in Slovakia, whereas in 1950 only 40,000 remained.⁴⁸ Moreover, the departure of the Czechs from Slovakia did not take place under the most pleasant circumstances. According to historian Daxner: " . . . on March 14, 1939, the Minister of Interior promptly Ordered that Czech nationals should be ruthlessly expelled from Slovakia as soon as possible, above all civil servants, while their property should be retained,"⁴⁹ The Slovak order was no different from the Hungarian action taken against the Czech and Slovak settlers in Southern Slovakia annexed by Hungary in 1938. However, the number of people affected by these measures was far greater in Slovakia than in Hungary; assumedly, also the number of cruelties was greater in Slovakia: "The Hlinka gardists, appointed to carry out the order, arbitrarily and illegally took the money and the valuables of the expelled persons."⁵⁰

After the war, only a few Slovaks were held responsible for the expulsion of the Czechs. On the other hand, the "Hungarian atrocities" in Southern Slovakia, publicized worldwide, have served in the spirit of vae victis as justification for the postwar charges of collective guilt level-led against the Hungarian minority in restored Czechoslovakia. Hungarian ruthlessness thus has been exaggerated out of proportion, while the - 120,000 Czech victims at the hands of the Hlinka gardists were simply left unmentioned. Forgotten, too, were the words of Vladimir Clementis, condemning in his wartime broadcasts from London the Hlinka gardists' actions: "in morbid perversion, they threw themselves on the members of our brother nation [the Czechs] without whom the Slovaks would never have freed themselves from the Hungarian yoke [after World War I]"⁵¹

To sum up: The Hungarian minority in postwar Czechoslovakia was accused and found collectively guilty on two counts: 1. The Hungarians were guilty because they were members of the "Fascist" Hungarian nation. 2. The Hungarians were guilty because they "betrayed" Czechoslovakia. The aim of the Slovak accuser was to punish the Hungarians -by liquidating them. Czechoslovak policy against the Hungarian minority was in accordance with the postwar aims of making Czechoslovakia into a purely Slav state of the Czechs and Slovaks.

Contemporary Slovak historiography approves the nationalist objectives of Czechoslovak policy against the minorities. In the 1960s, at the time of the "thaw" that led to the "Prague Spring" of 1968, some authors (Jablonicky, Zvara, Purgat) did raise some objections against certain -bourgeois nationalist" excesses. Discrimination against the Hungarian minority has thus been treated as a brainchild of the "bourgeois-nationalist" Benes and his collaborators. It was taken for granted that in 1948, with the dictatorship of the proletariat, both Benes and the policy of discrimination was swept away. Communist historiography in Hungary, too, treated the postwar Czechoslovak-Hungarian conflict in that sense.

The truth of the matter is that, although Benes was swept away in 1948, his theory and policy that called for the persecution of the Hungarians has never come up for a truly critical examination, not even during the "liberalized" mid-l96Os. The nationalist policy in general is being interpreted in terms of proletarian internationalism while keeping certain distance from the anti-humanitarian "bourgeois-nationalist" methods employed before 1948.⁵² Even the small concessions to criticism of the mid-l960s have disappeared by the end of that decade. The pioneer in the new uncritical nationalist trend in Slovak historiography was Martin Vietor, followed by Samuel Cambel, who fully rehabilitated the anti-Hungarian atmosphere of 1945.⁵³

Hungarian historiography in the meantime has critically reexamined the role Hungarian nationalism has played in the conflict between Slovaks and Hungarians. A similar reexamination, alas, is nowhere noticeable in Slovak historiography.

At the end of the Second World War, the Hungarian masses, too, were longing for peace, internationalism, democracy. They believed that the Hungarian-Slovak conflict would be finally solved. Czechoslovak policy toward the Hungarian minority shattered these hopes.

Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority