HUNGARY IN THE MIRROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD

CHAPTER VI

THE SOVIET UNION AND HUNGARY

Stalin And Hungary According to Churchill

Stalin's first demand to the British leader was on September 4, 1941. On that date, Mr. Maisky, Stalin's envoy, urged Churchill to break off political relationship and declare war on Finland, Hungary and Romania. Churchill was very reluctant to do this even though the Finnish offensive was a danger to St. Petersburg and also the supply line from Murmansk. In a number of written exchanges in the following weeks, Churchill stated to Stalin that Finland had many friends in the United States and that England had many friends in Hungary and Romania. "A British declaration of war would only freeze them all and make it look as if Hitler were the head of a great European Alliance solidly against us." He also stated that the British Dominions, with the exception of Australia, were all reluctant to take this step.

On November 8, 1941 Stalin complained bitterly to Churchill that his request to declare war on Finland, Hungary and Romania, was not kept secret but was widely discussed in the Press. On November 23, Stalin, in a calmer tone, repeated his wish to move against the Finns immediately and against the Hungarians and Romanians soon thereafter. On the 28th of November, through Maisky, Stalin again demanded that Britain break off relations and declare war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.

On November 29, 1941 Churchill contacted the Finnish leader, General Mannerheim. He told Mannerheim that he believed the Finnish advance to the line, necessary for Finland's security, had been achieved and that this would therefore be the prudent time to stop further military activities. In his response on December 4, 1941 Mannerheim regretfully disagreed with Churchill. Churchill was thus forced to declare war on Finland. A similar course was followed with regard to Hungary and Romania.

The postwar territorial goals of the Soviet Union were revealed by Stalin and Molotov to Foreign Secretary Eden at their Moscow meeting on December 16, 1941. Stalin wanted to include the three Baltic States in the Soviet Union, as well as the Eastern portion of Poland, based on the line that had been agreed upon between Ribbentrop and Molotov. He also wanted northern Bukovina and Bessarabia from Romania. As compensation to the Poles he suggested the extension of the Polish frontier towards the west by the annexation of German territories. Romania would be compensated with territories which Hungary had won in the Second Vienna Award. Germany would be further punished by restoring the State of Austria, the separation of the Ruhr area from Prussia and, possibly, the creation of a new Bavarian State. He also wanted the return of the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia and the reconstitution of Yugoslavia.

The first meeting of the three Heads of State, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, began on Sunday, November 28, 1943. Churchill, in the fifth volume of his work, titled Closing the Ring, describes this meeting. On the evening of the first official discussions a banquet was held which included Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and interpreters for the foreign ministers. During the banquet, President Roosevelt's son Elliott arrived and was permitted to join the group. After a number of toasts, Stalin rose and said that Germany's war machine was based on 50,000 officers and technicians and offered a toast for the elimination of those 50,000 after the war. Churchill became very upset and said that the British would never tolerate anything of that nature and he, himself, would rather be shot than to agree to such an execution. At this point Roosevelt proposed a toast for the execution of 49,000 German officers, as a joke to take away the seriousness of Stalin's toast. Following this, Elliott Roosevelt rose and stated that he was sure that the United States Army would support such a plan. At that point, Churchill arose and left the room. Almost immediately, Stalin followed and assured Churchill that the whole thing was only a jest. Churchill states that he was never fully convinced that this was a joke.

In one of their meetings the leaders also discussed the future of Germany. Roosevelt presented a plan which would create five separate states instead of a united Germany. Churchill suggested a Northern and Southern Germany. Churchill also brought up the question of a Danubian Confederation because he was convinced that the Hapsburg Monarchy was a useful solution for the Danubian region. Stalin said that in any reorganization, Hungary should not be a part of a Danubian Federation.

During the Conference the question of the Polish border was discussed. Molotov wanted to have Polish-USSR borders to coincide with the secret German-Soviet Agreement. Roosevelt and Churchill suggested an extension of Poland to the west, taking industrialized territories from Germany. There was some disagreement about the Polish Government in exile, stemming from Stalin's mistrust of them.

The military conclusion was to create a second front in France in May of 1944. Churchill's idea of a Balkan offensive was opposed by Stalin and subsequently reduced to supplying the partisans in Yugoslavia by air.

Churchill commented after the description of the Teheran Conference that he felt that his suggestions to recreate a modern form of the Hapsburg Monarchy would have been a useful step. He also expressed his feeling that the division of Germany into five different states, Roosevelt's idea endorsed by Stalin, was not an ideal solution. However, it was executed after the war in the form of the four occupational zones.

Moscow Conference

Prior to the next meeting of the three Heads of State, which took place in Yalta, another meeting was concluded between Churchill and Stalin in Moscow in October 1944.

In the first working session of this meeting, which was attended by Stalin, Churchill, Eden, Harriman and two interpreters, Churchill brought up the question of Interest Spheres in the Balkans. He suggested that in Romania the Russians would have a 90% interest, Britain and the USA 10%; in Greece, Britain and the USA 90%, Russia 10%; in Bulgaria, Russia 70%, Britain and the USA 30%; in Yugoslavia and Hungary, 50% Russia and 50% Britain and the United States. During the discussion Churchill wrote out these figures and handed them to Stalin. Stalin read the note and with his pen made a large check mark.

Three days later Churchill sent a report on this subject to his colleagues in London. In this message he describes at length the reasoning of the percentage of influences that he and Stalin had agreed upon.

In a letter to Harry Hopkins, dated October 13, 1944, Churchill mentions that "the Russians are taking great interest in Hungary, which they mentioned, erroneously, was their neighbor."

The other two important issues at those Moscow meetings were the Government of Poland and the entry of Russia into the war with Japan. The latter was solved satisfactorily. The first one was not. The Polish Government in Exile, operating from London and the Communist government of Poland could not agree on the future of Poland.

In a note to Roosevelt in January 1945, Churchill wrote, "At the present time I think the end of this war may well prove to be more disappointing than was the last." (Vol. 6, page 341).

Between the Moscow and Yalta conferences the Polish question was argued repeatedly. England and the U.S. were in favor of keeping the Polish Government in Exile as the starting point for the future of Poland, but Stalin forcefully pushed his creation, the Lublin Committee (later called "Provisional Government") which included Communists only. Subsequently, against the objection of Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin officially accepted the Lublin Group as the Government of Poland.

En route to Yalta, Churchill and Roosevelt met in Malta, where Churchill suggested that the West should occupy as much of Austria as possible, as it was "undesirable that more of Western Europe than necessary should be occupied by the Russians."

At the second meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in Yalta (February 1944), the need for a new world organization was discussed. Roosevelt detailed the outline of such an organization, with a Security Council at the top, and the four allies (USA, Britain, the Soviet Union and China) as the ruling members. It was agreed that no decision could be made if one of those four opposed it. In the beginning the member nations would be those nations who were at war with Germany and Japan. It was agreed that as a member nation the United States would be represented as one nation while the Soviet Union would be represented as three nations (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). It was acknowledged that the British Empire would have multiple representation. It was also agreed that France should have an occupational zone in Germany which would be carved out from the British and American zones. Roosevelt also made the statement that the United States would not keep a military force in Europe for an extended period and that he foresaw the American Occupational Force staying in Europe for, at the most, two years after the end of the war.

Roosevelt and Stalin discussed the Soviet involvement in the war against Japan. Stalin promised that three months after Germany's defeat he would move against Japan. In return, he wanted Vladivostok for Russia and some of the northern Japanese islands (Kuriles). The Russians wanted Port Arthur on the Yellow Sea. The Japanese question was not officially, but unofficially, discussed between Roosevelt and Stalin. The Polish question was also discussed and decided in accordance with Stalin's plans.

After the Yalta Conference the Polish question came to the forefront. It became clear that the western solution, namely, a Cabinet made up of Democratic parties friendly to the Soviet Union, would not satisfy Stalin, who wanted a Communist Regime completely subservient to the Soviet Union. This was made apparent when fifteen Polish leaders invited to Moscow for discussions were accused of crimes against the Red Army and were imprisoned.

In 1945, in preparation for the Potsdam Conference, Churchill sent a telegram to Truman in which he expressed his anxiety about the transfer of the majority of the American troops in Europe to the Japanese front, leaving only a small British and American Force in occupied Germany, vastly outnumbered by the 200 to 300 well-armed Russian Divisions in Central Europe. He was also concerned that a large portion of Europe, on the line of Lubeck-Trieste-Corfu, was already under Soviet control and behind the "iron curtain" blocked from the view of the British and Americans.

In a formal minute dated May 27, l945, given to Mr. Joseph Davies to be forwarded to President Truman, Churchill wrote that "The Soviet Government have a different philosophy; namely, Communism, and use to the full the force of police government, which they are applying in every State which has fallen a victim to their liberating arms." In the same letter he wrote, "The position of the Magyars in Hungary has been maintained over many centuries and many misfortunes, and must ever be regarded as a precious European entity. Its submergence in the Russian flood could not fail to be either the source of future conflicts or the scene of a national obliteration horrifying to every generous heart."

The last meeting between Churchill and Stalin took place in Potsdam in July 1945 after the war had ended. The United States was represented by President Truman. In their personal discussions Churchill bitterly complained to Stalin that although a 50-50% influence had been agreed upon for Yugoslavia, the Russians in fact had a 90% influence. Stalin denied the charge and questioned why the Americans had problems with the new governments of Romania and Bulgaria. Churchill accused Stalin of a blatant expansion toward Western Europe, which Stalin rebuffed.

The British election took place during the duration of the Conference. Churchill was accompanied by Clement Attlee, the Head of the Labour Party, who sat in on all official meetings from the beginning. The Conservatives lost the election and Attlee became the new Prime Minister of England and returned to Potsdam without Churchill.

Stalin's Schemes For a PostWar Europe

Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his study, The Future of Yalta, published in Foreign Affairs, argues that though the common wisdom holds that the division of Europe was decided at Yalta, the truth is that the Western Powers had already agreed to the Soviet demand and their hegemony at Teheran in 1943.

According to Brzezinski, Churchill and Roosevelt, despite Polish warnings, agreed in Teheran to the division of Poland along the same lines which Molotov and Ribbentrop had agreed upon a few years before.

At the same time, the Western Powers were reluctant to agree on the exact line of the western border of Poland, stating that this decision should be made at the end of the war at the postwar Peace Conference.

Also, according to Brzezinski there were two different Soviet plans for postwar Europe. According to Plan A, Eastern and Middle Europe would be in the Russian interest sphere and Germany would be split between the two spheres; Western Europe would be in the American and British interest spheres and both parties would have an absolute dominant role in their own interest sphere.

Plan B was to do away with interest spheres and give the Soviets an influence in all of Europe, including Western Europe; similarly, influence for the Western Powers over all of Europe, including Middle and Eastern Europe. The Soviet aim, through Plan B, was to prevent both France and Germany from any dominant role in Western Europe.

In the same article Brzezinski pointed out that the Soviet postwar aims were presented by Stalin and Molotov to Roosevelt and Churchill earlier, in Teheran. He mentioned as a curiosity that the Soviet aims were the carbon copy of the Tsarist Russian aims for post-World War I Europe, notably the annexation of all territories outside of Russia which had a Russian minority. In the Tsarist plans specifically mentioned were Galicia, Bukovina and Carpatho-Ruthenia. Until the end of the First World War Galicia was a part of the Austrian Monarchy and Carpatho-Ruthenia a part of Hungary.

Stalin stated to Churchill that he wanted a reconstitution of Czechoslovakia which would have included Carpatho-Ruthenia, because between two wars, that area was a part of Czechoslovakia. In that case the most eastern province in Czechoslovakia would lie between the Soviet Union and Hungary. Therefore, Churchill never understood how Stalin could speak of Hungary as a neighbor of the Soviet Union.

Both Brzezinski and Churchill mentioned Roosevelt's pledge to the other two Heads of State that American troops would remain in Europe for only two years after the end of the war. This plan was taken at face value by Stalin and Churchill. For Stalin this meant easier access to Western Europe; for Churchill, the need to include France as an ally to strengthen the defense of Western Europe.

The Red Army in Budapest

The British historian, C. A. Macartney, in his book, October Fifteenth, The History of Modern Hungary, describes how the Red Army, on Christmas Day of 1944, succeeded in the complete encirclement of Budapest. On December 29th the Soviets sent out a small party under a white flag to make an offer for surrender of the defenders. According to the Soviet version those delegates were killed. After the war, General Hindy, in charge of the Hungarian defenders, was accused of ordering the killing of the delegates. However, in his trial, nobody could tie him personally to the incident, nor was it proven that the incident had occurred.

By comparing the reported deaths for January and February 1945 with the corresponding figures of previous years, Macartney calculates the civilian deaths due to the siege of Budapest at 14,000. The same author estimates the number of defenders, made up of German and Hungarian troops, to be about 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers. Exact figures for military losses, however, were impossible to estimate. Macartney describes how, for example, when the Soviets took Buda, the military hospital, with all its patients and staff, was burned to the ground. He also describes how some defenders, who managed to break out, were so exhausted that they lay down on the side of the road and were slaughtered, one by one, by the advancing Soviet troops.

At the end of the siege the Soviet Command claimed the capture of 110,000 POWs. The same Command, to substantiate some of its claims about the number of prisoners, rounded up more than 30,000 male civilians in the following days and weeks, labeled them as POWs and brought them first to a concentration camp at Godollo. Subsequently, most of them were deported to the USSR.

The author also assessed the material damage in Budapest, the heaviest of which occurred in the First and Fourth districts. In the First District, called the Varhegy, only four buildings of 789 were entirely undamaged. The remainder of the buildings, including the huge palace, eight ministries and many wonderful old homes were destroyed. In the Fourth District, the commercial center of the city and the hotels along the Danube were destroyed and the Parliament Building was damaged. All bridges over the Danube were demolished.

John Flournoy Montgomery, who was the head of the United States delegation in Budapest prior to World War II, in his book, Hungary the Unwilling Satellite, published as Appendix III the report of the Swiss Legation concerning the situation existing in Budapest at the beginning of the Soviet occupation.

Employees of the Swiss Legation in Budapest and Swiss citizens who were in Budapest during the siege, about 60 people in all, left Hungary at the end of March and the beginning of April 1945. After their arrival in Switzerland they submitted their report on the 24th of May. According to Montgomery the main points of this report are as follows:

1. The material damage during the siege of Budapest was immense. It was judged that about 50% of all buildings received damage of varying degree. Some Russian soldiers described the damage in certain areas as worse than the destruction in Stalingrad. The commercial district in Pest and the hills of Buda (the Fortress and the Rozsadomb) suffered most. The bridges over the Danube were destroyed.

2. The looting committed by the Soviet soldiers was very widespread but not centrally organized. Some areas were looted repeatedly. Private homes were looted for food, clothing and valuables. Banks were looted for their money.

3. The international law concerning the sanctity of a location of another friendly nation was not observed. Example: the Swiss Legation was raided by Soviet soldiers, the keys of a safe were taken forcibly and the safe was looted completely.

4. Personal safety was nonexistent. People were stopped on the street and were either robbed or brought to Godollo, where a concentration camp was established, holding 40,000 prisoners. Some of these were released after signing papers committing themselves to working for the Soviet Army or joining the Communist Party. The absolute majority were transferred to the Soviet Union.

5. Rape was very common, many times combined with such brutality that the victim chose to commit suicide. These violations continued for a long time and it was known that soldiers observed houses where women were living and invaded those houses at night, overrunning any type of resistance against them.

6. The Head of the Swiss Legation, Mr. Feller, and his Chancellor, Mr. Mayer, were apprehended by the Soviet authorities and were never heard from again.

7. Of the utilities, gas was nonexistent. Electricity was limited to those factories which worked for the Soviet Army. Food was very scarce. The official bread ration was limited to 100 grams daily per person, or 70 grams of flour. Potatoes were limited to two pounds per person per week but even those rations were not received regularly. Regular food rations through the Soviet authorities came only to the workers in the few factories that directly worked for the Red Army. Prices were not controlled and the black market flourished.

8. Sanitary conditions were very bad. Several epidemics, especially typhus, were prevalent. Doctors were available but medicines were not. The only help from the Soviets was the distribution of some amount of disinfectants. Medications were in great demand and were bartered for food.

9. The first Soviet troops that entered the capital were well equipped, but the second wave had the same guns but not the same clothing and equipment. Discipline was questionable. The Soviet soldiers greeted and obeyed only their immediate officers.

Communist Takeover in Hungary after 1945

The following pages are based on Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski's book, titled The Soviet Bloc, Unity and Conflict, published by Harvard University Press, 1967; Richard F. Staar's work, titled Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, third edition, published by the Hoover Institute Press, 1977, Stanford University, Stanford, California and the Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbooks, beginning with 1946 and including 1958.

The Communist takeover in Hungary was achieved at a slower pace than those of the adjacent countries. The reasons were many-fold:

(1) in Hungary, a Communist Regime had existed in 1919 under the leadership of Bela Kun. Kun, who had been an inmate of Russian Prisoner of War camps, became an ardent follower of Lenin. When he came to power he tried to imitate whatever had happened in Russia after 1917. The result was that by the time his regime had fallen the Hungarian people had become anti-Communist;

(2) as a result of the general anti-Communist feelings and due to the fact that the Communist Party was outlawed in Hungary during the period between the two wars, the Hungarian Communist Party in 1945 was much weaker than in any of the neighboring countries;

(3) the behavior of the Red Army in Hungary created a general revulsion against the Soviets;

(4) when it became evident that Hungary would lose those territories with a Hungarian majority which she had regained at the beginning of the war, the blame was put on Stalin.

The architect of the Communist takeover of Hungary was Matyas Rakosi. Rakosi was a participant in the Kun regime in 1919, lived in Moscow, became a citizen of the Soviet Union and reached high rank in the NKVD. He arrived in Hungary on the heels of the Red Army and made his first public appearance in Budapest in January, 1945.

After the war the real power was in the hands of the Chairman of the Allied Control Commission, General Voroshilov. According to the Yalta Agreement elections were to be held in all liberated countries, including Hungary. Voroshilov gained ironclad assurance from all party leaders that no matter what the outcome of the election would be, the Communists would have important posts in the new Cabinet.

The 1945 election was a public rejection of the Communist Party, which gained only 17% of the vote. At the same time the only non-Marxist Party, the peasantbased "Small Holders," gained close to 58% of the votes. Based on the election results, the Prime Minister, Head of State and the Speaker of the House all were members of the Small Holders Party, which was in the majority. The ministerial post that Rakosi demanded was Minister of the Interior. In Hungary the official state apparatus was under the jurisdiction of the Minister of the Interior. This included the police.

Rakosi improved his position when he created the socalled "Leftist Bloc" from the Communist, Social Democrats and National Peasant Parties.

The Communist Party introduced terror as a means to gain power. In 1946 the method used was the much publicized trials of the War Criminals and "collaborators." Within a year Prime Minister Bela Imredy, Laszlo Bardossy and Dome Sztojay were executed. Ferenc Szalasi was also executed, along with his entire cabinet.

At the same time, according to Radio Moscow, in Budapest alone about 25,000 Fascists were apprehended and subsequently brought to trial.

The Communist takeover continued simultaneously on different levels; political, economic and social.

The political takeover began with the destruction of the Small Holders Party in January 1947 when the police "discovered a conspiracy" to overthrow the new regime. A number of Small Holders parliamentary deputies were apprehended. The strong man of the party, the very popular head of the Peasants League, Bela Kovacs, was apprehended by the Russians themselves. The trial ended with death sentences and long prison terms. Subsequently, the police found "connections" between the conspirators and Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy. Nagy, who was on an official mission in Switzerland, learned that if he returned to Hungary he would be apprehended and therefore he remained in exile. The Speaker of the House, Rev. Bela Varga, fled the country. The Head of State, Zoltan Tildy, retained his Post until the police found a new "group of criminals," headed by his son-in-law. As a result of the above described actions in the new elections in August of the same year, the Small Holders percentage declined to 15%.

The nationalization of industry began by nationalizing all enterprises with over 100 employees. The process began with the nationalization of the bauxite and uranium mines and aluminum producing factories in 1948.

In 1945, prior to the election, a land reform was executed in which the land holdings of the aristocracy and the Catholic Church were divided among a great number of peasant families. This move did away with an antiquated system and was very popular. In 1948 the new owners were pressed to join agricultural cooperatives under strict control of the State.

In the same year Rakosi was able to put through a fusion of the Communist and Social Democrat Parties.

In 1948 Rakosi moved against the Catholic Church. From his standpoint it was essential to destroy the Church which, on moral grounds, opposed many of the Communist teachings. It was an additional irritating factor that the hierarchy of the Church was responsible to the Pope in Rome, who was an archenemy of the Communist philosophy and resided outside of the Communist bloc. The Secret Police "found a criminal activity" headed by the Hungarian Primate, Cardinal Mindszenty, and accused him of treachery, espionage and hard currency manipulation. The trial ended with a life sentence for Mindszenty and for his codefendants.

In 1949 a new Soviet-type constitution was enacted. The preamble stated that :

"A new era of our history began when in the course of her victories won in the Second World War, the Soviet Union liberated our country from the oppression of Fascism and opened the road to democratic development for the Hungarian people. With the friendly support of the Soviet Union, the working people rebuilt the country ... in national unity, the Hungarian people is busy in the complete building of socialism."

The Communist theoreticians believed that the Soviet Union had achieved the state of socialism by 1936. The same theoreticians believed a developmental stage was necessary between capitalistic democracy and socialism. The name "peoples' democracy" was chosen to describe this hybrid state. The Communist leaders of all satellite nations enthusiastically declared their state to be a "peoples' democracy." The same leaders told everyone within and outside of the Communist bloc that the "Peoples' Democracy is the highest stage and purest form of democracy."

In 1949 the first election took place, with one list of candidates and, therefore, no choices. In the same year Laszlo Rajk, a non-Muscovite Communist leader, hero of the Spanish Civil War, was apprehended, condemned and hanged on fabricated charges. In 1950 the old Social Democratic leaders, the best known being Anna Kethly, were imprisoned on fabricated charges. In 1951 the last non-Muscovite Communist leader, Janos Kadar, was apprehended, tortured and imprisoned.

The Soviet Union maintained rigid control over her satellites. All treaties were created and signed by the Soviet Union and one satellite. Regional approaches were discouraged. The leaders of the satellite nations were invited to Moscow on a regular basis for "consultations." The invited party gave a detailed report about all political, economic and social aspects of his country. The leadership of the Soviet Union listened very carefully, criticized the reports and prescribed all steps and goals which were to be achieved before the next "consultation."

The built-in controllers in the new satellite states were the Soviet Ambassadors and embassies. They were intimately involved in the day-to-day decisions and affairs. The local Communist leaders were anxious to have the ear of the Soviet ambassador.

The Soviet Union maintained a strict control over the new armies of the satellites. After the war, during the general demobilizations, not only were the enlisted men discharged but members of the officer corps as well. The buildup of the new officer corps was based on the political beliefs of these new officers. The Soviet Union built up a network of Russian "consultants," not only in the Department of Defense or the General Staff, but also in the lower or "fighting" military units. These advisors were Soviet citizens stationed in the satellite state on a long-term basis.

In the case of Hungary, one more line of Soviet control existed. That was the Red Army itself. After the war the Soviet Union maintained an occupational zone in Austria. Soviet military were stationed in Hungary, ostensibly to assure the supply lines for the occupation force in Austria. When all four occupational forces moved out of Austria, the Soviet Union created the socalled "Warsaw Pact" which made it possible for the Soviet Army to be stationed permanently in any given satellite state. In the case of Austria the Soviet Army moved just a short distance towards the east and were stationed just inside the Hungarian border.

The Soviet Union received her "pound of flesh" from the Hungarian economy. The War Reparation Agreement between the Soviet Union and Hungary made it necessary to pay two hundred million dollars in 1938 dollar value within a six year period. All industrial or economic concerns which had a German investment at the end of the war automatically became Soviet owned. The Soviets made certain from the first day that the uranium and bauxite mines would work to fulfill the need of the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the Soviets had control over the aluminum production as well.

In actual practice almost all exports were judged by Soviet inspectors as "low quality" and automatically the agreed price was reduced to the detriment of the Hungarians.

By 1950 Rakosi could claim some economic successes. The industrial output, the electrical power output, were increased. The most reported success was the creation of a new industrial city at Dunapentele, where a small village was transformed into a city of 35,000 inhabitants. All these results were achieved by maintaining a continuous reign of terror and a continuous demand for more work and higher production.

In 1950-1952 a sizeable deportation of the old intelligentsia took place from Budapest. Concentration camps had been established throughout the satellite countries. Poland, with a population three times that of Hungary, had 97 concentration camps. Hungary had 199 concentration camps. The inhabitants of those concentration camps were used as slave labor on the most dangerous projects.

At the same time the demand for more production became unbearable for the industrial workers. More and more felt that they were exploited to a greater degree than it was possible in any capitalistic regime.

These labor issues plus the lack of consumer goods, the chronic housing shortage and the unsuccessful move towards agricultural cooperatives exposed the shortcomings of the regime. Rakosi was able to maintain the status quo until Stalin's death.

After Stalin's death in 1953 a new collective leadership came about in the Soviet Union. Malenkov and Kruschev tried to prescribe different methods. The changes in the Soviet Union made it possible to talk about the failures and injustices of the Rakosi regime. Imre Nagy, a Muscovite Communist, writer and specialist on agricultural problems, presented to Moscow the failures of the Rakosi regime. He was very successful and with the help of Malenkov became the new Prime Minister of Hungary. Rakosi maintained his position as Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party.

Imre Nagy stopped the process of forcing the peasants to join the agricultural cooperative and reduced the amount of goods that the peasants had to deliver to the State. He enacted other reforms to reduce taxes, dissolve the concentration camps and free such notable persons as Anna Kethly and Janos Kadar. He became the only popular Muscovite leader in Hungary.

Rakosi worked to undermine Imre Nagy. After a few unsuccessful attempts the winds changed again in Moscow, and he succeeded. Imre Nagy first lost the Premiership in 1955, then all previously held positions in the Communist Party. Finally, he was expelled from the Communist Party and Rakosi regained a free hand. Rakosi, being a Stalinist, abolished the reforms enacted by Nagy. He was successful until, following the Russian example of accepting blames for past mistakes, it was publicly acknowledged that Laszlo Rajk had been executed on "fabricated charges." This confession brought 250,000 persons to the reburial ceremony of Rajk and created such an unexpected furor that under Moscow's pressure, Rakosi was forced to resign in 1956. His post was taken by another Stalinist, Erno Gero.

The cumulative effect of the reinstatement of the Stalinist era made inevitable the Hungarian Revolution. The entire history of the Revolution of 1956 will be discussed in a separate chapter.

HUNGARY IN THE MIRROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD