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HUNGARY IN THE MIRROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD |
THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION OF 1956
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the greatest political surprise to the Free World during the cold war era. The fact that a small nation had the will and the courage to rise against the mighty Soviet Union amazed the majority of the people of the West.
Republicans and Democrats, union leaders and business leaders, church leaders and celebrities of all sorts and above all, the masses, were emotionally involved on the side of Hungary. For a brief moment in history, Hungarians and Hungary held the center stage of world attention.
The hearts and hopes of the Free World were with the uprising and the tragic end absolved Hungary from much of the criticism so prevalent after both World Wars.
From these exciting times the documents which surely will survive the fading factor of time are: the writings of the French Marxist, Jean-Paul Sartre; the writings of the Nobel Laureate, Albert Camus; the executive orders of President Eisenhower; the documents published by the Congress of the United States; the document published by the United Nations; and the writings of Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Carter from 1977 to 1981.
JeanPaul Sartre, the French philosopher, novelist, essayist and playwright, was the leading Marxist authority who spoke up in favor of the Hungarian Revolution.
In 1956-57 Sartre wrote essays on the subject that first appeared in a series of articles in "Les Temps Modernes," (Nov. Dec. 1956 B Jan. 1957). They were later published in book form. The book was translated into English by Martha H. Fletcher and published under the title, The Ghost of Stalin, (1968, Publisher, George Braziller, Inc., New York).
Sartre's book is a polemic to his Communist critics and supporters on the subject of the Hungarian Revolution. This thesis about the Revolution of 1956 can be summarized by the following points:
"1. The Hungarian Revolution was a true revolution in the best meaning of the word. Budapest was in 1956 what Paris was in 1848. All those who try to label it as a "counterrevolution" ignited by followers of Horthy or the Arrow Cross are wrong. Sartre dismisses the news published in the French Communist press that about 2,000 armed immigrants entered Hungary's western borders and created the revolution. He points out that nobody ever saw them and a force of 2,000 would have been insufficient to force the temporary withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Budapest.
2. The best proof that the Revolution was a true revolution is that the bulk of the revolutionary masses came from the working class, which is the moving force of socialism and the class which could not be used by antirevolutionary forces. The additional proof is that the youth, which for eleven years had been indoctrinated in communist theories, turned against the regime and helped to rip it apart.
3. The fact that the revolutionaries dissolved the kolkhoz and gave the land back to the peasants created a unity which had never before existed between the two largest masses of the nation the peasants and the workers.
4. The cause of the Revolution was that workers were forced to work constantly without any human rewards. They were exploited in a way that was even worse than under the capitalistic system.
5. Stalinist rulers promoted the buildup of heavy industry to a degree that caused chronic dislocation in all other sectors of the economy.
6. Matyas Rakosi and Erno Gero were Stalinists who were in charge of Hungary at the time when Stalin had already been discredited in the Soviet Union. Nobody seemed to realize that, by inference, they were discredited also.
7. Gero and Rakosi were unable and unwilling to understand Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia. They executed Laszlo Rajk, the personification of a Hungarian National Communist.
8. Rakosi and Gero, both Jews, surrounded themselves with Jewish confidants thereby isolating themselves from the Hungarian masses. This made possible the complete lack of understanding that had existed for years between the rulers and the ruled.
9. The Hungarian tragedy was that they did not have a "Gomulka" in place. The Communist Gomulka was able to prevent the same tragedy in Poland. The author repeatedly points out that the Polish Communists, who were not Stalinists, were able to understand the masses and prevent the initial Polish uprising from becoming a wall between the Polish masses and the Soviet occupying forces.
10. The Soviets themselves have to be blamed as well: they attacked Budapest with a superior force during the time when negotiations were still ongoing; they killed workers and innocent civilians; they initiated deportation.
11. The United States should be criticized also for the inflammatory broadcasts of Radio Free Europe.
12. The author's strongest criticism is leveled against French Communist leaders who thought that Rakosi, Gero and the Soviets were correct. These Frenchmen, who criticized the military action of Anglo-French and Israeli forces for their attack on Nasser's Egypt, but failed to criticize the Russian intervention in Hungary, should bear the heaviest criticism. The author believes that the English and French thought they could get away with the attack on Egypt because the Soviets were preoccupied in Middle Europe with the problems in Poland and Hungary.
13. Finally, Krushchev and Bulganin should be criticized because of their threat to wipe out Paris at any time with their Abomb-tipped rockets."
Another philosopher, Jacques-Francis Rolland, who was a member of the Communist Party, joined Sartre in the denunciation of the Soviet military actions in Hungary and was expelled from the French Communist Party.
The other French genius who wrote about the Hungarian Revolution was the Nobel Laureate, Albert Camus. Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957, at the age of 43. The Nobel Citation stated, "Because he spoke to us of our problems and in our language, without raising his voice or indulging in oratory, he illustrated the problems of the human conscience in our time." Camus, in addition to his well known novels, wrote many political and philosophical essays, which were published in three volumes during the 1950s. Before his death he selected the essays that he believed were the most important and published them in one book, titled Resistance, Rebellion and Death. They were translated from French into English by Justin O'Brien and published by Borzoi Books, New York, in 1961.
The book contains two essays in connection with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The title of the first essay is, "Kadar Had His Day of Fear". Camus develops the following thesis: There is no difference between Fascist or Communist dictatorships. Both use terror as the basis of their regimes. In connection with the statement of the Hungarian Minister of State, Marosan, that there would be no more counterrevolution in Hungary, Camus writes that this was the first statement of truth from Marosan, because the counterrevolution had already seized power. In other words, the real counterrevolutionaries were Kadar and his regime.
He hopes that the spirit of the Hungarian revolutionaries will stay alive until all the counterrevolutionary regimes of Eastern Europe will collapse under the weight of their lies and contradictions. "A regime that forces the father to inform on his son, the son to demand the supreme punishment for his father, the wife to bear witness against her husband" cannot be called anything else but "counterrevolutionary." Camus wrote that no compromise can be made with those who perpetrated terror and that this reign of terror has as much right to be called "Socialist" as the executioners of the Inquisition had to be called "Christians". Counterrevolutionary regimes collapse under the weight of their lies and contradictions. Therefore March 15, the symbol of the Hungarian people's rights to freedom, must have been the Day of Fear for Kadar.
Camus states that he dislikes to play the role of Cassandra but he has to remind the citizens of France that "terror does not evolve except toward a worse terror, the scaffold does not become any more liberal, the gallows are not tolerant. Nowhere in the world has there been a party or a man with absolute power who did not use it absolutely."
He states again that Budapest in the '50s gave the same lesson to humanity that the Spanish had done 20 years before.
The author believes that the people of Budapest have done more for freedom and justice than any people in 20 years. The author states that, "We should never betray, at home or abroad, that for
which the Hungarian combatants died and never justify even indirectly, at home or abroad, what killed them." He believes that Budapest was defending political and economic democracy.
The second essay of Camus in connection with the revolution is a collection of answers to interviewers' questions. The most relevant are the following:
The Hungarian uprising was directed against a generalized lie, hence it was necessary to assassinate the men who were fighting on the side of the Revolution and then try to dishonor them through a reversed lie by calling them "Fascists".
The socalled "neutral nations," under the leadership of India, could have saved a European nation from death and slavery but did not because of political expediency. By failing to act they forgot their own recent oppressions. Political expediency cannot hide the facts. Example: It cannot be accepted that the entire Hungarian nation is Fascist except for Kadar and his Cabinet.
Intellectuals do not have to analyze everything, but the intellectual must face up to the real problems of his time. Camus states his belief that the indispensable conditions for intellectual creation and historical justice are liberty and the honest confrontation of differences.
Members of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary:
Denmark: Mr. Alsing Andersen, Member of Parliament (Chairman of the Committee).
Australia: H.E. Mr. K.C.O. Shann, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Philippines (Rapporteur of the Committee).
Ceylon: H.E. Mr. R.S.S. Gunewardene, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Tunisia: H.E.M. Mongi Slim, Minister of State, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Uruguay; H.E. Professor Enrique Rodriguez Fabregat, Ambassador and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
This Committee was formed by the General Assembly on 10 January 1957. The Secretary General appointed to the Committee Mr. W.M. Jordan as Principal Secretary of the Committee and Mr. P. Bang-Jensen as Deputy Secretary. First meeting held on January 17, l957, at the United Nations Headquarters.
The Committee was charged to provide a full report of the extent and result of the Russian intervention in Hungary, as ordered by the General Assembly. The report was based on the Committee's study of the testimony of witnesses who arrived in New York and witnesses in Rome, Vienna, London and Geneva; altogether, 111 witnesses were heard.
The first three witnesses heard were Anna Kethly, Minister of State in the Hungarian Government of Imre Nagy; Major General Bela Kiraly, Commander in Chief of the National Guard during the uprising, and Jozsef Kovago, mayor of Budapest. These three primary witnesses submitted names of those who had been heard by the Committee. So did governments of the United States, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, France and Italy. The witnesses were chosen based on their ability to give pertinent information and by geographic locations covering the entire country. They included industrial workers, white collar workers, including university professors, students, etc.
The testimony of the first three witnesses mentioned above was given publicly but most witnesses were heard in closed sessions to prevent reprisals against those who remained in Hungary. The witnesses, after giving their personal data, were heard and crossexamined for details on which they had direct knowledge.
Participating governments also interviewed their own diplomats who had been eyewitnesses to the events in Budapest during the revolution and submitted it to the Committee via their legations.
The Committee was blocked in its effort to enter Hungary. The Hungarian Government on 5 February 1957 stated that they considered the activities of the Committee to be a violation of the Charter and therefore refused any and all cooperation. The same position was reaffirmed on 25 March 1957.
The Committee tried to interview Imre Nagy and requested the cooperation of the Romanian Government but that request was denied by the Romanian Government.
A free election took place in Hungary in 1945. Although the Communist Party finished third, within a short period of time they achieved control. By 1948 the non-Communist Party leaders had been silenced, been arrested or had fled abroad. In 1949 Hungary officially became a Peoples Republic. Matyas Rakosi, a Communist trained in Moscow, became the leader of the country. Arbitrary imprisonment became common. In September 1949, Laszlo Rajk, who was the personification of a Titolike Hungarian Communist, was executed.
After the death of Stalin his crimes were admitted publicly in the Soviet Union. Rakosi's crimes were admitted publicly in Hungary. Example: It was admitted that Rajk had been executed on "fabricated charges." The unexpected national reaction forced the resignation of Rakosi. The official successor was Gero, another Stalinist (also trained in Moscow), but the people began to demand the return to power of Imre Nagy, who had been Prime Minister for a while and had been dismissed by the old regime as a "revisionist" and expelled from the Hungarian Communist Party. The first people demanding more freedom were the writers, followed by university students.
On 19 October the news of the Polish uprising produced in the Hungarian people an expression of brotherhood with the Polish people.
On 22 October the university students created a list of sixteen demands, including the removal of the Soviet troops, freedom of speech, free elections, reestablishment of the multiparty system and improvement in the conditions of the workers and peasants. On October 23 demonstrations took place at the Petofi and the Bem statues. The participants were students, workers and soldiers in uniform.
From around the city 200,000-300,000 demonstrators converged at the Parliament Building and demanded the return of Imre Nagy to power. As a response to the demand, Nagy addressed the crowd from the balcony of the Parliament.
On the same evening Gero's speech was a great disappointment to the demonstrators and furthered the antiregime feelings that culminated in the removal of the statue of Stalin.
That same evening a crowd went to the radio station and insisted that the station broadcast the demands of the university students. In the building were members of the secret police who fired on the crowd. When ambulances arrived, instead of doctors and nurses, secret police, with weapons, emerged from the cars and opened fire. The crowd attacked them, overpowered them and took their weapons. Hungarian military units, which were rushed in to subdue the crowd, instead sided with them.
On the night of October 23-24, workers from the industrial centers of Greater Budapest (armed with weapons received from friendly soldiers) joined the demonstrators. The secret police, who defended the radio building and the Communist newspaper building, were attacked, and the demonstrators took over both buildings.
At 2:00 A.M. on the 24th of October, the first Soviet tanks made their appearance on the streets of Budapest. On the same day two contrary radio announcements were broadcast. One reported the Communist Central Committee's decision to elevate Nagy to be the Prime Minister. The other reported that Nagy requested Soviet intervention against the demonstrators. Neither announcement was believed. The Hungarian military was ordered by the Government to move against the demonstrators, but, by all accounts, the order was never followed. On the contrary, military personnel handed their weapons to the demonstrators and/or joined them with their weapons. The same was true for the police.
As the revolution spread, the Revolutionary Workers Councils were established and took local power into their own hands. The councils were created with the idea of setting up a democratic organization for the nation. They all echoed the basic student demands mentioned above. The most successful of those Councils were located in Gyor and, using the Gyor radio station, they demanded a complete removal of all Soviet forces from Hungary.
On October 25, in front of the Parliament Building, in defense of the AVH (The Communist State Security Police), Soviet tanks opened fire on the demonstrators, causing many deaths. This triggered a fullscale war against the Soviets. The mobility of the tanks was hampered by the narrow streets of Budapest. Molotov cocktails used by the young revolutionaries were very effective.
On the 26th of October, Gero fled, as did the Premier, Andras Hegedus. On October 27, Nagy gained his freedom and formed a government. The new government announced that negotiations with the Soviets for removal of their forces from Budapest were in progress. On October 28 the government of Nagy ordered a ceasefire based on the success of the freedom fighters against the Soviet tanks.
On October 28 Prime Minister Nagy abolished the hated AVH. On October 30 a new cabinet abolished the "oneparty system."
Subsequently Mr. Nagy clarified that he had not asked for Soviet intervention, a statement which helped to restore his popularity. The ceasefire became fully effective by the 30th of October, the day the new cabinet was formed. On the same day the Soviet armed forces began withdrawing from Budapest. As a result of the fighting, hundreds of buildings were demolished and thousands damaged, but, despite many broken store windows, no looting had occurred. This fact was proudly reported by many observers.
During the revolution all political prisoners were set free. The dissolved AVH members began to report for possible prosecution. The rubble was cleared and Budapest began to return to normalcy.
On November 1, Prime Minister Nagy notified the Soviet ambassador that because new Soviet troops were entering Hungary, Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Treaty. On the same day the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution of Hungarian neutrality. The Hungarian government notified all ambassadors stationed in Budapest about the decision of neutrality and requested the help of all governments to secure such neutrality.
On November 3, the government was reconstituted on the same lines that the Allied command in 1945 had prescribed.
This new government made it clear that the revolution had created a Hungarian Democracy and would not restore the political and social fabric of pre 1945 Hungary.
The Hungarian-Russian negotiations were still proceeding when on November 3rd the Russian NKVD General arrived and arrested the Hungarian delegates.
More and more Russian troops continued to enter the country. Prime Minister Nagy was informed by the revolutionary forces, who requested permission to fight them, but, in the hope that the negotiations would yet be successful, he refused armed resistance. In rapid succession Mr. Janos Kadar, originally a member of the Nagy Cabinet, announced the formation of a new pro-Soviet government, and during the early hours of November 4 the Soviets reentered Budapest. At the last minute, in the early hours of November 4, Prime Minister Nagy ordered armed resistance against the Soviet forces. The overwhelming Russian power achieved the goal of controlling the centers of Budapest the same day. The last broadcast from Radio Budapest, still in the hands of the revolutionaries, came through at 8 a.m., appealing to the writers and scientists of the world to help the people of Hungary.
In order to prevent the fraternization between Soviet forces and Hungarians which had occurred prior to the revolution, the Soviet forces now entering Budapest were brought in from Central Asia.
The armed resistance in different pockets of Budapest continued until the 11th of November. The most vicious fighting took place in the suburbs with an overwhelming workers population Ujpest and Csepel. Through radio broadcasts, Kadar announced the formation of a new government and called the revolutionaries AFascists." On the 4th of November Prime Minister Nagy sought refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy. On the 22nd of November, after Kadar promised the safe return of Nagy to his home, Nagy and his entourage left the embassy. Subsequently, they were taken by the Soviets and moved to an unknown location. The Kadar Government then announced that, by his own request, Nagy would be brought to Romania.
As the Soviet armies overran Hungary militarily, they took over administratively as well, because the new government of Kadar had no following and no power. The Army began with mass arrests and deportation of Hungarian subjects to the Soviet Union. No exact numbers are known but it was estimated that thousands were involved and it is known that some of them were retained as late as 1957.
After the armed resistance ended, a passive resistance took place and until mid-December no industrial production occurred. By mid-December strikes became illegal and when workers returned to the factories they found a new element, Soviet soldiers working in the factories and coal mines.
By the beginning of 1957 non-Communist organizations had effectively been excluded from any role in public life. The mandate of the party, which expired in May of 1957, was extended by two years, blocking any new political expression for change.
Four main communications took place between 23 October and 7 November, 1956.
1. On October 23, Peter Kos, the Hungarian representative to the United Nations, circulated a statement to the members of the Security Council and to the General Assembly, stating that the events in Budapest were internal affairs of the Hungarian Republic and should not be discussed in any international forum.
2. On November 1st, a cablegram from Prime Minister Nagy stated that because of the Soviet military intervention, Hungary cancelled its membership in the Warsaw Pact and declared neutrality. He also stated that he was discussing with the Soviets their withdrawal from Hungary.
3. On November 2nd a second letter from Imre Nagy was circulated in the Security Council, reporting the arrival of new, large Soviet forces into Hungarian territory. Nagy also reported his government's effort to continue discussions with the Russians concerning their withdrawal from Hungary. Finally, he requested the help of the four great powers in defending the country's neutrality.
4. On the 7th of November a cablegram dated 4 November from Kadar was distributed to the Security Council, containing the statement that all that had transpired in Hungary was an internal affair of that country and opposing any and all discussion of the subject by international forum. The Kadar Government was sworn in on the same day.
In the course of the lengthy debates which the Security Council and the General Assembly devoted to the Hungarian question, the following arguments were abundantly discussed by representatives of Member States:
1. The provisions of Article 2 of the Hungarian Peace Treaty guaranteeing human rights and fundamental freedoms, including political rights, to the Hungarian people;
2. The principles and character of the Warsaw Treaty as a defensive arrangement against an external aggression;
3. The unacceptability of the position that armed forces stationed in a foreign country by virtue of a defensive alliance against outside aggression might be used to quell popular movements aiming at a change of government or of regime;
4. The protests against the Soviet intervention and demands to the Soviet Union and to the United Nations for the withdrawal of Soviet forces put forward by the properly constituted Government of Imre Nagy;
5. The doubtful constitutional nature of the Kadar Government at the time of its call for Soviet military assistance.
All these arguments were invoked against the thesis of the Soviet Government, together with the Charter provisions on sovereign equality of Member States, the principles of equal rights and selfdetermination of peoples and those of Paragraph 4 of Article 2 of the Charter, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the political independence of any State.
These considerations led to the solemn declaration by the General Assembly in Resolution 1131 (XI) of 12 December 1956, that "by using its armed force against the Hungarian people, the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is violating the political independence of Hungary"; and to the condemnation by the same resolution of the "violation of the Charter of the United Nations by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in depriving Hungary of its liberty and independence and the Hungarian people of the exercise of their fundamental rights."
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HUNGARY IN THE MIRROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD |