Fáklyaláng, 1971. január-október (12. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1971-10-23 / 10. szám
HUNGARY IN 1971 On the 15th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight, the situation in the country is basically the same as it was in 1956. The fact is that the regime can remain in power only because of the continued presence of Soviet occupation forces. Patriotism, faithfulness to the interests of the Hungarian people are still regarded punishable crimes. Practicing of religion is still punished with imprisonment. Catholic priests are still being sentenced to long prison terms for teaching religion “without permit and in secret.” The so-called process of “liberalization is nothing but a facade since the Kadar regime is as much intolerant and inflexible as any time since 1956. At the end of 1970, the country had a population of 10,342,000, showing onlv an increase of 32.000 over the previous year. Adding 18,000 to this increase to account for those who defected in 1970, the total annual increase amounts to about 50,000, an extremely low figure in the world. This slow increase may have serious demographic repercussions already in the immediate future. Torchlight — the English version of Fakli/alang — was among the first ones who raised their voices against this criminal genocide in Hungary. If the regime in Hungary does not remedy the situation by abolishing legalized abortions, as in Rumania recently, the Hungarian freedom fighters in the free world will take steps before proper international forums to coerce the regime to put an end to this type of genocide. The dictatorship has not relented any in the recent so-called National Assembly and local council elections. The one-party system is still the rule of the day in Hungary. It is worthwhile to mention that in a country whose people so unanimously revolted against the one-party system of the Soviet-imposed Communist Party, and where only about 6 percent of the total population is, even if nominally, member of the Communist Party, the regime obtained a 99 percent majority. They do not confuse themselves, however, because they know that the whole election process was but a farce. According to the official Hungarian News Agency, MTI, 7,432,420 people were on the list of eligible voters. Of them 98.7 percent, or 7,334,918 voted in the elections. The number of those who did not vote was 97,502 or 1.3 percent. Of the total votes cast 7,258,121 or 98.9 percent were valid votes. This time the regime permitted the nomination of two candidates in each district, on paper, since only 48 districts had in fact two candidates. But in one, in Óbuda, the electors put a third-one on the ballot, Zoltán Szép, a blind historian, who was also elected to the National Assembly by obtaining 56.1 percent of the votes in the district, a clearcut rejection of handpicked candidates. The farcial character of the whole election process is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the candidates for various offices had been selected by the Communist-dominated and Communist-rune Patriotic People’s Front — as its name indicates: a Communist front organization. The names of these hand-picked candidates were submitted to so-called nomination meetings. According to official statements, there were an average of 400 people at these meetings. Taking the total number of districts, it becomes quite evident that only about 1.5 percent of the eligible voters approved the proposed candidates for the various offices. But nowhere in a Communist country did the people demonstrate the rejection of even the second choice of the party — and consequently the entire system — as in April 1971, the people of the election district of Óbuda. No wonder that the Soviet Union uses Hungary as a shop-window, a Potemkin village towards the non-Communist world, to deceive the eager foreigner. Behind an attractive facade there are considerabel stresses and tensions well hidden from the eyes of the visitors. Living conditions are steadily deteriorating. The hardship of elderly people, particularly of the retirees of agricultural production cooperatives, is reaching unbelievable proportions. Some of these retired people receive the sum equivalent of a pair of shoes as a monthly pension in the “socialist paradise,” in a state of “the workers and peasants.” Parallelling the role of economic shop-window, Hungary is also being used as a political propaganda outlet especially in cases in which Soviet prestige is deeply involved. Kadar’s regime is the most outspoken promoter of the so-called European conference designed to secure or neutralize the Soviet Union’s western flank in the face of increasing Chinese Communist pressure. It is the Kadar regime that most noisily condems the unruly “Chinese comrades.” They are also condemning the Rumanian Communist comrades for their friendship with the Chinese Communist regime. Curiously enough, they remain silent over the unbearable oppression of Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia and Rumania, and to some degree, also in Yugoslavia. These Hungarians suffer under a two-fold oppression: 1. for being democrats and anti-Communists, and 2. for being of Hungarian origin. Kadar and his henchmen are concerned about the fate of the 4 million Hungarians living in the territories detached from Hungary in 1918-19, and again in 1945, as much as they are concerned about the fate of the 10 million Hungarians living in the present dismembered Hungary. Being the puppets of the Soviet Union, they only care about the interests of their masters who let the Hungarians bear the blame for the maneuvers directed against the Balkans. Unfortunately, in the present feverish search for a detente by the government of the free world, cursory observers hardly look beneath and beyond the very enticing surface they see in 1971. — Mihály Hoka
