Magyar News, 1992. szeptember-1993. augusztus (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1992-10-01 / 2. szám

Monthly Publication in Cooperation of the local Hungarian Churches & Organization

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION

Emese is a 20 year-old student, born in Bridgeport, CT. She researched this part of the Hungarian History and wrote this article. This work is an outstanding example for all our American Hungarian youth.

After World War II the Soviet Union gained wealth by forcing its political, social, and economic systems on Eastern Europe, including Hungary. The failure of the Hungarians to adapt to Soviet presences in their homeland led to an unsuccessful uprising on October 23,1956. Although it did bring János Kádár to power who attempted to bring a milder form of communism to Hungary.

The communist takeover happened during World War II. A veteran of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), László Rajk and a former communist leader, who was a student, operated underground throughout the country. At the time Mátyás Rákosi led a group which was based in Moscow, they were called “Muscovites.” In September

1944, the Soviet Red Army invaded Hungary. Rajk’s organization emerged from hiding and the Muscovites returned to their homeland. The close ties that Rákosi had with the Soviet occupiers enhanced his influence within the party and a rivalry developed between the Muscovites and Rajk’s followers.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Foreign Minister Anthony Eden agreed in October 1944, that after the war, Stalin and the Soviet Union would have a large influence in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. This brought about a Provisional National Assembly on December 22,1944 in Debrecen at which communist representatives out-numbered those of the other antifascists parties. Its cabinet members included a general and two other military officers who held the old regime, two communists, two Social Democrats, two members of the Smallholders Party, one member of the National Peasant Party, and one unaffiliated member. An agreement was reached between the provisional government and the Soviet Union on January 20,

1945. This agreement established the Allied Control Commission with Soviets, Americans, and British representatives. It held supreme and complete independent political authority over the country. The catch was that the commission’s chairman Marshall Kliment Voroshilov was a member of Stalin’s inner circle.

S talin decided against an immediate communist takeover in Hungary. He instead instructed Hungarian Communist Party leaders to take over gradually. The Hungarian Communist Party members who had worked underground during the war opposed Stalin’s gradual approach and argued for an immediate establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat.

After Soviet troops drove the Nazi’s out of Hungary, the government moved from Debrecen to Budapest. There it expanded the Provisional National Assembly to include representatives from the trade unions and the Social Democratic Parties. The Provisional Government remained in power untilNovember 15,1945, when votersdealt the Hungarian Communist Party an unexpected setback in free election.

Later though the Smallholders’ Party and the Social Democratic Party were ousted from power. In late 1946 leaders of the Smallholders Party were arrested. In 1947 Béla Kovács, the secretary general of the Smallholders’ Party was arrested on a false charge of plotting to overthrow the government.

Stalin feared a weakening grip on Eastern Europe. Anticommunist forces in the region remained potent but most of the communi st governments remained unpopular. Stalin then reversed his earlier support toward gradualism. Instead he pushed for a tighter adherence to Moscow’s line and a rapid establishment plan for Soviet dominated communist states in Hungary and in other areas. The policy shifted in September 1947 at the meeting of the Coniform, an organization linking the Soviet Communist Party with the parties of Eastern Europe, France, and Italy.

Yugoslavia was expelled from the Coniform in 1948, and the Soviet-Yugoslav rift broke. In 1949 the Soviet Union unleashed a four-year reign against “Titoists,” named after the Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz Tito, in Eastern Europe. Rákosi rid members of the party’s wartime underground, potential rivals, and hundreds of others.

The country ’s economy was reorganized according to Soviet model between 1948- 1953. The regime accelerated nationalization of banking, trade, and industry. Nearly 99 percent of the country’s workers had become state employees by December 1949. Trade Unions lost their independence, and the government introduced Soviet-style central planning.

Since the opposition parties were disbanded and trade unions collared, the churches became the communists’ main source of opposition. The government had expropriated the churches’ property with the land reform, and in July 1948 it nationalized schools. A compromise was reached with the Protestant church and the government, but the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal József Mindszenty, resisted. In December 1948 he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Shortly after that, the regime disbanded most Catholic religious orders and it secularized Catholic schools. In 1952 Rákosi became prime minister. One year later Stalin died in March 1953. The new Soviet leadership soon permitted a more flexible policy throughout Eastern Europe known as the “New Course.” Rákosi and other party leaders were summoned to Moscow in June, including Imre Nagy. They were criticized for Hungary’s dismal economic performance. Sovietcommunist parties upbraided Rákosi for naming Jew to Hungary’s top party positions. Rákosi retained his position as party chief, but the Soviet leaders forced the appointment of prime minister to Imre Nagy. He quickly won the support of the government ministries and the intelligentsia.

Nagy charted his New Course for Hungary’s drifting economy. Hungary ceased collectivization of agriculture, allowed peasants to leave the collective farms, cancelled the collective farms’ compulsory production quotas, and raised government prices for deliveries. Nagy, however, failed to fundamentally alter the planning system and neglected to introduce incentives to replace compulsory plan targets, resulting in a poorer record of plan fulfillment after 1953 than before. Rákosi used his influence to disrupt Nagy’s reforms and eroded his political position. In April 1955, Nagy was forced to resign from the government and was later expelled from the party itself.

After Nagy’s fall, collectivization and development of heavy industry became the main focus of Hungary’s economy again. The purges did not resume, however, as Rákosi did not enjoy the same amount of power or Soviet support that he did while Stalin was alive. In 1955 the establishment of friendly relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia produced the Belgrade Declaration, in which Moscow confirmed that each nation had the right to follow its own road to socialism.

(continued on page 3)

by Emese Vastagh