Fraternity-Testvériség, 1962 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1962-12-01 / 12. szám

FRATERNITY

13

There is one thing no totalitarian tyranny can take away from people, and this is their ability to think. Since October-November 1956 the Hungarians have had ample opportunity to think over their situation. Undoubtedly there are many who are bitter because the United Nations, which repeatedly censured the Soviet and the Hungarian governments, has been unable to compel these governments to comply with the resolutions. But as Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, U. S. Chief Delegate, pointed out in the United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 1961, “There is reason to hope that new conditions in this rapidly shrinking and developing world may impress upon the Government of the Soviet Union the need for a new sense of justice and humanity in support of the rights of all nations to live in freedom and independence, and as good neighbors.” The representative of the Government of the United States made it emphatically clear that “the elimination of alien and colonialist domination over Hungary and the cessation of repressive practices within Hungary would contribute a considerable measure of progress towards the relaxation of world tensions and toward real and lasting understanding among nations.”

Marxism — as evidenced by the Hungarian uprising and its aftermath — has remained an alien doctrine to the Hungarians. More than five years after assuming power, in March 1962 János Kádár himself openly acknowledged that most Hungarians are not Marxists. He called on his Party to bear this constantly in mind. “We must work in a manner” — he continued — “as if we had a twenty-party system and a secret election every day, because only then will the people support us.” Many of Marx’s teachings have proved to be wrong, others obsolete. But one of his theses has been accepted as correct, the thesis that “a people which enslaves others forges its own chains.”