The Hungarian Student, 1957 (1. évfolyam, 2-8. szám)
1957 / 4. szám
The Hungarian Student 17 RESOLUTION 2: THE NATURE OF MEFESz We, the Association of Hungarian Students in the United States, wish to make known to the world the brutal and violent means by which the MEFESz, the representative student organization that came into being shortly before the Revolution, was taken over by the Soviet puppet regime in Hungary and twisted into an organization which is designed to serve the ends and goals of Soviet imperialism rather than to be representative of Hungarian students and servant of their aims and aspirations. The MEFESz organization itself came into being at the colleges and universities of Hungary during the three days preceding the Revolution. It replaced the Communist youth organization, the DISz, a thoroughly unrepresentative youth organization, which was run by the Communist party in Hungary. DISz membership had been compulsory for young people and expulsion usually meant dismissal from school. Thus, at its very core, DISz was an engine of student repression. So corrupt was this organization that we and our fellows, as thz first act of our struggle for academic freedom, formed the new MEFESz. Debate. begun in January. Any students who had cooperated with the student revolutionary councils or otherwise taken part in the Revolution were thrown into prison. Heavy pressure was applied to weaken, discredit or “persuade” what little MEFESz leadership remained. Communist “self-criticism” became the only alternative to the concentration camp, deportation or worse. Thus was MEFESz, the proud symbol of Hungarian student freedom, turned into a tool of the regime. During the fighting, MEFESz lay dormant, but on the fifth of January, 1937, a meeting of representatives of all the colleges, universities and high schools in Hungary convened in Budapest. At this meeting, the “Fourteen Points” of October 23rd were reaffirmed. These fourteen points or demands were based on the desire of Hungarian students for some measure of academic freedom and university autonomy. It was for these fourteen demands that we and our brothers marched in peaceful demonstration on October 23rd, 1956. On January 12th, Radio Budapest broadcast reports that the second meeting of MEFESz, supposedly scheduled for that day, had been postponed for “technical” reasons. Also, in a story dated January 12th, Mr. John MacCormac of The New York Times, reported on a MEFESz meeting that occurred between the fifth and the twelfth at which many delegates from uninvited and hitherto unknown student organizations demanded representative status and attempted to weaken the resolutions reaffirming the “Fourteen Points.” A few days later the headquarters of MEFESz were raided by the infamous secret police and the leadership of the organization “disappeared.” So much for “technical” reasons. The regime, fearing the spirit of the students, did not open the colleges and universities until February 1st. At that time it also created a new Communist youth organization, the KISz, in an attempt to divide the MEFESz membership. But the mass of students still resisted, and stayed with their MEFESz organization. The Communist answer was to quicken the “terror” We cry out in anger and sadness at what has been done to our once-free organization. We call upon the free students of the world to recognize MEFESz for what it now is, the unrepresentative engine of student suppression that DISz once was, an organization without regard for the interest and aspirations of the students of Hungary. Students on motorcycles carry messages between fighting groups, past damaged buildings. RESOLUTION 3: DEPORTATIONS We, the Association of Hungarian Students in the United States, charge that the Soviet Union and its puppet government in Hungary have, by mass deportation, virtually destroyed the rising intellectual and cultural leadership of Hungary. We charge that: 46.000 Hungarians between the ages of 12 and 22 years of age have been imprisoned in concentration camps in Vologda, Tchaika, Suda, Krassnoiarsk and Novosibirsk in the Soviet Union. 1,600 survivors of the siege of Csepel Island, whose ages are unknown, have been deported to Communist China. 12.000 young people are imprisoned in Óbuda and Népliget in the suburbs of Budapest. Roughly 60,000 students attended Hungarian colleges and universities before the Revolution. Approximately 7,000 fled to the West when the Revolution failed. If, therefore, only one-third of the 58,000 young people known to be in prison are, in fact, students, then over 20,000, or between 30 and 40 per cent of Hungary’s college and university students, have been imprisoned or deported. The Soviet imperialists have dedicated themselves to nothing less than the destruction of our national culture and heritage. We, as a people, are apparently to be destroyed. Stalin’s boast that the Hungarian problem was only a matter of boxcars is apparently being put to the test. The Soviet Union and its puppet regime in Hungary deny that deportations have ever taken place. Yet at least one of the members of our Association has sworn under affidavit that he was deported to the Soviet Union, but managed to escape from his captors and make his way to freedom. Other members of our organization saw their colleagues put into boxcars in Budapest or, themselves, escaped from railway cars before being moved outside of Hungary. The Association of Hungarian Students in the United States calls upon students throughout the world to protest the Soviet deportations of Hungarian students and to work for freedom of those who are now in concentration camps. These students are not criminals. They sought the freedom to study what they wished to study. They have never been tried in courts of law. They have, instead, been taken by Soviet troops, thrust into boxcars and shipped like cattle from their native land. We ask for the support of the freedomloving students of the world. We ask them to protest to the Kadar regime, to its embassies in their countries and to the government and embassies of the Soviet Union. Do not let our culture and traditions be submerged by Soviet imperialists.
