The Hungarian Student, 1958 (2. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)
1958 / 6. szám
The Hungarian Student Letter from the Editor IE VERY WEEK a group of foreign students meet for a friendly talk at Columbia University. Recently, a few Soviet young men have been mingling with them. These are not students, such as the young men who will soon arrive from the Soviet Union for a prolonged stay in this country, arranged through a Soviet-American student exchange. Instead they are mostly young men attached to the Soviet diplomatic corps at the United Nations, who knowing that they are now “in fashion,” try to make the most of their popularity. They hold what amounts to lectures on the ideal Soviet system, on the scholarships, and the “high standards” of Soviet education. They answer the most intricate questions with clever phrases. An Iranian student tried to embarrass one of them by mentioning press censorship in the Soviet Union. “Oh, yes, we do have censorship of the press,” was the answer, “but for one reason only: to prevent newspapers from war mongering.” They sidestepped with ease the barbs of thorny questions. But there is one subject which makes the comrades hot under the collar: the Hungarian revolution. Once, while giving a lecture, Ambassador Menshikov in answer to a question concerning the Hunarian revolution answered irritably, “Every country makes mistakes.” It is true that even a great power sometimes commits an error, but the tragedy of this error is that we Hungarians had to learn by the loss of our compatriots’ lives, and through the loss of our country, that the Soviet Union commits not only errors but crimes also. An official at Harvard University looked up one of the Hungarian students studying there and asked him if hi^ had any objection to having one of the Soviet exchange students rooming on the same floor. At this time, the American-Hungarian Student Association was also asked to give its official opinion on the Soviet-American student exchange program. The answer was the same in both cases: we do not object to the exchange program but we caution American organizations about participating in propaganda actions. We know that the United States needs experts who have had experience with Soviet methods. We approve of sending students from the United States to the Soviet Union for a few years to study and learn about their methods. We are certain that during these years our American fellow students will see what is behind the Potemkin walls. And we are certain that there will be times during the course of the year when Soviet students will forget their role of the “golden reserves of the Party”; the Soviet Union is afraid of this happening and therefore insists that no Soviet student live alone and that at least one other Soviet student room with him. However, we believe that brief student visits to the Soviet Union and vice-versa as tourists, or for the purpose of participating in noisy “peace-meetings” serve little purpose. We are familiar with the underlying reasons for these meetings; we know the artificial scenery, the same sample factories, the kolchoses, the “benign fathers of the people” who let “doves of peace” loose. We suggest that our American friends do not take on the role of extras at these staged meetings and also that they do not offer a stage in this country to acts which would only serve to expound uncontrollable propaganda phrases. The Hungarian Student Association has one more suggestion to offer American organizations: try to secure a scholarship for at least one Hungarian student or other informed students from East Europe in each class where there is a Soviet exchange student. We must not forget that “there is a reverse side to the coin.” The Hungarian Stutlenl is an official monthly publication of the Association of Hungarian Students in the United States. Subscriptions are $5.00 a year for any person or organization. No fees are paid for published articles and all material for publication must be received by the 15th of the month prior to issue. Application for Second-Class Mail Privileges is pending at New York, New York. Editor-in-Chief: L. G. PAPP Managing Editor: A. B. NAGY Editorial Office: 22 East 38th Street, New York, 16, New York Business Office: Room 308, 44 Bromfield Street, Boston, Massachusetts June, 1958 Volume Two, Number Six FRAGMENTS NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, April 11, 1958 “Prime Minister Nikita S. Khrushchev tonight assailed former Hungarian Workers’ [Communist] party leader Mátyás Rákosi as responsible for ‘everything that happened’ in the 1956 Hungarian anti-Communist uprising. “ ‘Rákosi is guilty of everything that happened,’ the Prime Minister declared, referring to events leading to the Budapest revolt, which was crushed by Soviet tanks. “Mr. Khrushchev said that the fact that Mr. Rákosi had served sixteen years in jail as a fighter for communism was no excuse for his ‘grave error.’ He implied that if the revolt against Mr. Rákosi had not paved the way for the near loss of Hungary to the Communist bloc, the use of the Soviet Army would have not been necessary.” * JOURNAL AMERICAN, May 7, 1958 “Two 17-year-old Hungarians braved tommygun fire from Communist border sentries in the first successful sprint to Austrian soil in more than a month.” NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, April 4, 1958 “Tonight Mr. Khrushchev, addressing a Budapest Opera House meeting honoring his delegation, declared that the Soviet Union ‘would win any war against the capitalist world.’ “He charged that the United States is attempting to prevent a summit conference by insisting that the problems of German reunification and of the Communist Eastbloc states should be put on the agenda.” NEW YORK TIMES, April 15, 1958 “Rumors from Budapest that Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev during his visit had refused Premier Jádos Kádár’s request for further aid to Hungary seem to be confirmed by a Hungarian official news agency report issued here today by the Hungarian Legation.” NEW YORK TIMES, April 18, 1958 “Communist authorities have released from prison two Hungarian employees of the United States Legation in Budapest. They had been held without trial for a year. “They were Mrs. Livia Jancso and Peter Szoeke. It was the first time in a year that the legation has had all its employees out of jail.”
