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

1962-01-01 / 1. szám

FRATERNITY

5

history. I have seen the people of Budapest catch the fire lit in Poznan and Warsaw, and come out into the streets in open rebellion against their Soviet overlords.”

To stop the revolt the bewildered leadership decided to offer long-sought reforms and concessions. On October 24 the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party was hastily summoned to Party headquarters. The Committee re-instated former Premier Imre Nagy, who only a year before was censored as a “right deviationist”, a “supporter of anti-Marxist conceptions”, and was ousted from the Party. Nagy not only had a large following among Party intellectuals, writers and students, but was also popular with the masses. During his short-lived government in 1953-54 the political terror subsided and the economic situation of the workers and peasants improved.

Together with Nagy, some of his close friends were also elected as new members of the Central Committee, among them several victims of former purges who had spent years in Communist prisons. Nagv also became a member of the re-organized Politburo and thereafter the Presidential Council chose him to head the government as the new Prime Minister.

The announcement of these changes, which only days before would have been hailed throughout the country as the forerunner of better days, now left little impact on the people. The street fights continued unabated.

The insurgents sensed that the discredited leadership only tried to put up a new front, retaining actual power in both the Party and the government.

Imre Nagy, speaking as the new Prime Minister, repeatedly called for the end of fighting and asked the Freedom Fighters to lay down their arms. But the masses, encouraged by the initial success of their rebellion, were in no mood to accept compromise solutions. They not only wanted domestic reforms, but independence, too. Nagy’s promises, while old party leaders and AVH men surrounded him, could not convince the insurgents.

The unremitting pressure forced the Stalinist leaders to clear out and Nagy became free to choose his cabinet in conformity with the wishes of the people. Nagy chose some of his old Communist friends, but leaders of the resurrected democratic parties also received portfolios. Freedom of expression was restored and the political police was disbanded.

The revolution against domestic despotism triumphed. The