The Hungarian Student, 1961

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF HUNGARIAN STUDENTS

After 1946, Hungarian internal affairs were taken over by the Communist Party headed by Mátyás Rákosi who after two decades returned from the Soviet Union as a Soviet citizen. The leaders of the democratic parties permitted by the Peace Treaty, were soon driven out of political life. Some sought refuge abroad, but most of them disappeared for years into Hungarian prisons, several of them for good. During this period, the Party took full control of the Youth organizations. The Hungarian Democratic Youth organization formed in 1946 (MADISZ) was under the control of the Communist Party from the outset and itself, eliminated all the youth organizations, parallel to the removal of the various political parties. The strongest opposition to the Madisz in this struggle came from the Federation of the Unions of Hungarian students (MEFESZ) which was composed of all the apolitical representative organizations of Hungarian students. The battle between the MADISZ and MEFESZ lasted for almost three years. The MEFESZ was finally eliminated in 1949 when the Communist Party was firmly in the saddle, but only through a complete reorganization of the overall youth movement. MEFESZ was absorbed by the new youth organizations the Democratic Youth Alliance (DISZ). Some of the MEFESZ leaders who attempted strong resistance were expelled from their universities and several were imprisoned.

Revolt within DISZ

Since 1950 the opposition of Hungarian Youth could not find an official outlet. (We do not, of course, refer to the resistance expressed among friends). Until July 1956, it seemed that everything was under perfect control in the organizational life of Hungarian youth. The DISZ was the sole organization which was officially proclaimed as a “non party mass organization”. In its constitution, however, one can find the two following statements:

The DISZ is under the direct leadership of the Hungarian Workers’ Party and the resolutions of the Party are binding on it.

The central leadership of DISZ is directly subordinated to the Central leadership of the Party.

In July 1956 the Central Committee of the DISZ convoked more than 800

of its functionaries from all over the country. These were their secretaries from factories, work ships, universities and high schools. The huge camp meeting was aimed at reorganizing the admittedly stagnant working system of the DISZ in the spirit of the 20th Party

One of our fellow students made the following remark between meetings at the I.S.C. Congress in Lima in 1958: “Believe me, I would find Hungarians very congenial if I would not know that Hungarian prisons are full of Fascists.”

We gave him some sort of reply at this time, but were not able to support it with actual proof. Now, we are able and would like to give him a precise and factual answer to his remark.

It would be too lengthy to examine the life history of each individual who was executed or has been in prison since the Revolution. We would like simply to present to you the story of two persons who were condemned at the secret trial of Imre Nagy, as these were the very people who, according to the accusation, prepared and led the Revolution.

IMRE NAGY joined the Communist Party in 1917. Taken prisoner of war by the Russian Tsarist Army, he joined later the Red Army. He subsequently returned to Hungary and organised the peasants into a mass movement demanding land reform. The existing Hungarian Government sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment because of this activity. He left Hungary once again in 1930 and lived for fifteen years in the Soviet Union where he devoted his time completely to the agricultural sciences. In 1944, he drafted the plans of a land reform in Hungary which he implemented in 1945 as the Minister of Agriculture in the provisional Hungarian Government. The peasants called him: “The land distributing Minister”.

Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. However, the first and second secretaries of the DISZ Central Committee had to leave the cymp in a hurry. The present young people (whom the Party considered a gold reserve), fired questions at them about the political, economic and social condition of the country, which they were quite unable to withstand. The camp was prematurely dissolved.

Are Hungarian

An answer to

In 1948, he came into violent conflict with Mátyás Rákosi, who was already the central figure of the “cult of personality”, later to be harshly condemned by Khruschev. Nagy was deprived of his authority in 1949 and from then on he continued his work as Chief of the Faculty of Agriculture in the University of Public Economy. He was re-elected into the political Committee of the Communist Party in 1951 and was even appointed a member of its Secretariat. In 1952, he became again a member of the government and was subsequently appointed First Deputy Prime Minister to Rákosi. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he replaced Rákosi as Prime Minister and announced a new economic and political program. The Stalinist wing of the Party successfully sabotaged the execution of this program and even caused him to be deprived of his post as Prime Minister and to be deprived also of all of his remaining responsibilities and academic status. He was readmitted to the Party only at the beginning of October 1956, and it was the Revolution that put him at the head of the Government. He was executed immediately after the secret trial, on June 16th, 1958.

PAL MALETER. Became a sworn enemy of Fascism as a Soviet prisoner of war in 1944. As an officer of the

Independent youth organisation : MEFESZ

In October 1956, the DISZ called a student meeting at the University in Szeged with a view to reducing the growing tension. The students who congregated on the 17th of October strongly criticized the relationship between the DISZ and the Party and demanded the creation of a new politically independent youth organization. In view of the fact that since the war there existed no youth organizations free from political party influence, which could have enjoyed the

unanimous trust of young people, the meeting decided to resurrect the MEFESZ. Whereupon the student meeting of October 20th unanimously announced the formation of MEFESZ. The students of the University of Godollo, the students of the university of Pecs, of the Technical University of Architecture and transport of Budapest, and of the University of Sopron cabled their decision to join.

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