Verhovayak Lapja, 1955 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1955 / Verhovay Journal

February 16, 1955

Verhovay Journal

PAGE 9

TENSIONS WITHIN THE SOVIET CAPTIVE COUNTRIES HUNGARY

Prepared at the Request of the Committee on Foreign Relations By the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress

Presented by ALEXANDER WILEY

Wisconsin, Chairman, Committee of Foreign Relations .

(In Serial Form Here)

(Continuation)

THE FARCE OF

Besides continued Communist frustration, suppression of the free expression of the popular will constitutes another disruptive factor in Red Hungary. On January 29, 1949, there was created the Hungarian Independence People’s Front, an organization servile- to the interests of the Communists and inimical to the in ■ terests of the large mass of Hungarians. To be sure, parliamentary elections were held on May 15, 1949; and one could vote; but there was no choice, for the People’s Front tolerated only one list of candidates. Still in 1949, candidates were indentified according to names of the previous parties. In the subsequent elections of May 17, 1953, and of November 28, 1954, however, even these references to the former political parties were dropped. The last vestiges of the old party system were obliterated.

Elections in Communist Hungary are preceded by an intensive propaganda campaign. Before the May 17, 1953, elections not less than 450,000 people’s educators were sent out, twothirds of whom were party members. Charged with the task of explaining what could not be reasonably explained, that is to say, that an “election” was to take place, these people’s educators carried their campaign of “educational” propaganda to the people. On April 22, 1953, Radio Budapest described the work of the people’s educators in this manner:

In the village of Elek 220 People’s Educators were engaged in the electoral campaign. They have found that the people were temporarily misled by hostile propaganda and

RED ELECTIONS

asked: “What kind of democratic

election is this where there are no opposition candidates? Those whom the Communists appoint will be elected anyway because there is no opposition.” The People’s Educator explained to these people that “the opposition now consists of kulaks, elements of clerical reaction, and hostile remnants of the past regime.”

The reception which some people’s educators received from those to be “enlightened” v/as anything but cordial. Four days before the election Szabad Nép, the Communist daily, reported:

Mrs. F. G., a nonparty, member, came back front her circuit weeping. “I shall not continue being a People’s Educator,” she wept. “People shouted at me: Woman, go back to the kitchen, politics are not for you.” But the party secretary sent her back to agitate and told her: “You cannot leave your work; in such a case the reactionaries would win.” So she returned.

That the electoral machinery was rigidly supervised is made clear by the following testimony of a recent escapee from Hungary who had taken part in the May 17, 1953, election. This Hungarian declared:

We did not elect; we only voted. The minute one entered the votingplace, they took away the ballot slip, put it in an envelope and into the ballot box. Nobody tried to enter the voting booth or to sign or mark down anything. The ballot slips were numbered. When the votes were cast, they took down each number; consequently they could easily find out who had not turned in his ballot.

DOWNTOWN CHICAGO

j ou are looking at the business and shopping center on State Street. This section will delight our window shopping Verhovay women who will find it quite convenient to see the heart of Chicago. Remember both the headquarters hotel and the bowling alleys are in the downtown area.

V/hat appeared to be on the surface placid and calm soon gave indications to the contrary after the demise of Stalin. Distrustful of official reports on Stalin’s death, the people listened to broadcasts from the West with greater interest than ever before. In the journal of the Association of Hungarian Writers, Imre Sarkadi relates a story about a Communist town council president who had begun his tour of a district

in the early morning knowing of Stalin’s illness but not of his death. He saw long queues before the cooperative for bread: he heard the bitter complaints of commuting workers at the station; and he saw the inefficient work of the agricultural cooperatives. At the end of the day this official had to flee from angry farmers who had heai'd about Stalin's death through Voice of America, and surrounding him, threatened his life.

THE “NEW COURSE” IN HUNGARY

The extent to which the regime was cognizant of widespread popular discontent was strikingly demonstrated by the announcement on July 4, 1953 by the new Prime Minister. Imre Nagy, of a revised economic policy within the framework of a socalled “new course.” But this move failed to produce the expected effect. During the summer of 1953 uncertainty and anxiety gripped even those who had previously hitched their wagon to the red star of communism. In subdued conversations, confidential correspondence, and restless behavior this attitude found unfeigned expression. Sándor Csoóri wrote to one anxious correspondent:

Are you also tormented by the worm of doubt? No, this cannot be true. Do you also believe in our better future? About what are you so concerned? Do you expect our motto to be destroyed by the heartless and blind?

Writers, poets, journalists of the fellow-traveler type, and other adherents of communism were manifestly disconcerted when the “new course” was announced. Pál Szabó, peasant writer and prominent Communist intellectual, satirically described this momentary panic among Hungary’s Communist intellectual elite when he commented: .

After the announcement of the new Minister President, the Writers’ Association was stirred up like a hornets nest. Some fell into a kind of self-criticism, others began to try to change their course to either the right or left, others pretended naive innocence as if to say: “I am just a poor writer. I have done nothing wrong. I just wrote what was demanded of me by the party.” There were, of course, other quite different reactions, also. A few days later, when Comrade Rákosi made another speech explaining the change, the turmoil subsided and the writers regained their confidence.

Anxiety among the Communist elite. of Hungary caused by announcement of the "new course” in the summer of 1953 was matched by increased agitation although of a different type among the common people in towns and villages. Particularly during the second week of July 1953 and thereafter the people of the villages responded energetically to the uncertainty brought about by the shifting scene. Tensions hitherto latent emerged, taking the form of visible movements of resistance and opposition. Proposals were made to disband the cooperatives, to distribute livestock among individual members, and to return to the old individual methods of farming. Confusion was so widespread that at the midpoint of the harvest season the collection of crops was seriously threatened. Furthermore, Szabad Föld, a weekly newspaper of the Communist Party, reported in July and August 1953 numerous instances where the so-called antidemocratic elements — that is to say the anticommunist elements — within the agricultural cooperatives tried to withdraw and sometimes even succeeded in winning over the majority before the local Communist Party secretary was able to intervene and “correct” the situation. In such instances, local party organizations, together with Communist sympathizers, incited by local party secretaries, branded the dissidents "reactionaries” and treated them harshly. As a result, the bipolarization of the community was practically complete.

In addition, factory workers wha in the past had been small farmers and agricultural workers (both categories are intermingled in Hungary) began to return to their former lands. So threatening was this back to-the-farm movement that the Government issued strict orders to the effect that laborers from the coal and bauxite mines, metallurgical

A PUPPET PARLIAMENT

Occupational representation in the Hungarian Parliament has been considerably altered as a result of Communist interference in national elections. Membership of industrial workers has been increased far out of proportion from 57 to 188 representatives, or from 14 to 41 percent. On the other hand, the intelligentsia and the free professions have been reduced from 192 to 96 representatives. The proportion of farmers has remained constant, about 30 percent. Although up to the year 1947 these farmer representatives, independent with few exceptions, were freely elected, in the past two elections they were handpicked by the Communist Party from the ranks of the Kolkhoz officials. Thus, they lost their independence and have become mere puppets or servile servants of the regime.

In the forced absence of opposition pai-ties the sessions of the Hungarian Parliament last only a few days. A parliament without real power, a shadow legislative body without the substance of a living parliamentary organism, the Hungarian Parliament has done and continues to do little more than give its passive acceptance of the proposals, budget estimates, and announcements from the Government. In the eyes of the general public the sessions of the Parliament are held in no greater esteem than the so-called elections. Unlike democratic nations where the legislature has become a vital instrument in voicing and effecting the popular will, the Hungarian Parliament under the present regime is only a shallow facade concealing, albeit, superficially, the arbitrary acts of an oppressive government.

Notwithstanding the severity of Communist oppression in the Hungarian police state, the people have found outlets for expressing their deep discontent, and thus have made manifest in a number of ways thendissatisfaction with the regime. Increased church attendance; aiding “enemies” of the regime; carrying on sabotage through absenteeism; slowing down production and delaying ci’op deliveries; disseminating anti-Communist material and spreading information received from foreign radio news; and, finally, escaping to the West — all are concrete manifestations of resistance to the regime among Hungarians.