Organise! remembers the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
The Soviet army advanced into Eastern Europe in 1944. If certain people believed that this would lead to liberation, they were soon to be proved wrong. Not only was capitalism not abolished but the old fascist regimes, like those in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which had operated as willing junior partners of the Nazis, were maintained in a sense in that the old political structures were maintained. The personnel of the regimes were for the most part, kept in place. The Soviet leader Molotov remarked that above all "law and order had to be maintained to prevent the rise of anarchy"!
The new Hungarian government had at its head Bela Danolki-Miklos, a general decorated by Hitler and who had acted as go-between linking the Nazi regime and the fascist government of Admiral Horthy, who in 1919 had launched an horrendous White Terror against the first Hungarian Revolution.
Horthy, because of his Magyar nationalism, had proved to be an unsteady ally of Hitler, who had sent in a German occupying army.
Many Hungarians were stunned when a Nazi dignitary, who still recognized Horthy as the legitimate leader of the country, was put in place at the head of a government, with the window dressing of a few socialists and Communists.
The Soviet regime had an objective of controlling the country through setting up a Hungarian Communist Party divested of any elements who still dreamed of any real form of communism. The Party gained control of the Ministry of the Interior and its secret police, the AVO. In 1948 it got control of the Ministry of Defence. It chopped up the opposition by allying with one current against another. It used torture and murder and repression. The forces of repression were a curious mixture of the old scum of the Horthy regime and the new scum of the Communist Party.
HUNGARY BECOMES A RUSSIAN COLONY
Russia imposed severe reparations on Hungary which drove living standards down and led for a time to famine. Moscow demanded $300million in equipment and agricultural products. These went to Russia for the most part, the rest being sent to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Despite the repression of the AVO and the presence of the Red Army, the situation in Hungary became explosive. Moscow had to reduce its demands from 25% to 10% of national budget of Hungary spent on reparations.
Massive nationalizations led to an economy co-managed by the Hungarian government and the Soviet Union. Workers in nationalized industries suffered appalling conditions, based on piecework with rewards for higher productivity (Stakhanovism) with the lowest wages for the majority!
A long struggle between the working class and the new regime began in this period. Absenteeism and doing as little as possible at work were the main weapons of the working class. The regime denounced "lazy workers" and the falls in productivity and the bad quality of goods manufactured. In 1948 the Minister of Industry said: "The workers have adopted a terrorist attitude towards the directors of nationalized industries."
A law was passed forbidding workers to leave their workplace without permission.
At the same time from 1948 to 1950, the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe expelled from their ranks a large number of what they called supporters of "Titoism" (in Hungary, nearly 500,000 were expelled!)
In March 1953, Stalin died. Workers' revolts broke out in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia where a demonstration of Skoda workers and arms factory workers was savagely repressed. Two weeks later, the workers of East Berlin rose up, setting off revolts throughout East Germany viciously put down by Russian tanks.
The Soviet leadership had to adopt a new strategy. In Hungary this meant that the `hard' leader Rakosi was demoted and the `soft' Imre Nagy was appointed as Prime Minister. Several reforms were put through: light industries were revived, which hitherto had suffered at the expense of heavy industry which the USSR had needed, there was increased production of consumer products, individual peasants were given aid, and repression became less severe. The Kremlin hoped that this would quieten the Hungarian working class.
After Khrushchev came to power in the USSR, Nagy was dismissed and Rakosi put back in place. Most of the concessions put through in the last 20 months were taken away little by little. Pressure to increase reparations redoubled.
THE POLISH WORKERS REVOLT
On 28th June 1956 the workers of Poznan demonstrated demanding the withdrawal of the Russians, the end of piecework and `Bread and Freedom'. Again the revolt was brutally crushed.
In Hungary workers continued their struggles with a series of strikes. This encouraged intellectuals, artists, writers and students to put forward their demands. The Petofi Circle was founded by students in the Communist Youth organisation. This became an important centre for debate and discussion. At the same time underground pamphlets began to circulate, literary reviews appeared and semi-public meetings took place. Rakosi made an attempt to forbid these meetings but failed. He wanted a massive roundup, but the Soviets were fearful of things getting out of control and intervened to have Rakosi dismissed again. He was replaced by his right hand man, Gero.
This allowed the Writers Union to boot out all Rakosi supporters from its leadership, replacing them with dissidents and even non-Communists.
The regime tried to curry favour by exone