A Letter to Russian Writers

...It isn't only the intellectual circles that are now convulsed...

...In the evening, an agreement was signed to go back to work, but the government recognized the authority of the workers' council in running the factories and the latter reserved the right to take up the strike again in case the governmental promises were not kept...

...Thus, despite cold, hunger, arrests, the Hungarian working class has shown itself ready to die rather than yield on its essential demands...

...It seems to us that such a meeting and inquiry as we propose would constitute the best means of arriving at that complete truth whose pursuit remains our objective just as much as yours...

...In reality, that appeal was made by Geroe...

...To see only such facts is to fall into the same kind of error as found among us and which consists, for example, in claiming that since there are Communists who are fighting with Algerian nationalists, the uprising of the Algerian people is the work of Moscow...

...Don't you think that in a country which has lived for the past ten years under a "Peoples' Democracy" which had expropriated the big feudal landowners, and nationalized the major sectors of its economy, that the social and economic base for fascism was weakened in the extreme and that it was just about impossible to turn back so far as these essential conquests are concerned...

...the overwhelming majority of the workers in Western Europe condemns the attitude of your government...

...But it is of prime importance to fix the truth about this point...

...We are likewise ready to take part in a committee of inquiry which would go to Hungary to inform itself as completely and as rigorously as possible...

...On the very morning of the second Soviet intervention Pravda wrote, "The Hungarian people, its working class, and all true patriots will find within themselves the forces necessary to destroy reaction...

...But we are ready to meet with you in the country of your choice so as to pursue further this examination and debate, to confront our brief of the Hungarian drama with yours and to attempt to determine with you both the chain and hierarchy of responsibilities since the beginning of these events...

...and partly, in consequence, because our appreciation of the facts differs from yours: 1. We know, to be sure, that numerous reactionary elements profited from the popular insurrection to fight the socialist regime...

...But from this moment on a very heavy price will have to be paid in the West for the Soviet intervention...

...In our days, the camp of the "Popular Democracies" continued to extend and strengthen itself...

...We don't deny that in certain places where reactionary elements were dominant, Communist militants were victims of their violence...

...a role no less glorious than that it played when facing Hitler's armies...

...2. Tins is WHERE our elevation is opposed to yours...

...we are not unaware of the fact that Horthyist emigre circles abroad were very active...

...The tone of the reply, as the following excerpt should make clear, is likewise familiar: It seems to us that during these difficult days you believed in the calumnies, lies and misinformation about our country and its friends which werespread in France...

...The reply to the Russians given by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and the other signers of the original statement goes far beyond their previous stand...

...that is, less than two years after the October revolution when the new structure was barely constituted...

...You ask, what price must be paid for the mistakes made in Hungary...

...Your letter, however, has not convinced us...

...For all these reasons we cannot support your opinion and we must maintain the views of our original statement...

...We also cannot see in the Hungarian reactionaries any danger comparable to that represented by Hitler in 1939...

...We believe that should the Red Army now withdraw it could not be accused of retreating before fascism...

...it would withdraw before the united will of the Hungarian workers and would thus fulfill a role which is its...

...It was precisely during these days that you published your statement against us, calling for the "triumph of truth" when Soviet soldiers, at the sacrifice of their lives, were saving dozens and perhaps even hundredsof lives from fascist terror...

...That is why it appears to us that you, for your part, do not possess the complete truth you ask us to examine, and that your government itself has without doubt been badly informed of the real conditions, since you admit it did not help the Hungarian leaders to repudiate their errors in time...

...Generally speaking, it seemed to us that TASS agency information and Pravda articles tended to exaggerate grossly certain facts, without always offering proof, and to give a unilateral—that is to say, a deformed—interpretation...

...It was indeed this first arrival of troops that succeeded in exasperating minds already overexcited by the October 23rd speech of Geroe, that transformed the demon...

...Here are two examples: a) The Soviet troops, stationed in Hungary in conformity with the Warsaw Pact, were withdrawn from Budapest—so you say—as soon as requested to by the then government of Imre Nagy which, in the first place, had itself insisted that these same Soviet troops come to its aid...

...We also know that these same Hungarian emigres actively participated at the side of our own fascists in the attack on the Communist Party headquarters [in Paris (an attack which all of us condemned...

...We believe that such a task not only was within the measure of its forces but, by right, belonged to it, with all the accompanying risks and sacrifices...

...In your justification of armed intervention isn't there an underestimation of the popular forces at work and a lack of confidence regarding the capacity for struggle of the masses...

...In fact, the return of Imre Nagy was passionately awaited by the whole Hungarian people...

...The working class again finds itself profoundly divided...

...As for us, we believe that a working class which is today capable of maintaining its demands with such a fierce...

...The contents of the Russian reply are familiar enough and rest upon the charge that "Hungarian fascists" had seized control of the nation, making Soviet intervention a justified step...

...strations of the masses into a true insurrection and made it possible for reactionary elements to enter the battle under the guise of a nationalist reflex, always very strong in Hungary...

...partly because several of your observations seem to us neither sufficiently well-grounded nor complete enough...

...we present it in its entirety (omitting only the opening paragraph which, noting this is the first time that Russian writers have engaged in a real debate with foreign colleagues, expresses the hope the discussion will continue...

...We believe that only the Hungarian workers, peasants, soldiers and intellectuals could advance a socialist regime adapted to their country's conditions and we profoundly regret that the Soviet troops, finding it impossible to distinguish between the population and reactionary insurrectionists, striking blindly at the right and at the left, have seriously compromised this experience and hope...

...a deluge followed, indicating a major crisis in the ranks of France's Communistinspired and influenced intellectuals...

...in the first days of the Hungarian Revolution, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Vercors and 19 other well-known French writers and intellectuals associated with the Communist movement produced a statement which, timidly and with much circumlocution, nevertheless questioned the Russian intervention...

...b) We think that both the Soviet journals and the Communist press minimize in the extreme the participation of the popular masses and a large section of the Communist Party in these events (as if only a few discontented workers had been deceived by the Horthyites), and maintain silence on the socialist character of the workers', soldiers', peasants', and students' councils...

...energy and under such destitution, would have been quite capable, along with the soldiers' councils, of subduing its own fascists and maintaining order in the country...

...You seem to be unaware of the fact that Imre Nagy formally denied having called for Soviet aid at the very moment he took power...

...A group of Russian writers, including M. Sholokhov, K. Fedyn and the inevitable Ilya Ehrenbourg, replied in a letter published by the Soviet Literaturnaia Gazeta on November 22...

...The letter follows...

...we believe that these same circles nursed the hope of a restoration of the former regime and that they strove continued on page 95 continued from page 2 to bring about such a restoration, encouraged by certain American groups which, however, at the decisive moment did not dare support them effectively...

...Cautious though it was, this statement broke the ice...

...Not only does it indicate the profound crisis caused by the Hungarian revolt, but also the progress being made by significant intellectual voices engaged in the difficult task of breaking out of the darkness in which they have too long lived...

...we were acquainted with Mindszenty's speech...

...In this respect, the Hungarian situation seems to us quite different from that of the Ukraine in 1919...

...Don't you know that it was the worker's centers of Budapest, and particularly those of Csepel, which were the last to depose their arms...

...There were thousands and tens of thousands of Szigatisl Even today, when the insurrection has been crushed and there can no longer be any question of fascism in Hungary, what subsists among the ruins is the workers' resistance with which the Kadar government is obliged to negotiate...

...We particularly believe that they cannot be separated and isolated from the whole political context which is vastly different otherwise and which consists of essentially positive elements...

...Even at Gyoer, which has been presented to us as a center of fascist dissidence, the old Communist militant, Attila Szigati, head of the workers' council, stated to a reporter: "We want real socialism and the departure of the Russians...

...in the French CGT unity was safeguarded only to the extent that regional committees avoided taking any position on the Budapest events...

...In replying to Geroe's appeal, the Soviet troops might have thought that they were answering the people's call, but in fact, that appeal was only the tragic crowning of the whole sequence of mistakes which you denounce in the beginning of your letter...

...But all the documents which have come to us show that terror was directed chiefly against the detested functionaries of the secret police, guilty of innumerable exactions and tortures...

...in a word, we do not deny the existence of a reactionary danger in the Hungarian events, but we doubt that these facts assume the significance you accord them...

...Yesterday morning, November 23, the general strike for the eight points demanded by the population was resumed, upon order of the Workers' Councils...

...we want no truck with the former Horthy regime...