Hungary Shakes the Kremlin
BROWN, IRVING
By Irving Brown Hungary Shakes The Kremlin Uprising has weakened foundations of world Communism Paris THE HUNGARIAN Revolution must be seen in the light of events dating back to the 19th Soviet...
...These events can be summarized as follows: 1. The 19th Party Congress in effect acknowledged a retreat from the Soviet policy of aggression which had culminated in Korea and the start of a "new look"—directed, of course, by Stalin, who was still alive...
...Needless to say, it chose the latter course...
...In 1917, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia by demanding all power for the soviets, or workers' and peasants' councils...
...Or was it all prearranged with Moscow, since Nagy's presence in the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest interfered with Tito's desire to keep the Hungarian revolution within a Communist framework...
...At the same time, they hoped to transform their internal weakness into external strength by a foreign policy which played up the "new look" and "coexistence...
...When superior Soviet force finally crushed open resistance, the people turned, undaunted, to guerrilla warfare, the general strike and factory slowdowns...
...Today, the Kadar Government in Hungary represents no one but the Soviet Army...
...The controlled revolt had failed...
...Only the work councils organized in factories throughout the country express the national will...
...3. The 20th Party Congress, and especially Khrushchev's speech, went even further, proclaiming in effect the ideological bankruptcy of Communism during the Stalin regime...
...Instead, Khrushchev opened a veritable Pandora's box, releasing forces which far transcended mere anti-Stalinism and which now plague the entire Soviet Empire...
...In effect, this means a state of permanent revolt in Eastern Europe, with vast consequences for the Soviet Union itself...
...By Irving Brown Hungary Shakes The Kremlin Uprising has weakened foundations of world Communism Paris THE HUNGARIAN Revolution must be seen in the light of events dating back to the 19th Soviet Communist Party Congress in October 1952...
...This situation confronted Moscow with the alternatives of bowing to the will of the work councils and permitting the formation of a non-Communist government, or else suppressing the only force in Hungary with the power to govern...
...Moreover, his role in the Soviet kidnaping of Imre Nagy is a highly dubious one...
...Matters have developed to a point where an ideological vacuum has been created throughout the Communist world...
...Tito, after all, not only has gone along with the current Kadar regime but originally agreed to the old Stalinist Gero as successor to Rakosi...
...Further aided by the active or passive encouragement of many Soviet soldiers, Hungary carried its revolt far beyond the Polish "national Communist" stage when Premier Nagy was forced to promise not only the withdrawal of Russian troops but the end of the one-party system...
...The Kremlin leaders' intention must have been to get rid of as much ideological ballast as possible in order to maintain their power at home and in Eastern Europe...
...The Hungarian masses were able to assert their will because the Hungarian Army joined the uprising virtually in its entirety, thus making possible a full-scale assault on the regime...
...The Eastern European masses on all levels of society, though especially among the intellectual and working-class youth, have set about turning Khrushchev's admissions into an outright indictment of Communism—not only in its totalitarian Stalinist "perversion" but as a legitimate political regime in any form...
...what started as a tactical maneuver had become a fundamental challenge to Communism everywhere in the world...
...They alone, if Soviet troops were ever withdrawn, could maintain order and provide means for a transition to democratic government...
...The recent upheavals in Poland and Hungary have gone far beyond Khrushchev's original plan to discuss the "errors" of Stalinism while still valiantly defending Communism itself...
...For it was the 19th Congress that launched, however feebly, the process that was transformed and greatly accelerated by Stalin's death and Khrushchev's famous speech at the 20th Congress last February...
...In the meantime, certain "liberalizing'- concessions were made...
...In Hungary, 39 years later, they have come full circle...
...2. Stalin's death eliminated the single, unchallenged dictator and produced an unstable, constantly shifting struggle for power, with a "collective leadership" which sought eventually to establish something or someone authoritative enough to replace Stalin without changing fundamentally the nature of the totalitarian system...
...This may well have represented a deliberate deal between Khrushchev and Tito...
...The overthrow of Gero and the continuing resistance to the Soviet puppet Kadar showed the Hungarian people's determination to liquidate every brand of Communism, whether Soviet or Titoist...
...Could the shrewd Yugoslav dictator possibly have been duped by the Russians into delivering up Nagy...
...It is clear that the Kremlin hoped to stage, or at least permit, a kind of controlled revolt in Hungary—one which would produce a combination of "national Communism" and the Soviet-style "new look...
Vol. 40 • January 1957 • No. 2
