Aftermath in Hungary

...The entire people participated [and] turned only against the oppressing foreign army and their gangs of local henchmen," he wrote...

...When the rebels continued sporadic fighting, the Soviet Army was allowed to eliminate them without external interference...

...Passive resistance was only gradually broken by mass arrests and trials of "counter-revolutionaries...

...But Bib...

...Now world leaders such as the Pope and Secretary-General U Thant, alarmed by the threat of war in Asia, are raising their voices for a reconciliation between East and West in order to avoid a new world conflict...

...Restoration of the dictatorship started gradually in the early months of 1957...

...I call upon you," he said, "to use every means of passive resistance...

...Contending that the Hungarian Revolution had made freedom the central political issue throughout Eastern Europe, Djilas also repudiated the "slander that the glorious Hungarian Revolution was stained by Fascist or anti-Semitic excesses...

...urged the Hungarian people not to surrender their gains...

...The peasants fed the city dwellers and railwaymen transported refugees to the Western frontier...

...The draft was designed for adoption by a Constituent Assembly of the revolutionary councils and, even though no such assembly could be held, served for months as the basis for revolutionary activities...

...The country lost not only 20,000 dead and 200,000 refugees but unborn babies in the hundreds of thousands, which made Hungary the world leader in abortions and put it at the bottom of the statistics of demographic growth...

...In attempting to avoid the next world war, however, it would be well not to forget the unsettled problems of the past one...

...Adopted with minor amendments by all revolutionary organizations, the Proposal became the basis for the negotiations conducted both in Hungary on the local level and in Moscow by the Indian Ambassador, mediating for the revolutionaries...

...THE FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARY CONSTITUTION Aftermath in Hungary By Janos Toth The Hungarian Revolution is remembered 10 years later primarily as a flare of gallant rebellion extinguished quickly and brutally by Soviet tanks and troops while the West stood by...

...The new Constitution anticipated all the advances achieved since then in other Eastern European countries...

...Within the limits imposed by strict anti-exploitation measures and by nationalization of leading industries, the maintenance of free enterprise, private property and peasant farm ownership were guaranteed...

...draft...

...The expected Soviet compromise would have made the Bib...

...What else was still needed if all this was not enough to force a great power conference which, by giving sufficient guarantees to the Soviet Union, could bargain for the freedom and independence of Hungary...

...was left alone, "the only representative of the legal Hungarian government...

...himself was not arrested until May 27...

...that reached the West from his prison in 1957, and was first published in the Vienna newspaper Die Presse...

...Since political power was no longer at his disposal, Bib...

...The third meant a painful recognition that there was no hope of escaping foreign domination...

...A nation of 10 million reduced its life to subsistence...

...The newly established government installed in Parliament by Soviet armored cars and lacking administrative machinery, was heeded only in its international declarations...

...The Hungarian nation has sacrificed enough blood," Bib...

...The second, in 1945, brought Soviet occupation...

...A key to the impact of the Revolution can be found in a paper written by Bib...

...decided on the technique of passive resistance to preserve the revolutionary gains...

...wrote, "to show the world her attachment to freedom and justice...

...The seat of national sovereignty had not been, perhaps, quite so empty as Bib...

...Until the end of 1956 revolutionaries in Hungary simply could not believe that the Soviet Union would not eventually yield to the combined pressure of world opinion and widespread passive resistance...

...modesty suggested...

...The secret police and Special Tribunals were ordered to dispose of all resistance...

...In this capacity, he issued a series of statements and proclamations that together provided the ideology of the Hungarian Revolution, and in fact foreshadowed the ideology of the entire postwar liberalization in Eastern Europe...

...appealed in vain...

...the Kadar regime was appointed on May 7 by a Parliament elected under the Stalinist regime four years before and reconvened for this purpose...

...Now it is the turn of the world powers to uphold the principles of the UN Charter...

...By providing for a multi-party system, this draft went" beyond even the Yugoslav Socialist Constitution of 1963, which closely resembles the Bib...

...He also knew that revolutions -if they are to transcend their own violence-must pass through a second phase after the liberation phase Hungary underwent from October 23 to November 4: The freedom violently won must be institutionally secured...

...turned his appeals to the people of the world, particularly to an extraordinary session of the General Assembly then discussing "the Hungarian problem...

...The Hungarians responded with a general strike that lasted two months and stopped production and transport throughout the country...

...If the Hungarian Revolution was later disparaged in the West as 'initially hopeless,' this did not result from its own foolhardiness but by its getting let down," Bib...

...Summing up Hungary's goals in this century, he said "Hungary has no intention of pursuing an anti-Soviet policy, but wants to live fully in the community of East European free nations...

...One measure of progress should shine in the world's memory: the accomplishment of the Hungarian Revolution...

...declared, "could have been quickly stopped by the newly formed government [of Imre Nagy...

...knew very well that the Russians would try to efface the Revolution from the memory of the nation and the world by denouncing it as a criminal rebellion without moral, legal or historical justification...

...Constitution the Constitution of sovereign Hungary...

...Attempting to get the country back to work, it had to negotiate with the workers' councils where the local power remained, and the councils did not compromise...

...Janos Toth, a participant in the Revolution, left Hungary in 1957...

...He is now teaching law in Geneva...

...On November 9, Bib??, an author of the 1946 Constitution, submitted his draft constitution, "Proposal for the Solution of the Hungarian Problem...

...The first, in 1918, left only onethird of the national territory...

...Bib...

...Frustration seemed to penetrate even to the national subconscious...

...It is possible that a bigger uprising might break out sometime in Eastern Europe, but most unlikely that another country will produce such a perfect legal, political and moral case for its freedom...

...Nagy was tried secretly and executed in June 1958...

...Then Bib...

...Hungary was affirmed to be a democratic socialist republic, with a parlimentary government under laws that safeguarded all fundamental rights, including free association and freedom of conscience and religion...

...He began with an official government declaration to propitiate the Soviet Union and assert the peaceful Socialist objectives of the revolt...

...But a conference in January 1957 in Budapest, convening the leaders of the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Rumania, ended all hope for a democratic or constitutional outcome...

...The popular justice which we experienced for a few days on the streets as well as the unarmed appearance of old conservative forces," Bib...

...Lest the Hungarian Revolution meet the fate of so many of its European predecessors and succumb to its own anarchic terror, this professor of law and political science drafted a constitution and initiated a national campaign of passive resistance in its behalf-even while, as he described it, "The guns roared invasion, the white flag on the House of Parliament announced surrender, and Soviet soldiers were taking possession of the empty seat of national sovereignty...

...also denounced Russian allegations of Fascism and terror in the Revolution...

...Although Prime Minister Imre Nagy had been captured by the Russians when he went to their embassy to negotiate, three ministers of state had attended a Cabinet meeting at the House of Parliament on the morning of November 4. Two departed after the building was surrounded by troops and Istv??n Bib...

...Sentenced to life imprisonment in a secret trial, he was released as a very ill old man during the amnesty in 1963...

...Milovan Djilas, former Vice President of Yugoslavia, pointed to the same historical fact in his article published in the November 19, 1956 New Leader...

...The country was limited to its own resources of courage and will as it continued passive resistance under the leadership of the revolutionary and workers' councils...

...As the councils sought a negotiated settlement without compromising on essentials, this document gave coherence to the struggle and articulated its aims...

...The crushing of the Revolution was the third national disaster for the Hungarians in 40 years and the most shattering one...

...Bib...

...By the time of the foreign intervention, the consolidation of newly won freedom was proceeding rapidly and Bib...

...In these months of struggle, the Revolution was to a degree institutionalized...

...Beyond the violence, gallantry and outrage, however, a little known Hungarian professor and populist leader, Istv??n Bib??, was giving a less dramatic but no less historic dimension to his nation's ordeal...

...Bib...

...stated...