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Title: The Hungarian Revolution 1956
Author: Rod Jones
Date: 1984
Language: en
Topics: Hungary, council communism, general strike, uprising, revolution, anti-Bolshevism
Source: Retrieved on 30th August 2020 from https://libcom.org/library/hungarian-revolution-1956-scorcher-publications

Rod Jones

The Hungarian Revolution 1956

Before October....

“It’s all a load of shit, that’s what it is!”[1] This accurate

description of Hungarian socialism in the early ‘fifties came from a

worker in prison, overheard by a Communist intellectual locked up during

a purge. This rare contact with a worker, and even rarer contact with

what workers thought of the ‘workers’ state* helped this particular

intellectual to lose his “faith in Marxism”. As the saying went about

prisons in Hungary, “We are a three-class society — those who have been

there, those who axe there, and those who are heading there.” The large

number of workers in prison, either for political offences or for theft,

showed up the system: even Imre Nagy, the watered-down Stalinist

entrusted by Moscow in 1953 to liberalise Hungary (that is, to hold the

workers in check) had to admit by December 1955 that “the most alarming

fact is that the majority of those convicted are industrial workers”.

[2]

Theft was a necessity for workers to compensate for socialist living

standards. These had dropped by 17–20% in the years 1949–53 as a result

of an idiotic ‘Five-Year Plan’ devoted to heavy industry and steelworks

in a largely agricultural country with no iron ore or coking coal. [3]

Similarly, the imposition of co-operatives on unwilling peasants led to

a fall in their meagre incomes, and 1952 saw the worst ever yields in

Hungarian agriculture. Official statistics revealed that while 15% of

the population was above the ‘minimum* standard of living, 30% were on

it and 55% below. A day’s pay for a state farm worker wouldn’t buy a

kilo of bread; in 15% of working-class families not everyone had a

blanket; one in every five workers had no winter coat. [4]

In these conditions, thieving from the state and ‘beating the system*

were the things to do to survive. No moral stigma attached to them at

all, rather, everyone was at it to relieve their poverty. Pilfering and

spontaneous sabotage went together with high labour turnover (often as

local managements got rid of ‘troublemakers’), waste in factories,

futile planning and falsified output figures to meet ridiculous

production targets. Workers had to do unpaid overtime to ‘celebrate’

anniversaries that the Party of Hungarian Workers (MDP) designated as

great occasions. Home businesses thrived on materials taken from work;

copper was stolen from shipyards; a buyer at a Budapest hospital

complained “Nowadays even nailing it down is no guarantee against

theft”. In the state stores, staff would cheat customers and sell short

weight, except to relatives and friends. Butter was rarely seen in shops

as it was prepacked and weighed, it offered no scope for fiddling, and

so wasn’t ordered much by shops.

Workers and peasants went beyond theft, absenteeism and what the MDP

leadership liked to call ‘laziness’ and ‘wage-swindling’. The third

banner in the official procession on May Day 1953 proclaimed “Glory to

the immortal Stalin, star which guides us towards freedom, socialism and

peace”. Seven weeks later the workers of East Berlin rioted for their

vision of freedom and were quickly put down by Russian tanks. 20,000

workers went on strike at the Rakosi iron and steel works in Budapest’s

Csepel district against low pay, production norms and food shortages.

There were wildcat strikes in Diosgyor, and mass peasant demonstrations

in the countryside. To avoid further outbreaks, Russia ordered a change

of leadership and a. change of policy.

Matyas Rakosi, who styled himself “Stalin’s Hungarian disciple” but was

more popularly referred to as ‘arsehole’ by Hungarian workers, was

required to make way for Imre Nagy, who had managed not to be involved

in the purges and generalised terror of the late ‘forties. His ‘new

course* outlined in late June 1953 was designed to ease the load on the

workers and peasants, produce higher living standards, end the

internment camps and turn the economy away from heavy industry. Because

he was opposed by the hard-line Stalinists around Rakosi and Brno Cero,

Nagy is presented by some as popular and liberal. In fact he was much

like the rest. After Stalin’s death, he talked of him as the “great

leader of all humanity”; the whole Stalinist era was a period of “trial

and error”. In late 1954 Nagy felt able to say “We have created a new

country, and a happy and free life for the people”; meanwhile Rakosi and

Gero argued that workers’ living standards were too high.

Although Nagy may have felt that the removal of some of Stalinism’s

worst features constituted a ‘free life’, his ‘liberalism’ was met by

even more absenteeism, indiscipline and slacking by workers. A typical

Nagy speech from that period shows why. “The production results of the

third quarter show that, if the labour drive to mark these elections is

carried out with the same enthusiasm and vigour as the revolutionary

shift that was worked in honour of the Great Socialist October

Revolution, and if management and workers can get the same improvement

in worker discipline — in which there are still grave deficiencies — as

in production, then MAVAG will be able to take its place amongst the

ranks of the elite plants.”.[5] No amount of apologetics can cover up

the straightforward capitalist content of such a speech.

Workers’ cynicism spread outside the workplace: in 1954 there were three

days of rioting after the World Cup final defeat by West Germany in the

belief that the game had been thrown for hard currency. Games of any

kind against Russia were rarely without trouble. The MDP sent

intellectuals and writers out into the country at large during 1953 to

explain Nagy’s ‘new course’: for most it was a first sight of the

miserable conditions of the peasants and workers. They soon found out

that the ‘toiling masses’ had little time for the Literary Gazette or

for ‘building socialism’. A young Communist commented “The workers hated

the regime to such an extent that by 1953 they were ready to destroy it

and everything that went with it.”

Workers expressed this themselves: “The workers did not believe in

anything the communists promised them, because the communists had

cheated their promises so often.” A worker from the Red Star Tractor

factory: “Under Communism, we should have a share in governing Hungary,

but instead we’re the poorest people in the country. We’re just regarded

as factory fodder.” Another worker: “The Communists nationalised all the

factories and similar enterprises, proclaiming the slogan, ‘The factory

is yours — you work for yourself.’ Exactly the opposite of this was

true.”

Among the students the peasants’ and workers’ sons were most prepared to

speak their minds. They were more insolent than the middle-class ones.

They were also less likely to engage in abstract ideological discussions

but stuck to concrete issues — like food shortages. Disillusion and

anti-communism were widespread amongst Hungarian youth. “We spoke less

about political subjects, but if we did, we were cursing the Russians,

that was most of the time what it amounted to.” “We were the first

generation that was not scared. After all we had nothing to lose and we

also had the feeling that we couldn’t bear this for an entire life.”

Discontent and workers’ opposition thus existed long before 1956.

However, the American assessment in December 1953 by an army attaché was

that “There are no organised resistance groups in Hungary; the

population does not now, nor will they in the future, have the capacity

to resist actively the present regime;”. With a similar attitude, the

Russian leader Krushchev thought that if he’d had ten Hungarian writers

shot at the right moment, nothing would have happened. A week before the

revolt a reader’s letter to the Literary Gazette complained about the

uselessness of the intellectuals’ debates: “The working class is, and

will remain, politically passive for good, and uninterested in such

hair-splitting...and without them what good can we do?” [6] However, a

Yugoslavian political analyst was more perceptive, commenting nine days

before the uprising, “People refuse to live in the old way, nor can the

leadership govern in the old way. Conditions have been created for an

uprising.” The AVH (‘Allamvedelmi Hatosag’, State Security Force) sensed

trouble toot they and the Russian troops garrisoned in Hungary were put

on alert five days before October 23^(rd).

Much has been made of the dissatisfaction of Communist writers and

intellectuals and their supposed leading role in the revolution. The

intellectuals’ programme was only a criticism of Stalinism. Their

‘Petofi Circle’ debating club wanted orderly reform and a change in the

leadership (because the Stalinists Rakosi and Gero had returned to power

replacing Bagy, now out of public life altogether). The Petofi Circle

did not encourage the revolt: it considered that precipitate actions

could lead to a catastrophe. They were seen by workers as Communists and

supporters of the regime. Nagy became a focus for this kind of

‘opposition’, which favoured working through MDP channels, and was

certainly against demonstrations. Most of these people came out against

the uprising: two such journalists thought that the crowds behaved “like

idiots” on October 23^(rd). One writer though, Gyula Hay, was honest

enough to see who was stirring up who: “I am perfectly willing to accept

that it was not I who awoke the spirit of freedom in youth: on the

contrary, it was youth who pushed me towards it.” Workers started to

take an interest in what the writers were getting up to in mid-September

1956, when a meeting of the Writers’ Union saw the Stalinists defeated

in elections. A Literary Gazette account of that meeting sold 70,000

copies in half an hour. Such a rebuff to the authorities was bound to be

of interest now.

The occasion of the reburial of a rehabilitated Cominunist, Laszlo Rajk,

a victim of an earlier purge, was used by workers to demonstrate en

masse. Some 200,000 attended in the rain on October 6^(th): an observer

commented “perhaps if it had not rained, there would have been a

revolution that day,” There had been no difference between Rajk and

Rakosi politically, personal rivalry resulting in Rajk’s trial and

execution as a ‘Titoist fascist’. The workers’ ‘support’ for Rajk’s

rehabilitation was purely symbolic: on the other side of the coin, a top

Communist said that “if Rajk could have seen this mob he would have

turned machine guns on to them.” The same day 2–300 students marched

away after the burial using the slogan, “We won’t stop halfway,

Stalinism must be destroyed” Despite shouting this, the students weren’t

stopped by the police, who assumed that any kind of demonstration must

be an official one.

October 23rd

It was the students who were responsible for the event that sparked off

the inevitable. On October 16^(th) students in Szeged had broken away

from the official organisation and set up a new association. They sent

delegates countrywide to encourage similar breaks. By the 22^(nd) there

were similar groups in most of the universities and large schools. News

had reached Budapest of events in Poland, where the Soviet army had

encircled Warsaw as the Polish Communist Party changed its leadership

under pressure from below. A meeting at the Polytechnic in Budapest

resolved to march on the 23^(rd) in support of sixteen demands. These

included support for the Polish struggle for freedom; the removal of

Soviet troops; the election of MDP officials; a new government under

Imre Nagy; a general election; “the complete reorganisation of Hungary’s

economic life under the direction of specialists”; the right to strike;

the “complete revision of the norms in effect in industry and an

immediate and radical adjustment of salaries in accordance with the just

requirements of workers and intellectuals”; and a free press and radio.

[7]

This mixed bag of demands could not even have begun to be met by the

regime — therein lay its explosive potential. Yet underlying the demands

was the all-too-common illusion that what had been mismanaged by ‘bad’

leaders could be rectified by ‘good’ leaders elected to replace them.

The element of naivety was compounded by the way the students asked

workers for support but not for them to strike; they wanted a silent

march only. The Interior Ministry banned the march, which made more

people resolve to go. The ban was lifted after the march went ahead

anyway. Although the march started silently as the students wished, it

became more militant as workers off the morning shift joined in after 4

o’clock. The early slogans of support for the Poles were overtaken by

shouts for freedom and “Russians go home.’” Someone cut the communist

symbol out of a national flag and the flag of the revolution made its

first appearance — red, white and green with a hole in the middle. More

people left work to join a demonstration that they weren’t forced to

take part in; soldiers were sympathetic and joined in too.

By dusk there were 200,000 people (about one-sixth of the v/hole

population of Budapest) in Parliament Square. The authorities turned off

the lights, whereupon newspapers and government leaflets were set

alight. The crowd demanded that Imre Nagy speak to them, but by the time

he turned up the mood had gone beyond listening calmly to speeches.

Appalled by the sight of so many people and by the flags with holes,

Nagy made the mistake of starting with the word ‘Comrades!’ This was

greeted with boos and shouts of “We’re no longer comrades!” The people

had already rejected the whole HDP, not just the Stalinists the

‘oppositionists’ were too moderate. The disappointment with Hagy turned

into positive talk of a strike, and a crowd of youths marched to the

Radio building.

At 8 o ‘clock there was an official broadcast by Erno Gero in which he

said: “We condemn those who seek to instill in our youth the poison of

chauvinism and to take advantage of the democratic liberties that our

state guarantees to the workers to organise a nationalist

demonstration..” [8] This did nothing to calm the situation. The crowd

outside the Radio demanded access, with microphones in the street “so

that the people can express their opinions.” A delegation was taken in

by the AVH to the Radio boss, Mrs Benke: she checked their ID cards and

found they were workers from the long machinery plant and an arms

factory. Similarly, Kopacsi, the Budapest police chief, questioned some

youths picked up on the demonstration and discovered they were factory

workers, some with Party cards.

When the delegation failed to reappear, the Radio building was attacked

and defended: at about 9 o’clock the first shots were fired with many

dead and wounded. The crowd had got weapons from sympathetic police and

soldiers before the AVH’s first shots, and as the news spread, workers

from the arsenals brought more. The revolution had now started in

earnest. An observer felt that “it was at Stalin’s statue that the

workers of Budapest appeared on the scene.” When the crowd had trouble

getting it down, two workers fetched oxy-acetylene gear to cut it down.

The boots remained on the plinth, with a road sign saying ‘Bead End’

stuck on them. Hungarian troops were greeted as friends and allies by

the crowds; workers were arriving from Csepel in lorries with

ammunition. Arms factories were raided and the telephone exchange taken.

The authorities called on the sappers in a nearby barracks, and told

them that fascists had risen against the government. The sappers were

met by workers who told them the truth. More sappers arrived to defend

the HDF’s Central Committee HQ. When they saw, for the first time, the

luxury of the accommodation there, and realised that the crowds were

ordinary Hungarians, they went back to their barracks, changed out of

uniform and elected a revolutionary council. By midnight ‘spectators’

were leaving the scene and the armed workers of Csepel and Ujpest were

taking their place. The battle for the Radio building went on all night:

it was finally taken at nine in the morning.

The mass, revolutionary character of the Hungarian uprising “was

established within hours. “The Hungarian uprising was the personal

experience of millions of men and women, and therefore of no one in

particular, just like the Paris Commune or other mass revolts.” 9 The

casualty lists in the hospitals showed that it was young workers in

particular who did most of the fighting. A doctor commented! “There was

any number of youngsters amongst the fighters who knew nothing about the

Petofi Circle or who for that matter hadn’t even heard of it, to whom

Gomulka’s name was equally unknown, and who replied to the question as

to why they had risked their lives in the fighting with such answers as,

‘Well, is it really worth living for 600 forints a month?” A student

noticed the same thing: “It is touching that it was the hooligans of

Ferencvaros who created ethics out of nothing during the revolution.”

The participants knew why they were fighting: “We wanted freedom and not

a good comfortable life. Even though we might lack bread and other

necessities of life, we wanted freedom. We, the young people, were

particularly hampered because we were brought up amidst lies. We

continually had to lie.” The character of the uprising was distinctive

in that it had a clear direction without a ‘leadership*. The United

Nations Committee investigating it was told by a Hungarian professor of

philosophy, “It was unique in history that the Hungarian revolution had

no leaders. It was not organised; it was not centrally directed. The

will for freedom was the moving force in every action.” The same point

is well made by two fighters: “There was no organisation whatsoever,

consequently there was no discipline either, but there was astonishingly

good teamwork.” “Some people got together, fought, went home, then

others came and continued the fight.”

The first tasks of the rebels involved seizing the telephone exchanges,

requisitioning lorries, attacking garages, barracks and arsenals,

getting arms and ammunition above all else. Then barricades and molotov

cocktails were made to face the Soviet tanks that entered Budapest

shortly after four in the morning of the 24^(th). Russian troops had

moved into action before the Hungarian authorities, in emergency

meetings all night, called for their ‘fraternal’ assistance. Some

‘barricades were made of paving stones ripped up by hand by women and

children. The rebels took up positions in narrow streets and passages.

Those in the Corvin Passage made their stand by a convenient petrol

pump. As dawn broke, workers in Calvin Square confronted five tanks

without running away. Public support was immediate, with armed rebels

having no trouble getting food and shelter. Soldiers, when not taking

part in the fighting themselves, handed arms over to the rebels.

Thirteen days in Budapest....

First reactions to events were starting to come out. The Stalinists

called the revolt “a fascist counter-revolutionary action.” The

‘moderate* Communists wanted Nagy, but both wanted order restored, by

Russian troops if necessary. The writers’ role was over already, their

demands surpassed. The students too were having second thoughts about

what they had sparked off. Very few people went to work on the 24^(th).

At 4.30 am an official announcement banned all demonstrations and

referred to “fascist and reactionary elements”. Just after 8 o’clock,

Nagy was declared Prime Minister: fifteen hours earlier the appointment

might have had some effect but from now on the authorities ‘ moves were

way behind the developing events. Half an hour later Nagy showed what

‘liberal’, ‘moderate’ Communism was about: he declared martial law with

the death penalty for carrying arras, and his government called in the

Soviet troops. After this, his programme was of little interest to the

rebels.

The intervention by the Soviet troops now gave the revolt a national

character. The attitude of sympathetic neutrality that the Hungarian

army had taken in .the first few hours was now replaced by and large by

one of active support for the rebellion. Soviet tanks were being

immobilised by the fighting youth, who, though poorly armed, were using

the partisan techniques drummed into them at school in praise of the

Soviet resistance to the German armies in World War Two. This was a rare

case of Hungarians eager to learn from Russian example. Anti-tank

tactics included loosening the cobblestones, then soaping the road, or

pouring oil over it. Liquid soap was used in Moricz Zsiground Square. In

Szena Square bales of silk taken from a Party shop were spread out and

covered with oil. The Soviet tanks couldn’t move on this and became

sitting targets for petrol bombs. Youngsters would run up and smear jam

over the driver’s window; some rebels blew themselves up knowingly

getting close enough to a tank to destroy it.

A thirteen year old girl was seen taking on a 75 ton tank with three

bottle bombs. A Viennese reporter at the Kilian Barracks met another 13

year old who had defended a street crossing alone with a machine-gun for

three days and nights. “The Russians found themselves faced by hordes of

death-defying youngsters: students, apprentices and even schoolchildren

who did not care whether they lived or died.” A Swiss reporter, seeing

children fighting and dying, wrote: “If ever the time comes to

commemorate the heroes in Hungary, they mustn’t forget to raise a

monument to the Unknown Hungarian Child.” A chemical engineer saw some

children with empty bottles. Re told them to use nitro-glycerin rather

than petrol, so they all went to their school laboratory where he helped

them to synthesize enough nitro-glycerin to make a hundred bottle bombs.

Then he went home and left them to it. Twelve year olds learnt how to

handle guns: older men instructed rebels in the use of grenades and how

to attack tanks.

An air force officer typed out copies of guerrilla tactics. Many of the

carefully selected and supposedly politically indoctrinated officer

corps went over to the rebels. Officers of the Petofi and Zrinyi

Military Academies, the future elite, fought the Russians. After the

rebellion the army was reorganised with many officers and cadets got rid

of. The police were generally sympathetic. Only the AVH fought alongside

the Russians. The AVH (referred to by workers as ‘the Blues’ or ‘the

AVOs’, the name they had before 1949) had some 35,000 men and women, the

latter being reputedly the worse torturers. Their minimum pay was over

three times that of a worker, plus bonuses. They had their own

subsidised stores and a holiday village by Lake Balaton. Many Hungarians

had experienced ‘esengofraz’, namely ‘bell-fever’, a midnight call by

the AVH. Now it was the turn of the AVOs to be hunted. “The security

forces were capable of terrorisation in times of peace, or of firing on

an unarmed crowd, but impotent in the face of a people’s uprising.” [9]

The AVH was abolished on the afternoon of October 29^(th), to be

resurrected after the Russian invasion. Since the 21^(st), two days

before the uprising, the AVH had been destroying its files. Neither of

these things saved individual AVOs from lynchings: such killings were

generally carried out in a purposeful and sombre manner. Without any

doubt, the AVH killed many more people over the years than the crowds

managed to kill of them. Despite this and the AVH’s continued brutality

during the revolution, most insurgents condemned the lynchings. In the

work of creating a new society, such imitations of the old were

unwelcome. However, no one was sorry for the dead AVOs: as a Hungarian

told a Polish reporter “Believe me, we are not sadists, but we cannot

bring ourselves to regret those kind of people.” [10] In the streets

bodies of AVOs lay or hung with the money found in their pockets either

stuffed in their mouths or pinned to their chests. Even in poverty, no

self-respecting Hungarian would touch it. After the rebellion was

crushed, the Hungarian authorities themselves put the total number of

security force members killed as 234 — a remarkably low figure in the

circumstances.

The crowds got on with removing symbols of the old regime: red stars

were torn down. At the offices of Szabad Nep, the MDP newspaper,

journalists threw down leaflets of support for the revolt out of the

windows: people tore them up and burnt them without reading them -after

all their years of lying, no one was going to believe them now. The

Party bookshop and the Soviet ‘Horizont’ bookshop were ransacked and the

works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin piled up and set alight. A

general strike spread over the country, a move which left the MDP

embarrassed. So often it had praised the strikes of Western workers, now

Hungarian workers were doing the same — but this time against them.

Fighting was fierce in Parliament Square and at the Party HQ after AVH

units fired on largely unarmed crowds. Black flags made their first

appearances to mourn fallen rebels. Radio Budapest, still in the hands

of the authorities, threatened: “If the destructions and assassinations

continue, the football match between Hungary and Sweden, scheduled for

Sunday, will have to be cancelled.” [11] This radio station was now only

listened to for laughs, as its statements bore no relation to observable

reality. The fighting groups continued to form throughout the city. The

armed group holding Szena Square held open democratic meetings to

discuss strategy and tactics.

On the 25^(th) the Government urged a return to work in its radio

broadcasts. This call was ignored, but as it implied an end to the

curfew (which had also been widely ignored anyway) many thousands more

took to the streets to find out what was going on and to discuss events:

going to work was the last thing on most people’s minds, Nagy’s

reshuffles of his ministers, his ‘concessions’ and announcements were

increasingly irrelevant and always too slow and too late to satisfy the

rebels. The people in the streets didn’t give a damn that Georgy Lukacs,

a darling of leftist academics, was now in the cabinet. On the 26^(th)

Lukacs said in a radio broadcast that “what we want is a socialist

culture worthy of the Hungarian people’s great and ancient

achievements”, while all around people were dismantling all the

‘socialist culture’ they could find.

The writers were giving up quickly. Gabor Tanesos said no progress

(whatever it was he had in mind) could be made “while the guns are

roaring.” As early as the 25^(th), Gyula Hay stated “We must immediately

revert to peaceful methods; fighting must stop immediately. Even

peaceful demonstrations should not now be undertaken.”[12] While the

intellectuals were way behind the workers, lacking their basic

intransigence, not all were so craven. On the 29^(th) some told Nagy to

arm the workers. He shrank back from such a suggestion, replying that

“At present that is quite impossible. A lot of the workers are

unreliable” At times it seemed that Nagy had lost touch with the reality

of what was happening’s in a speech he referred to the “historic,

durable, and ineffaceable” results of twelve years of Communist rule!

The KDP’s plight now was of no consequence — the rebels had rejected it.

On the basis of their own direct experience, Bulgarians were exposing

the sham of the ‘socialist states’.

The call for the Russians to leave was an expression of this. The

fighting between the rebels and the Russians did not however have the

bitterness that the clashes with the AVH had. Ho Soviet soldiers were

lynched, none of their corpses were mutilated, and on the other side

there was no vindictiveness shown towards the rebels by the Russians.

The Red Army soldiers were not keen to be shot at, nor were they eager

to shoot at a population they had been peaceably stationed amongst for

some time. There were some desertions, particularly among members of the

Soviet Union’s national minorities. One example was an Armenian major

who went over to the rebels on the 24^(th) and distributed leaflets to

Soviet troops urging them not to fire. Some rebels too disliked fighting

the Russians. One fighter commented “I found myself shooting at

bewildered Ukrainian peasant boys who had as much reason to hate what we

fought as we had... It was an embittering shock to find that one can’t

confront the real enemy even in a revolution. ”

While the rebels struggled to confront and defeat the real enemy,

victims of the old regime were being set free. On the 26^(th) the police

building in Csepel was stormed and its prisoners released. Thousands

were let out of forced labour camps and some 17,000 from the country’s

prisons. The most common crime was petty theft. Police chief Kopacsi

allowed all political prisoners and those fighters held from the first

day or so’s fighting out of the City Police HQ in Budapest. This act was

to cost him a life sentence in 1958. As the fighting continued, with

most damage occurring in the working-class suburbs of Budapest and the

industrial towns, the country’s farmers worked to provide food for the

rebels, and lorries with bread, flour and vegetables streamed into the

towns. Bakers worked throughout the rebellion and strike to ensure that

rebels and strikers were fed.

Despite hunger and poverty there was an absence of looting in the city.

Shops with broken windows had their goods left intact. After the radio

and the Soviet press talked of looting, signs were put up on such shops

saying, “This is how we loot.” Another popular slogan dated back to the

Korean War when the Federation of Working Youth collected metal for the

Horth Korean war effort: “Scrap Metals Ensure Peace!” now made a more

appropriate reappearance on burnt-out Soviet tanks. Some North Korean

students (and some Polish ones) returned the favour by joining the

rebels.

The collapse of the MDP and the unity of industrial workers, peasants

and white-collar workers left the Government powerless by the 27^(th).

Real power was moving towards the revolutionary workers’ councils. It

was these councils that called the strike, and the workers obeyed this

call because it came in effect from themselves. Similarly, the call for

a return to work was accepted when the councils made it. The Communists

had said that workers were the ruling class, now, through the councils,

the workers were putting it into practice. As the workers’ councils

spread from factory to factory and district to district the National

Trade Union Council, realising that it was being made redundant, tried

to pre-empt developments by advocating workers’ councils, but with its

own old hacks on the platform. Workers still turned up to such meetings,

but elected from among themselves, rejecting the trade union officials.

MDP members were then urged to infiltrate the genuine councils. A paper

called ‘Igazsag’ (‘Truth’) was started, which kept in touch with the

councils. Delegations from the councils besieged Nagy’s government with

endless demands. Two recurrent demands were for Hungarian neutrality and

withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.

Among Hungary’s Warsaw Pact allies, the Czech, East German and Rumanian

Communist Parties were particularly virulent in their condemnations of

the ‘counter-revolution’. This was motivated by the fear that their own

working classes might choose to settle accounts with them. Russia

itself, while getting more troops into Hungary ready for the second

assault on the workers, chose to make an official declaration on

relations between socialist states. Its high-sounding phrases were of

course meaningless, but it also contained an ‘analysis’ of events in

order to justify the approaching’ repression. Russia’s view was that

“the workers of Hungary have, after achieving great progress on the

basis of the people’s democratic order, justifiably raised the questions

of the need for eliminating the serious inadequacies of the economic

system, of the need for further improving the material well-being of the

people, and of the need for furthering the battle against bureaucratic

excesses in the state apparatus. However, the forces of reaction and of

counter-revolution have quickly joined in this just and progressive

movement of the workers, with the aim of using the discontent of the

workers to undermine the foundations of the people’s democratic system

in Hungary and to restore to power the landlords and the capitalists.”

[13] For sheer drivel this was hard to beat: the workers and peasants

were fighting to eliminate the economic system itself and destroy the

state apparatus; the only ‘counter-revolutionary force’ involved was the

Soviet Union itself and its Hungarian supporters in the MDP.

The rebels were quite emphatically not for the restoration of

capitalism, nor were the political parties, which were re-emerging.

Smallholders Party leader Bela Kovacs was clear: “No one, I believe,

wants to re-establish the world of the aristocrats, .the bankers and the

capitalists. That world is definitely gone.” Likewise National Peasants

Party leader Ferenc Farkas: “We shall retain the gains and conquests of

socialism...” Even Catholic Party leader Endre Varga saw no point in

trying to turn back the clock — “We demand-the maintenance of the social

victories which have been realised since 1945...” [14] People were

worried that the reappearance of these old parties would undermine the

unity of the revolution, but the hatred of the one-party system was such

as to tolerate them: demands for parties to be allowed was not though an

expression of any great enthusiasm for them. Despite the MDP’s record in

power, no worker wanted private capitalists back: they wanted their

supposed collective property to become theirs in fact. No peasant wanted

the private landlords back -but they wanted the co-operatives to be

voluntary rather than forced. As the Party collapsed, members burnt

their cards. One member stuck his to a wall with a message next to it —

“A testimony to my stupidity. Let this be a lesson to you.” The MDP

reorganised itself as the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSzMP).

Of the twenty or more new papers that appeared within days of the

uprising none were right wing. One that tried to publish found the

compositors refusing to touch it. The papers were usually four pages or

a single sheet, either printed or stencilled. ‘Igazsag’ proved the most

popular, as it was closest to the workers’ councils. Walls were covered

with copies of the papers and other notices. Accounts of MDP leaders’

lifestyles made popular reading. There was very little nationalism, and

no anti-Semitism. Soviet armoured cars distributed the Party paper, but

people tore the bundles to bits without any regard for the contents. As

the Russian troops dug in round Budapest, boxes were left in the streets

to collect for widows and orphans. No one needed to guard these boxes

full of money. A notice next to one said “The purity of our revolution

permits us to use this method of collection. “ The mayor of the capital,

Jozsef Kovago, said the city was “pervaded with such sacred feelings

that even the thieves abandoned their trade.” On the wreck of a Russian

tank someone scrawled the words ‘Soviet culture*. A girl fighter in the

Corvin Passage spoke for thousands: “Now I’m making history instead of

studying it.”

....and in the country

Hungarians were not just making history in Budapest. In the country

districts and industrial towns, workers and peasants were quick to

follow up the events in the capital. On the 23^(rd) October itself in

Debrecen, red stars were already being taken off buildings and local

trams. In Szeged, crowds tore down Soviet emblems. In Miskolc, some

Russians were attacked and an army staff car thrown in the river. The

police were disarmed in Cegled when some 5,000 joined the uprising. The

removal of Soviet troops from Hungarian soil was demanded by oil workers

in Lovasz, miners from Balinka and auto repair workers in Szombathely.

Everywhere workers were finding their voices and taking action.

In Gyor on the 24^(th) a small demonstration of factory workers ripped

red stars off the factories and destroyed a Soviet war memorial. They

broke down the prison gates and released political prisoners. They found

a list of the prisoners’ occupations — driver’s, workers, waiters and

mechanics. The AVH turned up and fired at the crowds, killing four and

wounding more. The next day the local police and army garrison joined

the revolution, forcing the surrender, of the AVH. The local Soviet

commander withdrew his troops saying that the rising “against the

oppressive leaders is justified”. On the 26^(th) a general strike got

under way, and by the next day a Workers’ Council and a ‘National

Revolutionary Council* had ‘been set up (‘National’ referring to the

local county, not the whole of Hungary), composed in the main of workers

with some MDP members. These councils were in constant session. They

were both insurrectionary and self-governing. The local radio was in

rebel hands, and on the 28^(th) it called for an end to the Warsaw Pact

and demanded that Imre Nagy negotiate with the Budapest workers. Thirty

thousand miners struck for these demands. A network of local workers’

councils developed, linking the railway works with the miners of

Tatabanya and Balinka. Personnel chiefs were dismissed and new plant

managers elected by workforces. The national Revolutionary Council

successfully repulsed efforts by a handful of reactionaries to exploit

the situation.

In nearby Magyarovar, everybody was talking politics as the news came

through from Budapest. A peaceful unarmed demonstration was fired on by

the local AVH. Between 60 and 90 were shot in the massacre. Upon this,

the local police joined the rebels and the Revolutionary Council in Gyor

sent an army detachment. The AVH surrendered, and their officers were

lynched in revenge by a large crowd. Here as elsewhere essential

services were kept ticking over; miners produced just enough coal to

keep the power going. Peasants joined the rebellion as the MDP crumbled

and the AVH retreated in the face of popular opposition. Farmers worked

to feed the rebels. In town after town, radio stations were taken over,

Party buildings burnt down, AVOs sought out and killed, informers

attacked.

The Borsod district was the largest industrial area in Hungary, and its

main town, Miskolc, the largest industrial town outside Budapest. On

October 24^(th) a workers’ council met at the Dimavag iron foundry. The

next day the foundry workers marched into town with a list of demands,

removing red stars and the like wherever they were seen. They were

joined by other workers and a mass meeting created a workers’ council

for all the factories of Greater Miskolc. A general strike was declared.

On the 26^(th) a crowd besieged the local police Hi trying to get the

release of political prisoners. The AVH fired at the crowd. Some police

gave their weapons to the workers, and miners turned up with dynamite to

get their revenge. Six or seven AVOs were lynched in the ensuing battle.

The Workers’ Council said “Stalinist provocateurs have felt the just

punishment of the people.” The next evening the Council calmly announced

that it had “taken power in all the Borsod region”.

In Salgotarjan in Nograd county all work stopped on 25^(th) October. On

the 27^(th) steelworkers marched through the town, taking down red

stars, releasing political prisoners and destroying the Soviet war

memorial. A ‘National Council’ was set up for the district. In Pecs,

even the AVH at the uranium mines sided with the revolution. The

Workers’ Council there farmed a military council which immediately made

plans to face another Soviet attack, which was not long in coming.

The Workers’ Councils

The first workers’ council to be set up in Budapest was at the United

Lamp factory. This council representing ten thousand workers got going

on October 24^(th), within hours of the revolution starting. It appealed

to workers to “show that we can manage things better than our former

blind and domineering bosses.” [15] Within a day, workers’ councils were

set up in the towns of Miskolc, Gyor, Debrecen and Sztalinvaros:

incredibly, the Dimavag Workers’ Council mentioned above was actually

set up on the 22^(nd) in Budapest, councils appeared at the Beloiannis

electrical equipment factory, the Gamma optical works, the Canz

electric, wagon and machine works, the Lang and Dan-uvia machine-tool

factories, the Matyas Rakosi iron and steel works and elsewhere. On the

26^(th) the KDP graciously announced that it “approved” the new workers’

councils, but it was hoping to keep them isolated as separate ‘factory

councils’. However the councils were already assuming a united political

and economic role. The general strike was a political act in support of

the armed uprising. The councils kept their power at the local level,

yet exerted a collective pressure on the government. For the next few

days there were constant delegations from the councils to government

ministers.

The Miskolc Workers’ Council wrote to Nagyj “Bear Eresident, the

Workers’ Council yesterday assumed power in all the domain of the Borsod

department.” The councils in the districts unhesitatingly seized power

straightaway; in Budapest, only as the armed rebels appeared to win. The

councils in Miskolc, Gyor, Bscs and Skolnok had control of radio

stations which allowed them to co-ordinate with each other and with

Budapest. As the fighting eased off, the workers’ councils began to

group themselves into district workers’ councils. On the 29^(th)

delegates from the Ujpest councils met at the United Lamp factory;

similar meetings occurred in the 9^(th) district of Budapest and

Angyalfold. On the 30^(th) October, nineteen factories in Csepel set up

the Central Workers’ Council of Csepel. Only one day later, these moves

to centralise and strengthen the movement resulted in a Parliament of

Workers’ Councils for the whole of Budapest.

This historic meeting drew up a statement of the duties and rights of

the workers’ councils with nine points, here in full:

1. The factory belongs to the workers. The latter should pay to the

state a levy calculated on the basis of the output and a portion of the

profits.

2. The supreme controlling body of the factory is the Workers’ Council

democratically elected by the workers.

3. The Workers ‘ Council elects its own executive committee composed of

3–9 members, which acts as the executive body of the Workers’ Council,

carrying out the decisions and tasks laid down by it.

4. The director is employed “by the factory. The director and the

highest employees axe to be elected ‘by the Workers’ Council. This

election will take place after a public general meeting called “by the

executive committee.

5. The director is responsible to the Workers’ Council in every matter

which concerns the factory.

6. The Workers’ Council itself reserves all rights to:

approve and ratify all projects concerning the enterprise;

decide basic wage levels and the methods by which these are to be

assessed;

decide on all matters concerning foreign contracts;

decide on the conduct of all operations involving credit.

7. In the same way, the Workers’ Council resolves any conflicts

concerning the hiring and firing of all workers employed in the

enterprise.

8. The Workers’ Council has the right to examine the balance sheets and

to decide on the use to which the profits are to be put.

9. The Workers* Council handles all social questions in the enterprise.”

[16]

This statement was an attempt by a workers’ movement within days of an

uprising, before the success of the revolution was in any way assured,

to take power away from the bureaucrats. It was an attempt to establish

workers’ control, and to an extent, workers’ management, in the

workplace. It wasn’t concerned with abstractions but with a day-to-day

reality; it represented a starting-point for the workers’ councils As

the workers had generally taken their factories and workplaces over

already, the meeting’s resolution that the factories etc belonged to the

workers recognised a fait accompli.

All the councils were both anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist. Borsod

District Workers’ Council said that it “resolutely condemns the

organisation of political parties.” [17] The tendency to unify continued

into early November. The workers’ councils in Miskolc set up a municipal

one for the town, then a departmental one for the whole district. On

November 2^(nd), the president of the Miskolc councils, Jozseff Kiss,

called for a ‘National Revolutionary Council’ based on the workers’

councils. The developing implicit trend was towards the idea of “all

power to the councils”, and its realisation, but this was not clearly

stated: the second Russian attack cut short such developments, Imre Nagy

and his ministers saw nothing of significance in the councils;

similarly, the various political parties that had sprung up looked to

their own activity as a solution to Hungary’s problems. Workers’

self-management was a notion beyond them.

On November 3^(rd) the Csepel and Ujpest district councils called for

the strike to end, with a disciplined return to work on the 5^(th). This

was intended to strengthen the Nagy government’s negotiating hand with

the Russians. On November 1^(st) there had been a declaration of

neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact — this accession to one

of the major demands of the revolution gave Nagy a temporary popularity.

However, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact was unlikely to be tolerated by

the Russians. On November 3^(rd) Pravda reported in Moscow that

“militant communists had been massacred and murdered”; on the day of the

invasion it referred to “bestial atrocities” committed by the rebels,

and the Chinese Communist Party paper urged — “Bar the road to reaction

in Hungary” (by which they meant — “stop this example to Chinese

workers”).

The Military Defeat of the Revolution

The Russian attack began on November 4ths 150,000 men and over 2,000

tanks were used. The political parties as well as all the various

‘leaders’ disappeared in the face of it. The working class stood firm

and took the lead. An immediate spontaneous general strike started, and

the fiercest resistance to the Soviet troops came in working-class

areas. Janos Kadar was the new Hungarian puppet the Russians used to

‘invite’ them in. His ‘Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government’ composed

of a handful of Communists rested simply on Russian armed might. Soviet

troops and tanks made straight for the industrial centres and

working-class districts to crush the revolution, Throughout Hungary,

peasants and workers tried to explain the truth to the invaders. Pecs

radio broadcast messages to Russian troops, many of whom had no idea

where they were, that “the Hungarian people have only taken the power

into their own hands”. As even the Communist Radio Rajk proclaimed “The

place of every Hungarian communist today is on the barricades”, Kadar’s

first move was to set up a new secret police force. The workers’

councils rejected Kadar and his fake government without hesitation. When

Dunapentele was surrounded by Soviet troops on the 7^(th), the Workers’

Council there met the surrender ultimatum with the statement:

“Dunapentele is the foremost socialist town in Hungary. Its inhabitants

are workers, and power is in their hands. The houses have all been built

by the workers themselves. The workers will defend the town from

‘fascist excesses’ but also from Soviet troops!”

In Budapest the heaviest concentration of Soviet armour was in Csepel

and Kobanya. In the centre of the city fitting went on till the 6^(th),

when the rebels’ ammunition ran out. Some suburbs held out until the

8^(th); Ujpest and Kobanya till the 9^(th) and 10^(th), leaving Red

Csepel to fall on the 11^(th) when the Russians could move all their

troops to attack it. These last districts saw by far the fiercest

fighting. Some 80–90% of the Hungarian wounded were young workers.

Kadar’s own reports confirmed that most damage occurred in the

working-class areas. On the 7^(th), rebels raised the red flag to

commemorate the Russian Revolution, while the heirs of that revolution

killed Hungarian workers. The AVOs re-emerged, looking for revenge for

their recent humiliations. Government proclamations started to appear on

walls. Passers-by defaced them, or pasted over them, or just ripped them

down. In Csepel the workers joked grimly “The 40,000 aristocrats and

fascists of Csepel are on strike.” Trenches were dug in front of the

workers’ flats. Csepel workers for those seven days slept eight hours,

fought for eight hours and spent the other eight hours working in the

factories producing arms and ammunition. The Csepel armoured car made

its appearance — a three-wheel mechanised wheelbarrow with a machine-gun

in the bucket propped up with sandbags. Against this, the Red Army used

heavy artillery and bombers. Le Figaro, a French paper, commented, “The

Red Array now occupies Budapest. It is red with the blood of the

workers.”

Outside the capital, Dunapentele lasted till the 9^(th) led by its

Workers’ Council. In Pecs, the Workers’ Council decided not to defend

the town. Instead a plan was carried out for guerrilla warfare in the

nearby hills: this went on in a major way for ten days, and some miners

and soldiers carried on fighting the Russians for several weeks, in

Miskolc there was a brief resistance to the Soviet attack, followed by a

declaration of a general strike of all non-essential workers. The Borsod

Workers’ Council offered to take 20,000 armed workers to Budapest so

that Nagy (now sheltering in the Yugoslav embassy) could prove to the

Russians that their fears of a ‘capitalist restoration’ were groundless.

Later on, when the Budapest police chief, Kopacsi, who came from the

Miskolc area, was tried and sentenced to death, the Borsod Workers*

Council repeated this offer to Kadar, who promptly reprieved Kopacsi. In

Salgotarjan in Nograd county, workers supported their local ‘Rational

Workers’ Council’ after the Soviet invasion. Until the 16^(th) the

workers held the town hall, the local press and radio, and local army

units were on the revolution’s side. On that day the Russian troops took

over, setting up a ‘Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Committee’ in

opposition to the Workers’ Council. On December 1^(st), the Russians

arrested the leaders of the National Workers’ Council, but real power

still lay in the hands of the workers: they marched to the police HQ and

secured the release of their fellow-workers. There followed a solid

two-day strike in the area. A few days later when further arrests of

district Workers’ Council members took place, thousands of demonstrators

were confronted by tanks, and the AVH fired on unarmed crowds.

Workers’ Councils lead the Resistance

The military defeat of the Hungarian workers and peasants thus took just

over a week. The struggle now moved into a. new phase. The workers may

have been beaten by an overwhelming armed force from outside, but they

still had control over productions as long as they could keep that,

“workers’ power” was a reality and Kadar’s government would rest on

repression alone. The workers’ councils reorganised in the wake of the

invasion, setting up district workers’ councils with an overtly

political role. The Csepel Workers* Council sent delegations to Kadar

and the Soviet army commander. The common demand of the councils was

that the workers were to run the factories, ensuring that power stayed

with them. On November 12^(th) moves were made towards establishing a

Central Workers’ Council for the whole of Greater Budapest, and on the

14^(th) the founding meeting was held at the United Lamp factory. A

young Hungarian intellectual, Miklos Erasso, has claimed the credit for

the idea of a Central Workers’ Council (CWC), but he himself relates how

he was put in his place at the meeting: “The elderly social democratic

chairman asked: ‘What factory are you from?’ ‘None’, I said. ‘What right

have you to be here?’ I said that I had actually organised the meeting.

The chairman replied: ‘This is untrue. This meeting is an historical

inevitability!” [18] The CWC was indeed the inevitable result of the

councils’ attempts to unite. Krasso’s ‘idea’ coincided with the

direction of the workers’ movement.

The delegates who came together were in the main toolmakers, turners,

steelworkers and engineers. The following day a more widely based

meeting was held. Some of the delegates wanted to create a National

Workers’ Council for the whole of Hungary then and there; while many

agreed, it was pointed out that they only had a mandate to form a CWC

for Greater Budapest. The workers’ councils were determined to be truly

democratic. “For the Hungarian workers and their delegates the most

important thing about the councils was precisely their democratic

nature. There was a very close relationship between the delegates and

the entire working-class: the delegates were elected for the sole

purpose of carrying out the workers’ wishes, and it is noteworthy that

workers often recalled delegates who diverged from their mandate. They

didn’t like delegates who were too ‘independent’.” [19] At the meeting,

Sandor Racz, elected president, stated “We have no need of the

government! We are and shall remain the leaders here in Hungary!”

Unfortunately, the majority were inclined to compromise in the face of

armed might, and to negotiate with Kadar’s fake government. A return to

work, backed also by the Csepel Workers’ Council, was planned in order

to show that the strike was conscious and organised. Many workers were

very angry at this, and accusations of sell-outs abounded.

As real power lay with the councils, Kadar’s government had to destroy

them and reinstall authoritarian relationships in the factories. For two

months the struggle continued, Points 9 and 11 of Kadar’s ‘Workers and

Peasants Revolutionary Programme’ were for “workers’ management of the

factories” and “democratic election of the workers’ councils”. Kadar’s

counter-revolution had to hide behind fine phrases. But there was no way

Kadar could agree to the workers’ demands: “collective ownership of the

factories, which were to be in the hands of the workers’ councils, which

were to act as the only directors of the enterprises; a widening of the

councils’ powers in the economic, social and cultural fields; the

organisation of a militia-type police force, subject to the councils;

and on the political plane, a multi-socialist-party system.” [20] The

CWC negotiated directly with the Soviet army commander, Grebennik,

giving him a list of missing workers’ council members every day,

whereupon the Russians released them from prison. The Soviets for their

part showed that they knew power lay with the councils, not Kadar. At

first, Grebennik treated workers’ council delegations as fascists and

imperialist agents; in due course though a Soviet colonel and

interpreter were made permanent representatives to the CWC. It was the

councils, not Kadar’s government, that was arranging’ all food and

medical supplies.

On November 18^(th), a plan was developed for a truly national council,

a ‘parliament of Workers* Councils’. This was to have 156 members,

delegates from district workers’ councils in Budapest and the counties,

and from the largest factories. This body would elect a thirty-strong

presidium, which would co-opt up to 20 representatives from other groups

such as the army, intellectuals, political parties, the police. An

appeal went out for delegates to attend a. conference on the 21^(st) to

discuss this. “The principal task of this national conference was to

create a power under the direction of the workers, and in opposition to

the government.” On the 19^(th) work restarted as a sign of discipline

and support by the workers for the CWC. Delegates to the conference came

from Budapest, Gyor, Fteos, Tatabanya, Ozd and there were others from

peasant organisations. A vital link had been established between the CWC

and the provincial councils. The various miners’ delegates were very

much against the return to work: “You can work if you want, but we shall

provide neither coal nor electricity, we shall flood all the mines!” But

those in favour pointed out that the strike was hitting everybody

indiscriminately, and a return to work would keep the workers united in

their workplaces.

A rumour spread through Budapest that the CWC had been arrested: the

workers immediately resumed their strike. Although the workers in Csepel

joined in, the Csepel Workers’ Council condemned the new strike. Before

a commission from the CWC could investigate this difference, the Csepel

workers had promptly elected a brand new council that was in line with

their wishes and actions, supporting the strike and the CWC. Workers

were arguing through the different options facing them now: active

resistance, passive resistance or flight. The first could not be

maintained, although in fact there was never a Hungarian surrender, and

a quarter of a million Hungarians chose the latter and fled the country

to the west. Thousands were deported to Russia, particularly younger

workers, in an act of indiscriminate terror. Railway workers did what

they could to prevent these, for instance by removing railway track.

Some ambushes were carried out against trains and deportees released.

Most deportees were allowed back during 1957.

As passive resistance became the course followed by most Hungarians, a

sullen hatred developed towards the Russians and their puppet

government. When, later on, the Russian leader Krushchev came to

Hungary, supposed mass meetings of support on the radio had to be

boosted by canned applause. A succession of sarcastic posters appeared

on walls: “Take care! Ten million counter-revolutionaries are roaming

the country. Hundreds of thousands of landowners, capitalists, generals

and bishops are at large, from the aristocratic quarters to the factory

areas of Csepel and Kispest. Because of this gang’s murderous activities

only six workers are left in the entire country. These latter have set

up a government in Skolnok.” “Lost: the confidence of the people. Honest

finder is asked to return it to Janos Kadar, prime minister of Hungary,

address: 10,000 Soviet Tanks Street.” “Wanted! Premier for Hungary.

Qualifications — no sincere convictions; no backbone; ability to read

and write not essential, but must be able to sign documents drawn up by

others.” “Proletarians of the World Unite: but not in groups of three or

more.” A popular joke did the rounds: “D’you know where we went wrong in

October? We interfered in our own internal affairs.”

As part of the policy of passive resistance, a silent demonstration took

place on November 23^(rd): from 2 o’clock till J in the afternoon, no

one went out on the streets of Budapest. This sort of action showed what

Hungarians thought of Kadar, and was impossible for his new security

force to suppress. He appealed to the workers’ councils to help

establish order and get production restarted. As if in reply, the CV/C1

stated on November 27^(th) “We reaffirm that we have received our

mission from the working class... and we shall work with all our might

for the strengthening of the workers’ power.” The only press that the

councils had was a duplicated ‘Information Bulletin’ which was passed

from hand to hand or read out loud at meetings. The councils allowed no

party organisations in the factories: MSzMP and pro-government trade

union officials were banned and physically prevented from entering.

December saw Kadar’s government slowly wrest power away from the

workers’ councils in the battle for the factories. From below came a

relentless pressure for anti-Kadar action. On December 4^(th) there was

the ‘March of Mothers’, a silent procession of 30,OOO women in black

with national and black flags. In support, all houses had lighted

candles in their windows at midnight, despite the government taking all

the candles it could out of the shops. The next day a decree dissolved

the Revolutionary Committees that had sprung up alongside the workers’

councils in the districts, for instance in Gyor, and 200 workers’

council members were arrested. The offensive continued on the 6^(th)

with the arrest of the Workers’ Councils in the Ganz and MAVAG

factories. At the same time the CWC was discussing plans for a National

Workers’ Council and a provisional workers’ parliament with

representatives from all the workers’ councils. On the 8^(th), 80 miners

were killed in Salgotarjan by Soviet troops. The next day Kadar

dissolved the CWC, arresting most of its members. The others carried on

and declared a 48-hour strike in response to the dissolution and the

shooting of the miners. One delegate declared “Let the lights go out,

let there be no gas, let there be nothing!”

So it was for a 100% solid two-day strike. Two of the CWC leaders who

escaped arrest, Sandor Racz and Sander Bali, were protected for two days

by workers at the Beloiannis factory, who refused to hand them over

despite the fact that Soviet tanks were ringing the factory. On the

11^(th), Kadar ‘invited’ them to negotiations: as soon as they left the

factory they were arrested. The strike continued. Even the Barty paper

‘Nepszabadsag’ was forced to say of it that “the like of which has never

before been seen in the history of the Hungarian workers’ movement.” On

the 13^(th) as the strike finished, the Csepel iron and steel workers

sat in demanding the release of Racz and Bali; other factories followed

suit. Soviet troops were then moved into the major factories to force

the workers to work at gunpoint.

The Revolution Defeated

The strike was the workers’ last card. Zadar’s “Revolutionary Workers’

and Iteasants’ Government” had defeated the workers and peasants.

Internment was introduced, and the death penalty set for striking or

inciting to strike. A few days after this announcement, the Csepel Iron

and Steel Workers’ Council resigned with- the words “we are returning

our mandate into the hands of the workers”. As other councils did the

same, Kadar complained of “provocative self-dissolutions”! The CWC’s

final message was that “sabotage and passive resistance are the order of

the day”. Kadar, backed by ‘a new AVE and the Soviet army, had seized

the means of production back from the workers and attacked every

workers’ organisation. Naturally, he had a theoretical justification for

this. In Kay 1957 » he told the National Assembly: “In the recent past,

we have encountered the phenomenon that certain categories of workers

acted against their own interests and, in this case, the duty of the

leaders is to represent the interests of the masses and not to implement

mechanically their incorrect ideas. If the wish of the masses does not

coincide with progress, then one must lead the masses in another

direction.”

Two thousand Hungarians were executed for what the ruling classes

everywhere will always call ‘incorrect ideas’. Continuing resistance to

Kadar’s government can be gauged from the scale of the repression: the

curfew was not lifted until Kay 1957; summary justice was not brought to

an end till November 1957} during 1957 and 1958, executions occurred

virtually every day; two years after the revolution, there were some

40,000 political prisoners; in 1959, nine members of the Ujpest Workers’

Council were executed. It was not till January 1960 that death sentences

were officially ended for ‘offences’ during the revolution (although one

insurgent, Laszlo Hickelburg, was executed in 1961). The last internment

camps were closed in June 1960, but several hundred rebels were not

released from prison till the late ‘sixties and early ‘seventies.

The workers of Hungary proved once again that freedom comes from below,

not from any leadership (‘revolutionary’ or otherwise) above acting on

their behalf. To destroy the communist bureaucracy they adopted forma of

organisation that were democratic, anti-bureaucratic and included the

whole working-class these councils were also constructive. The workers

were able to destroy the old and start building the new within days if

not hours. They rejected the official concepts of socialism and created

their own, workers’ self-management and direct democracy, a logical

development from previous workers’ struggles for a new society.

The Workers’ Councils were never in any way separate from the

working-class. They never betrayed it, and dissolved themselves rather

than be recuperated by the authorities! they returned to the class from

whence they came. The Hungarian working-class and their councils

reorganised society, ran production, kept their order and united the

rest of the population behind them. They were only defeated by a massive

military force and the passivity of the international working-class.

Given the chance to develop freely along the lines they started out on,

the potential of the councils was the creation of a free human society

at last. The programme of the Hungarian Revolution still remains for the

working-class to carry out.