peoples republic. Budapest.
events first invasion.
intelligentsia.
ties of pre-1945 powerless the workers' group in this way: IMRE NAGY, the 'reform communist', was installed as head of the Hungarian government by the Soviet intervention of 24 October. He immediately agreed to the imposition of martial law, approved by the Russians, denouncing, "the small number of counter-revolutionaries who have launched an armed attack on our The main organised support for Nagy in the party came from the journalists around the party paper and the intellectuals. The Petofi Circle, which played a prominent part before the uprising in organising among the intellectuals, was a circle of the CP youth organisation in Another inner-party group which ported Nagy was the small group of intellec tuals around Georg Lukacs. The latter were not ill any sense, however, an organisca pollica. group and remained somewhat aloof from both inside and outside the Lukacs joined the Nagy government after the The intellectuals had very little contact with what was going on inside the working class. The populist-nationalism and peasant orientation of the Nagy group fitted well into the traditional ideological bent of the radical Hungarian They were by and large disoriented by the popular uprising on 24 October.
The politics of the Nagy group, and certainly of Nagy himself, evolved in a rapid manner after Nagy took over the government. oriented on the one hand towards the peasantry and on the other towards the old bourgeois parwhich this point components of the CP-dominated Peoples Patriotic Front.
Miklos Krasso, a young party intellectual at the time who played a role in the formation of describes the Nagy lists who were didn't matter.' supparty.
political diverged more clearly.
They government.
were Imre Nagy had his court where these awfi former Stalinist hacks collected, who the became anti-Stalinists and professional ant communists after 1956. And partly the popu formerly in the Nation Peasants Party and then cabinet ministers i the Stalinist period. The Lukacs group had thi cultural and, to my mind, political line, whil the Imre Nagyists had this demagogy with th posters calling on "Patriots" and this absolut obsession with the peasants as if the worker It wasn't until after the second invasion on November, when they were already defeated that the Nagy leadership attempted to establis some links with the working class.
When the Nagy group came to power, th old Stalinist leaders were completely discred ited and fled from Budapest in Soviet planes Kadar replaced Gerö at the head of the party From then until the crushing of the Nag government by the Soviets on 4 November th two main forces in the struggle, , the 'reforn communists' and the working class, began t move more in unison. At the same time th interests of both 8 up The Nagy government, by calling for a Rus sian withdrawal and for a multi-party system placed itself in tune with the basic demands o the insurgent masses and the working class. Fo this reason the workers supported the Nag But as the workers began to organise them selves independently in councils, first in the fac tories and then in the districts and the capital ci ty itself, they began to develop a programme o demands and organs of popular power whic had little in common with the popular coalitio plans with which Imre Negy hoped to salvag the basic hierarchy of power and the 'nation When Soviet tanks occupied Hungary on
WHEN Soviet 1956, for the Stalinist Eastern Europe.
in Hungary with the authorities. greater democracy dependence.
Nagy government. resistance of was eventually Singleton recalls Hungarian five years ago.
November and installed the puppet regime of Janos Kadar, all the various right wing forces that had hoped to profit from the revolution disappeared almost overnight. The Nagy current disintegrated, its leadership finding refuge in the Jugoslav embassy.
It was then that the working class entered the scene as the only real force capable of defending the revolution. In fact it was only after the invasion that the Hungarian workers began to politically organise themselves as a class against the Stalinists.
The disarray of the central power after 24 October made it possible for the workers to organise themselves independently of the Nagy government, especially also later in Budapest. Already on 24 October a workers' council Lamp Factory in Ujpest, an industrial centre to the north of Budapest. workers in this factory.
In the days that followed councils were set up in most of the major factories in and around the city. Delegates from enterprises met on 31 mulated a 9-point programme setting out the rights of councils, which included: *The factory belongs to the workers. *The supreme authority in the factory is the астостансану eleclea workers council. *The workers' councils appoint the director of the factory. *The director is accountable to the workers' council. *The workers' councils decide on all matters involving projects, wages, foreign contracts and credit. *The council decides on all questions of hiring and firing.
When the Russians invaded on 4 November the councils called an immediate general strike party leader Nikita denounced the crimes of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress in The triggered off a severe crisis bureaucracies in Workers revolted in the Polish city of Poznan. In Budapest mass student demonstration in solidarity with the Polish workers led to armed clashes The Soviet army intervened on 24 October and installed a new government under the 'reform-communist' Imre Nagy. But the demands of the masses became more radical. And as the working class began to organise itself independently in Workers Coun cils, the Nagy government was forced to concede the popular demands for and inThe Soviets then intervened a second time on 4 November to crush the The armed the working class against the puppet regime of Janos Kadar continued for months before it defeated. Joe the events of the revolution some twenty bourgeois and in the provinces, but was formed in the United There were 10,000 councils in 24 large They forenterprises existing which was total and lasted for one month.
Although the strike was the main weapon in the hands of the workers, the statistics show that it was also the working class that put up the greatest armed resistance to the invasion. fighting lasted until 11 November in the traditional working class stronghold of Csepel.
Another statistical publication records that: "The greatest number of deaths during the armed combat was recorded in the 8th (22 per cent) 9th (14 per cent) and 7th (13 per cent) Districts. These are among the principal working class areas of Budapest. And finally: 'According to cent of the wounded were young workers, while students represented 3-5 per cent.
After 4 November the Kadar regime knew that the armed resistance was not the main problem. Kadar's policy was to pursue a long term political struggle with the workers' councils as a preparation for a final confrontation. As long the councils refused frontation was inevitable.
But in the meantime the regime took a conciliatory pose. In his programme broadcast on 4 November Kadar declared that: 'On the basis ot the broadest democracv workers' management should be realised in all factories and Point 11 of this programme stated that: Democratic elections will be guaranteed in all administrative bodies revolutionary councils'. On 15 November he told representative of the workers' councils: 'We surrender the party's monopoly: we want a multi-party system and clean and honest elecworkers however The Soviet military also dealt directly with the Workers' Council, going over of Budapest.
'our which included: continuous the famous composer cecaranor on working class revolution'.
Finally importance of movement itself.
and experiences Council were young twenties.
Hungary, active in the workers' Democratic Party.
organs of workers' elections, and so on.
The recognise the and in the maintained the Kadar the head of the CP and ignoring the so-called coalition parties. On 14 November, after the invasion, a mass assembly of delegates elected a Central Workers' Council for the city It drew up a programme which declared, unshaken loyalty to the principles of socialism. We regard the means of production as collective property which we are at all times ready to defend'. It drew up a set of demands *non-recognition of the Kadar government and the return of Imre Nagy. *release of all political prisoners. *withdrawal of Soviet troops. *an end to the false information in the media. *a multi-party system which recognises parties 'that base themselves on socialism'.
The period after the invasion was one of struggle between the Council and the Kadar regime. The radical intelligentsia came more and more to recognise the central role played by the working class.
Shortly before it was dissolved by the Kadar the Revolutionary Council Hungarian Intellectuals, whose president was Zoltan Kodaly, issued a 'complete solidarity workers councils' which recognised that the was 'the strongest mass force capable of defending the achievements of the the Nagy leadership, Lukacs, which was still in the Jugoslav em bassy, issued a statement which recognised the the of the Hungarian Republic should first and foremost rely for its support on the workers' councils.
The growth of the working class movement after the invasion and the escalating confrontation with the illegal Kadar regime was also accompanied by the beginnings of debate and political differentiation inside une This political differentiation had a lot to do with the different backgrounds of the workers who played leading roles in the struggle.
About half of the delegates to the Workers' workers in their early They had and had internalised and taken for granted the many social transformations that had taken place during the previous 10 years.
The other main group in the leadership consisted of older worker militants that had been movement Horthy regime before 1945. Many were skilled workers and often members of the old Social The political role of the workers' councils as power, were not clearly recognised from the beginning. The demands of the factory councils often dealt mainly with the question of the running of the enterprises. The district and regional councils were however clearly more political organisations.
Likewise all of the councils raised political demands — for a multi-party system, for free The leader of the Central Council was Sandor Bali. Bali was one of the older militants from the pre-war Metalworkers 10 days workers' tions....
Hake ue same
where we started authority to 'counter-revolutionary'.
Workers' to reinstate the sacked directors.
of Miklos Sebestyen, later wrote: now come...
wile une including central and seized all copies.
Peoples Council dissolved.
workers' January post-1945 for even distributing leaflets, the ment decree on 17 November 1957. The repression ruthless. At least and more than Are Nagy, was executed.
Thus ended workers' Union, a social democratic stronghold He argued: 'We know quite well that the councils can't be political organisaWe know that the workers' Will become the directing organs of the coun try's economy, and of course we welcome this. But we don't want to commit the same mistake that the party made in the past, when it was at one and the same time the master of the country and of the factories, and the only organisation representing the interests of the workers. If we mistake then we'll be back On 22 November the government passed a decree which attempted to limit the Council's economic matters. Then on 27 November Kadar denounced the councils as During the revolution many of the councils had dismissed factory directors. Now the struggle began in the factories as the Kadar regime sought by repressive and intimidatory measures This confrontation strengthened those who argued that the councils should play a more political role. As one of the council leaders, "The time had lo asscil ourse ves as a oonca force recognised as such by the people' Plans were underway to establish a national Workers' Council for the whole country, but from the end of November outright repression increased considerably and threw the workers' councils on the defensive. When the Budapest Central Council decided to bring out its own newspaper to counter the lies of the official media the police raided the printing premises At the beginning of December some 200 members of various councils were arrested and on 9 December a majority of members of the Central Council were arrested and a government decree declared the Budapest Central The response of the workers was a general strike throughout the country which was pro bably the biggest in Hungary's history. The government then declared a state of emergency.
the Soviet leaders visited Budapest and a few days later the death penalty was extended to striking or inciting to strike.
On 15 January 1957 the Budapest Central Council issued its final appeal to the workers: 'Because of the terror, and the death penalty the Council exhorts the workers to spread all news concerning the underground by word of mouth. Sabotage and passive resistance are the order of the day.
Sabotage and passive resistance continued throughout 1957 but the councils had been broken. They were finally dissolved by governorganised by • Kadar was 2000 people were executed 20,000 imprisoned. Political parties were forbidden, the revolution was now declared to have been a 'counter-revolution' and the leader of the 'reform communists', Imthe Hungarian first attempt to create a socialist alternative to Stalinism Tron 3
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