Worker's Revolts/uprisings within Socialist Republics.

[Lei Feng]

Comrades,

I have reached a bit of confusion after studying a bit of the worker's revolts in the 50s in the Eastern Bloc. The 1953 uprising in the DDR was apparently supposed to achieve "free elections" and wage increases.

The government of the DDR treated this uprising as a potential fascist coup.

In Hungary, in 1956, there was an uprising against the Hungarian People's government. Those who protested, were too, met with violence in response.

These are just two examples that I have read about(from a seemingly biased standpoint) However, I summarized the two events as unbiased as I could.

Please, comrades, could you help clear up any obscurity regarding these two events and wether or not they were genuine worker's revolts or Fascist conspiracies. I honestly do not know which, as they both sound plausible.

Thank you.

[Ocean Seal]

I don't know about the situation in Germany so I won't comment. But with regards to Hungary, it was in no way a fascist coup of any kind. It was a genuine grievance against state capitalism and the contradictions in capitalism which plagued Hungary. That being said, anyone who believes that there was a genuine revolution brewing in Hungary is an absolute idealist. It was not a revolution based in the general working class and ironically the libertarians accuse Leninists of being substitutionists and yet the Hungarian uprising was more substitutionist than most ML revolutions.

Of course one being a materialist has consider the fact that those in the uprising couldn't have won, and that there were predatory powers waiting for disorganization in Hungary which of course doesn't excuse the officials who cracked down on the revolt as they had different interests from the working class. And it is also not to say that Hungary wouldn't be subject to the will of the predatory "socialist" powers later on.