Hungary 1956

[Vendetta]

Would this article from Anarchopedia be accurate about it's description of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution?


The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 can be seen as an excellent example of a functioning anarchy. From October 22, 1956, Hungarian workers refused to obey their managers or their government, in the face of authoritarian Stalinist rule. Claiming sovereignty for their own workers' councils they organized economic, military and social production on an increasing scale. An example of the anarchic social organization was that vast sums of money were freely donated for injured revolutionary fighters, and that this money was left unattended in the street for days at a time. Peasants supplied the workers with food on a voluntary basis. Between October 22 and December 14 Hungary's economy and society was governed by the democratic opinion of workers councils and voluntary associations.

These councils constantly increased in scope and depth, eventually forming a Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest (CWC-GB), with intellectual and student associations affiliated to the body. The attempts to form a national Workers Council were crushed by Soviet military violence. The workers councils fought off one invasion by the Soviet Union between October 23 and 28, and fought a second invasion to an armistice of exhaustion between November 3 and November 10. After this time the Soviet Union negotiated directly with the Workers Councils. However, arrests of the primary and reserve leaderships of the CWC-GB, and massive reprisal executions and deportations of Hungarian revolutionaries lead to voluntary dissolution of the CWC-GB as it was no longer able to uphold its aims and ideals. Sporadic resistance by Hungarian revolutionaries and workers continued until mid 1957. Only one self-proclaimed anarchist, the playwright Julius Hay (Hay Gyulia), was involved in organizing the revolution. Most revolutionary Hungarians adopted their own "anarchist" way of organizing spontaneously.

[kromando33]

The 'Revolution' of 1956 was closer to a reactionary counter-revolution with pro-Western backing.

[bolshevik butcher]

That's a ridiculous analysis. While it is certianly true that after it happened the imperialist powers have tried to claim the Hungarian revolution of 1956 as being identical in character to the counter revolutionary movements in Poland and East Germany in the 1980s this simply is not the case. Hungary in 1956 was a political revolution in action. The Hungarian working class set up tsi own organs of power soviets, and tried to take for itself control of the planned economy and state apparatus that was being used agianst them by the bueraucracy.

I don't see how anarchists can claim the Hungarian revolution as their own. Many of the workers had read Lenin and were fighting for a return to his ideas. Organs like soviets are the natural organs of working class struggle, not something exclusively anarchist.

[Marsella]

DJ-TC posted some useful quotes regarding the Hungarian revolt: http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-39-councils-t59900/index.html?t=59900 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-39-councils-t59900/index.html?t=59900United)

United Nations Special Committee, New York, 1957:



485. No aspect of the Hungarian uprising expressed its democratic tendencies or its reaction to previous conditions more clearly than the creation of Revolutionary Councils in villages, towns and on the county level, and of Workers’ Councils in factories. Within a few days, these bodies came into existence all over Hungary and assumed important responsibilities. Their chief purpose was to ensure for the Hungarian people real, and not merely nominal, control of local government and of factories, mines, and other industrial enterprises. There was even a suggestion that a National Revolutionary Committee might replace the National Assembly,(1) while another proposal was that a Supreme National Council could exercise the prerogative of Head of the State.(2) While nothing of the kind took place, the fact that such proposals could be put forward at all suggests the degree to which they were felt to reflect the desires of the people.

547. The Workers’ Councils and the Revolutionary Councils were closely related phenomena of the Revolution. In many cities the Revolutionary Councils were elected by the delegates of Workers’ Councils, and most of the Revolutionary Councils included many workers in the membership. Witnesses described how, after the election of a Revolutionary Council or a National Committee in such a way, a mutual link was created between a Revolutionary Council and the Workers’ Councils which were to be set up in the area covered by it. In one case, reported by the newspaper of the Hungarian National Revolutionary Committee, the establishment of certain Workers’ Councils was not recognized, and a new election was ordered “in accordance with the spirit of true democracy”.

560. The Committee concludes from its study of the Revolutionary Councils that they were the result of a spontaneous, nation-wide movement to assert the right of the Hungarian people to assume the direction of their affairs and lives. This movement took shape, as did the uprising itself, at the local level and there was in the beginning little or no contact between the various groups. Nevertheless, as in the case of the students and intellectuals, a broad identity of aim underlies both the demands and the methods. It is clear that the formation of these Councils met a need widely felt by the Hungarian people.

561. The same is true of the Workers’ Councils. All witnesses confirmed that dissatisfaction with the trade unions of the régime was one of the most important grievances of the Hungarian workers. In addition, they demanded a genuine voice in the control of the undertaking in which they worked, and this they set out to obtain by electing Councils along democratic lines. These Councils at once assumed important responsibilities in the factories, mines and other undertakings, and they exerted a considerable influence upon the Government, with which delegations from a number of them maintained direct contact. The overwhelming support given by Hungarians to these Workers’ Councils confirms the impression that they were among the most important achievements of the Hungarian people during their few days of freedom.

Peter Fryer, Hungarian Tragedy, London 1956:


The word ‘national’ was not intended to imply that this body arrogated to itself any authority outside its own region; such committees called themselves indifferently ‘national’ or ‘revolutionary’. In their spontaneous origin, in their composition, in their sense of responsibility, in their efficient organisation of food supplies and of civil order, in the restraint they exercised over the wilder elements among the youth, in the wisdom with which so many of them handled the problem of Soviet troops, and, not least, in their striking resemblance at so many points to the soviets or councils of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies which sprang up in Russia in the 1905 revolution and again in February 1917, these committees, a network of which now extended over the whole of Hungary, were remarkably uniform. They were at once organs of insurrection - the coming together of delegates
elected by factories and universities, mine and Army units - and organs of popular self-government, which the armed people trusted. As such they enjoyed tremendous authority, and it is no exaggeration to say that until the Soviet attack of November 4 the real power in the country lay in their hands.

Radio Transmissions:


Originally posted by Radio Free Miskolc+ 26th October--> (Radio Free Miskolc @ 26th October)The Committee of the workers’ council of Greater Miskolc and the Party Committee, independently of the answer made by Comrade Imre Nagy . . . just read, have, on the basis of the resolution of the working people ... decided to maintain the demands they have submitted as long as they are not fulfilled in their essence. Our proclamation issued to the workers in connection with these demands, and which bears the Kossuth arms, consists of five points, as follows: 1. We demand that the Soviet Army leave the country immediately; 2. A new Hungarian government; 3. The right of workers to strike; 4. Complete amnesty for Hungarians who have participated in the revolution; 5. As long as these [demands] are not fulfilled the people of Borsod County and Greater Miskolc respectively will strike, with the exception of railways, mining, health services, public supply, electric power supply, and the press... Young workers and students: conduct yourself in a disciplined manner. Do not offer any reason for any interference by the authorities. We are able to assert our demands without bloodshed. In the attainment of their ends you can furnish the people of Budapest the greatest aid if you carry on the strike in a disciplined manner and if you do not demonstrate unnecessarily. Do not commit any provocation or any sabotage, because the only thing we would achieve by that would be the weakening of our common forces.


Originally posted by Radio Free [email protected] 27th October
For two days the city of Miskolc has been under the leadership of the workers’ council and the students’ parliament. The workers’ council has taken over control of the garrison and the police. The demands of the workers’ council and of the students have been made publicly known by radio and press -the twenty-one points of the workers’ councils as well as the universities’ eleven points. As you know, the county strike committee has also called on all plants in the county to strike, with the exception of mail, transport, communications, food supplies, health services and power plants.

Originally posted by Radio [email protected] 28th October
A temporary national committee has been formed. It has started to organize a National Guard for maintaining order. Its members are being recruited from the Hungarian Army, the police, the workers, and the young workers. Workers’ councils have been formed in the major plants of the district. They have already started work. The workers of the Kelenfoeld power station have done everything they can do to keep the capital supplied with electric current. They were unable to leave their place of work for three days and continued working in spite of the fact that they were without food

Originally posted by Radio Free [email protected] 29th October
A four-member delegation representing professors and students [in Sopron] has arrived in Gyor to present its demands. . . . Many of the demands of the Sopron students agree with the demands made by the trade unions and the Petofi Club . . . [but] they state that they do not agree with the present composition of parliament and the government ... and do not believe them suitable [organs] for drawing up a new electoral law. They demand that a new parliament be formed from representatives of town and village national councils...

Originally posted by Radio Free [email protected] 1st November
On October 31, 1956 delegates of the National Committees of Trans-Danubia set up the Trans-Danubian National Council, with headquarters in Gyor. The Council fully identifies itself with the heroic freedom fighters. Every county in Trans-Danubia is represented by two delegates and county capitals and the city of Gyor will each be represented by two delegates. Within the next 24 hours, the Trans-Danubian National Council will start negotiations with the government on the subject of its fulfillment of the nation’s demands. The TNC wants to receive a guarantee from the government that it will keep its promises in particular the promise that Soviet troops will evacuate the country at the given time. The TNC welcomes [into its organization] the military units of Papa, Gyor, Tata and Zalaegerszeg and salutes their promise to protect the people from any foreign attack, even in the face of higher orders. The TNC considers it desirable that all military forces be organized uniformly in Trans-Danubia. . .
Radio Dunapentele @ 4th November

Dunapentele is the leading socialist town in Hungary. In this town all the inhabitants are working and they hold the power in their hands. . . . The population of the town is under arms. . . they will not give in because they have erected the factories and homes of the town with their own hands. . . . The- workers will defend the town against fascism -- but also against the Soviet troops.
Hungary: Freedom's Choice, Time, LXIX (January 7, 1957), 18-22


Lazlo and his friends heard Radio Budapest, in rebel hands on Oct.27, tell all factories to set up workers’ councils. Lazio was one of 14 elected by secret ballot at his mill. “I thought to myself, ‘My God! What is happening? Are we really practicing democracy?’ I felt like crying.” “There were happy meetings everywhere,” says Lazio. Everything went well until the day that the Soviet army attacked again. The workers got 6,000 rifles from the Hungarian army, but when 87 Soviet tanks and armored cars suddenly descended on Vac, there was no resistance.

P. Kecskemeti, The Unexpected Revolution: Social Forces in the Hungarian Uprising (1961), p. 115. [speaking about council movemet after 4th November]


This was the first time in history that the syndicalist myth of the revolutionary general strike. . . actually became the basis of sustained political action by the entire industrial population of a country.

Sandor Bali (Central Workers' Council of Budapest, member of):



It is the Hungarian working class which has set on foot the workers' councils, which for the moment are the economic and political organisations that have behind them the working class.

[Ismail]

From what I understand it went like this: Marxist-Leninist party that wasn't doing a good job gets overthrown by an outright criminal, then criminal is overthrown by a revisionist while the workers are alienated. In short, everyone loses.

Edit: I'll copy and paste from The Working Class in Revisionist Countries Must Take the Field and Re-Establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1968) by the Party of Labour of Albania:


Let us start with Hungary. In the euphoria of the advent to power of Khrushchevite revisionism, but at a moment when it had not yet consolidated its positions, world capitalism, its Titoite agency and the internal Magyar reactionary bourgeoisie launched the armed counter-revolution against the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Workers' Party of Hungary, thinking it was the weakest link of the chain of the socialist countries. And so it was indeed. Rakosi's party melted away like snow in rain. But world capitalism and Titoism had not chosen the correct moment: they were convinced of Khrushchev's treacherous line, but they did not take account of the fact that his positions were not yet stabilized and, although he hesitated to resort to tanks, he was finally obliged to do so. Otherwise his road of treason could have been compromised. But in connection with the Hungarian counter-revolution the following facts must be pointed out:

1. The Hungarian counter-revolution was initiated by some intellectuals and students. These wavering strata, deprived of the influence of a genuine Marxist-Leninist party, became reserves and squalds of the counter-revolutionary attack under the direction of the bourgeoisie. The Hungarian writers were in the van of this counter-revolution.

2. The Hungarian working class in general and that of Budapest in particular, despite the revolutionary traditions inherited from the 1919 proletarian revolution, was unable to defend its power and gains. On the contrary, a considerable part of the working class, especially in Budapest, was activated in favour of the counter-revolutionaries. It became therefore a reserve of reaction. This means, in other words, that the work of Rakosi's party was not well grounded, it was superficial. The working class did not fully recognize it as their leader. This was the greatest and most dangerous evil.

3. The counter-revolution entirely liquidated Rakosi's party within a few days, while counter-revolutionary Janos Kadar promulgated the decree for its official dissolution.

4. During the few days of counter-revolution in Hungary many bourgeois, capitalist and fascist parties immediately sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Thus, the Hungarian counter-revolution was suppressed by means of Soviet tanks, a thing which can no longer be repeated. The same traitor who liquidated the party, under the dictate of the Khrushchevite revisionists, promulgated the other decree for the re-founding of the new allegedly <<Marxist-Leninist>> party, the Hungarian revisionist party, a still worse one than that of Rakosi.

The Hungarian counter-revolution was suppressed by counter-revolutionaries. Thus, both wings of the putsch were bound to come together, as they did. They would build up their own <<Hungary>>, as they did build it. They would restore capitalism, as they are restoring it. Drawing lesscns from the bloodshed and, after having paid a bloody ransom for its hasty actions, Hungarian reaction is now carrying out at leisure its reforms of radical capitalist transformation independently, and without any trouble from the Soviet forces and tanks which remain on Hungarian territory. The Hungarian bourgeoisie is, so to speak, going about its business, this time under the protection of the Khrushchev tanks. The Hungarian capitalist bourgeoisie, hostile to the working class, disguised under the <<banner of the party>>, is lulling the working class to sleep while forging new chains for it. The capitalist bourgeoisie has as its vanguard the old and new revisionist intelligentsia in complete identity of views and unity of action.http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/WCRC68.html

[kromando33]

The revolution resulted in a self-described 'social democrat' coming to power, one who thought the bourgeois had a place in society, he was even worst than the revisionist commanding the army that toppled him. So yes Mrdie, everyone lost.

[Forward Union]

The revolution resulted in a self-described 'social democrat' coming to power, one who thought the bourgeois had a place in society, he was even worst than the revisionist commanding the army that toppled him. So yes Mrdie, everyone lost.

True. But that's not necciseraly a reflection on the entire revolution.

The Revolution consisted of workers demanding democratic control of their workplaces, and the communist party fighting against them. So the workers went on wildcat strikes, did occupations and demonstrations, and found themselves up against Incendary bombs and soviet tanks.

The fact that it got hijacked by liberals is regretable, but not surprising.

[Sky]

The events of October 1956 were part of a campaign of fascists to exploit the errors and distortions of the R&#225;kosi-Gerő gang. The fascists provoked the authorities to take action when they staged an unauthorized and illegal demonstration on 23 October. According to the 1947 Paris peace treaties, each government was to prevent the resurgence of fascist organizations "whether political, military, or semi-military, whose purpose it is to deprive the people of their democratic rights"


On behalf of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary I appeal to the Government of the Soviet Union to send Soviet troops in order to put an end to the riots that have broken out in Budapest, to restore order as soon as possible, and to guarantee the conditions for peaceful and creative work.
24 October 1956
Budapest
Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Hungary Andras Hegedus"


Events in Hungary made it clear that, with the assistance of the United States, a reactionary underground movement had been organized in Hungary which had exploited the difficulties and shortcomings in the work of state organs in Hungary in order to mislead certain sections of the people. Mr Nagy drew a clear distinction between the democratic movement and the movement of counterrevolutionary elements which had attached itself to it. Measures for the liquidation of the latter had been carried out by the people's militia and the Hungarian people's army. In response to an appeal by the Hungarian Government, Soviet military units located in Hungary in conformity with the Warsaw Treaty, had gone to the help of the Hungarian forces and the Hungarian workers. The Nagy Government collapsed, and a revolutionary Workers and Peasants Government had been formed, including several Ministers of the Nagy Government. The Government declared that all communiations from Nagy were invalid and had reiterated the Hungarian Government's objections to discussion of the situation in the UN.

By no means were the actions of the Hungarian counterrevolutionaries peaceful. As the high casualty rates of the Soviet armed forces demonstrates, the counterrevolutionaries were brutal and vicious in their conduct. If they had the right to engage in violence against the Government, then the Government was equally justified in responding with violence.