The Lessons of Hungary

[p007] The Lessons of Hungary C. van Gelderen No EVENT since the Russian Revolution of 1917 has aroused such intense emotions in the world labour movement as the rising of the Hungarian people against their Stalinist overlords and the brutal attempt at crushing the revolution by means of Russian armed might. Overnight the “new deal” promised to the satel- lite states after the Kruschev speech at the 20th Con- gress of the C.P.S.U. was exposed as the hollowest of shams. No ruling bureaucracy, any more than a ruling class, voluntarily liquidates itself and gives up its pri- vileges. The Hungarian rising was the first armed political revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy since it first usurped power in the Soviet Union in the nineteen- twenties. The revolution was political and not social because its aim was not the overturn in property rela- tions but for the establishment of a genuine workers’ democracy at all levels in the State, in the Workers’ Party, and in the national economy. This political nature of the revolution was de- monstrated quite clearly by the demands put forward by the workers’ and students’ councils which were set up spontaneously as the revolution developed. Thus, the Communist Ferencs Merey, leader of the Budapest Students’ Revolutionary Committee, explained to Charlie Coutts that they were fighting for “a really in- dependent democratic Hungary building Socialism” (Daily Worker, Nov. 26). Among the early demands put forward were those calling for the immediate con- vening of a congress of the Hungarian Workers’ Party, free elections to local and national state organs, open democratic discussion of past mistakes and practices, and the preparation of a new, constructive national programme. All over Hungary, revolutionary councils of workers, students and soldiers came into being, once again, demonstrating, as in Russia in 1905 and 1917 and in Hungary in 1919, that these councils or “soviets” are the traditional and “natural” organs of struggle of the working class. The movement to set up these councils was completely spontaneous, i.e. no cen- tral body first called for their formation. It was through these democratic forms that the mass uprising of the people against years of national and economic exploi- tation took place. This spontaneity was at once the strength and the weakness of the movement; strength— because such a movement could not be easily crushed, not even by the mobile artillery, tanks and armoured cars of the Red Army; weakness—-because the move- ment lacked the direction, understanding and purpose which only a revolutionary party with its roots deep in the working class could give. FRATERNISATION Whilst the demand for the withdrawal of Soviet forces was raised quite early in the struggle, in the first days there were no signs of anti-Russian chauvin- ism. There are many reports of Hungarian “freedom fighters” fraternising with Red Army troops and these actions seem to have been reciprocated. There can be no doubt that the average Red Army soldier wanted no- thing better than to pack up and go home. This fra- ternisation spelt danger, not only for the out and out “native” Stalinists led by Rakosi and Gero but also for the Soviet bureaucracy back home in Russia. Right from the start, the Kremlin saw in Hungarian events a mirror image of their own future. It was only when Russian tanks and artillery fired on the unarmed demonstrators in Budapest on October 24, that the fury of the revolution was turned on the Russians as such. Coutts now claims that, hauling down the Red Star from the headquarters of the trade unions showed that the “anti-communists were now coming into the open.” This shows how little he un- - derstands the significance of the historic events of which he was an eye-witness. The political revolution against the bureaucracy as it took place in Hungary, and as it will take place in other Eastern European countries, will never present us with a neat picture of struggle for “pure” proletarian democracy. Only idealistic pipe-dreamers could expect this. The revolution will develop against the back- ground of a complex pattern of complicating factors. A MILITARY-BUREAUCRATIC REVOLUTION Stalinism, when it over-ran Hungary and the other Eastern European countries, immediately began to in- tegrate them into the Soviet orbit. It did this, not by putting forward a political and social programme which the people could support but on the basis of Red Army occupation, by military-bureaucratic means. The Communist (Workers’) Parties were placed in power by the Russian Army and ruled by the grace of the Red Army and the Soviet bureaucracy. These governments, therefore, represented not the interests of the workers but the interests of the ruling oligarchy in the Krem- lin. When Coutts writes that the leaders of the Hun- garian Workers’ Party “bound themselves hand and foot by dogma, struggle for prestige and a belief that a gilt-edged copy of Soviet society was all that Hun- gary needed even if that contradicted every national sentiment and tradition” (Daily Worker, Nov. 29), he is either dishonest or he genuinely does not realise that they had no other choice. Every ruling Communist Party in Eastern Europe was deliberately cast in the mould of the Stalinized Soviet Communist Party. The one Communist Party which tried to take a different line—Y ugoslavia—soon found itself outside the official Communist orbit—the object of abuse and slander in every Communist journal throughout the world. The Hungarian Communist leaders were, of course, in quite a different position to Tito. In Yugoslavia the masses achieved a genuine political and social revolu- tion during the war and in this revolution the Yugoslav Communist Party had firmly established its leadership, not only over the working class but also over the na-

[p008] tional movement. In Hungary, as in the other People’s Democracies”, the power of the Communist Party rested entirely on the fact that it was staffed by the Kremlin’s nominees. Small wonder, therefore, that the Hungarian re- volutionaries looked upon the Red Star not as the symbol of victorious socialism but as a Russian em- blem, and when their fury turned against their Russian overlords, this emblem was pulled down together with Stalin’s statue. SUPER-EXPLOITATION Soviet domination of the satellites is not only poli- tical. The entire economy of these countries was re- moulded to fit in with and supplement the Soviet Five- Year plan. All the worst features of the super exploita- tion of Stakhanovism were transferred to the satellite countries. Even Coutts cannot disguise the vicious speed-up carried out in the Hungarian factories under the rule of “People’s Democracy”. “What really caused discontent,” he writes, “was the unjust appli- cation of the norms system. In many factories and other industrial establishments it worked out like this. “When you increased production, the norm was raised and so, finally, you were producing more, but for roughly the same wages as before. It may seem incredible, but it actually happened.” (Daily Worker, Dec. 4). Of course, it only seems incredible to those who, like Coutts, have naively swallowed all the fairy tales about “victorious socialism” these last ten years and who used words like “People’s Democracy” without attaching any real meaning to them. Similarly, the workers were critical of State plan- ning, or rather the. bureaucratic manner in which the planning was done. “They wanted to be in on it some- where along the line and to.do more than just criticise and alter the national plan as it affected their factory.” Consequently, in a situation where the economic exploitation of the workers and peasants is carried out by a corrupt bureaucracy in the interests of a foreign power, it is only natural that a struggle for national independence will develop alongside the more mature political struggle of the working class. The Stalinist method of rule has made it inevitable that all the poli- tical revolutions in Eastern Europe will begin as a struggle for national independence. SATELLITE’S ECONOMY SUBORDINATED TO SOVIET’S Under this system of Stalin’s “People’s Democra- cies” the economics of the various “People’s Democra- cies” were never integrated amongst themselves or within themselves but each national plan is separately geared to the Soviet plan. Each one of the Eastern European satellites contributes either raw materials or industrial goods of prime importance to Soviet eco- nomy. The nationalisation of the means of production has resulted in a rapid increase in the rate of produc- tion but this has not resulted in an equivalent gain for the workers and peasants of these countries. The only people who have benefited from this increased produc- tion at home are the local bureaucrats who, with their secret police and the most hideous, barbaric terrorism were trying to drive the people to still greater produc- tion efforts on behalf of their Kremlin overlords. The struggle for national independence in the Satellite states is therefore a progressive one. Only after they have achieved this independence will the peoples of Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia and perhaps others be able to create that voluntary economic federation which would create the basis of a rapid advance towards socialism in this part of the world. ROLE OF REACTION Of course, in the unsettled conditions engendered by fierce revolutionary struggle, it is only to be ex- pected that reactionary forces will come on to the Stage to play their part. World imperialism has never written off this loss of one-fifth of the world market. They have always hoped to regain a foothold in the non-capitalist sector of the world economy and they have planned accordingly. Only the naive and the idiotic would assert that there were no counter-revolu- tionary elements in the ranks of the “freedom fighters.” Quite apart, too, from the attempts of outside imperialist elements to intervene in the Hungarian events, it is necessary to realise that the class struggle in Hungary was not resolved in 1945 simply by the Red Army placing the local Stalinists in power. On the con- trary, for two years or more, the Stalinists actually protected certain sections of the bourgeoisie and would probably have gone on doing so if the pressure of im- - perialism (the “cold war”) had not made this position untenable. Consequently, in the present struggle for national liberation, these people would establish a uni- ted front with the working class against the foreign oppressor. Only when the national question is resolved will the social forces come to the fore and reveal the sharp class antagonisms. In “People’s Democratic” Hungary, the old ruling class lacked a property base and for this reason they had to look to the peasantry for mass support. There is little indication however that such support was forth- coming. On the contrary, the peasants organised the supply of food to the striking workers of Csepel, Duna- pentele and other industrial centres. Nowhere did the peasants put forward a demand for a return of confis- cated land back to the large estates and semi-feudal landlords of the Horthy era. To pose the agrarian issues of the Hungarian events in this way is to see it laughed out of court. AGAINST ENFORCED COLLECTIVISM It is true however that the peasants seized the first opportunity to abandon the collective farms as fast as they could. Following the Stalin model, the Rakosi re- gime had forced collectivisation on the Hungarian pea- Santry with brutal ferocity and this collectivisation brought no real benefits to the peasants. Collectivisation is much more than a political slogan; it can be success- fully accomplished only if there are sufficient tractors and other mechanical agricultural machinery to make collective farming economically superior. The peasant will agree to collectivisation only if it can be demon- strated to him that it will result in more food, better clothing and more civilised living conditions for him and his family. The “urbanisation” of rural life is one of the essential tasks of the social revolution. In Hun- gary, as in the satellite countries generally, collectivisa-

[p009] tion only made it easier for the bureaucracy to plunder the peasants. No wonder they voted against it “with their feet”. By far the most effective force in the Hungarian ‘revolution was the working class, resolutely backed by the students. It is well known that these students, ten years after the overthrow of capitalism in Hungary, came mostly from working class families. It was the workers of Csepel who began the armed struggle and who were the last to lay down their arms. Even after the fighting stopped, the workers continued, by means of the general strike, to bring tremendous pressure to bear on the Kadar Government. Now, even as we are writing these lines (Dec. 10), it is becoming clear that there is still, to a certain ex- tent, a system of “dual power” in Hungary—that “dual power” characteristic of a certain stage of all revolu- tions. But the main opposing forces are not the old capitalist landlord ruling classes on the one side and the “Government of People’s Democracy” on the other, as the apologists for latter day Stalinism would have us believe. On the contrary, the main antagonists in the struggle in Hungary, which is even at the moment once again breaking out into the open, are the Workers’ Councils and the Stalinist bureaucracy plus the Russian army. If we want to understand what is happening in Hungary today, Marxists will find it necessary to deter- mine the class nature of the Hungarian State. As we have already pointed out above, the “People’s Demo- cratic Republic” did not arise as the result of mass struggles of the workers and peasants of Hungary but was set up in 1945 as an extension of the Soviet State. The private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange was abolished; the big landed estates were broken up and the land given to the peasants. Later, following the Soviet model, collecti- visation was forced on to large numbers of peasants. We can say, therefore, that the state form of Hungary is roughly the same as that in the U.S.S.R.—a Workers’ State, but a Workers’ State which, from the moment of its inception was a bureaucratised, degenerated carica- ture of a Workers’ State. ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY The ruling bureaucracy first imposed itself on the Soviet Union in the years following 1924 and then, with the help of the Red Army, it fastened itself, with the help of the “native” Stalinists, on the satellite states. This bureaucracy has a double function. Firstly, since its power rests on the socialised property relations, it has to defend the economic base of the workers’ state against imperialist intervention and against internal counter-revolution. Secondly, however, it must defend its own privileges against the growing demands of the workers for a larger share of the products of labour and for the restoration of proletarian democracy—a re- storation which can only be accomplished by reviving the soviets and by ensuring workers’ active participation in every stage of national planning. These demands of the workers spell death to the bureaucracy. The bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union and of the satellite states is not permanent but a tran- sitional phase of the revolution. It came about as the result of certain peculiar historical conditions — the isolation of the Irst workers’ state in Russia—economic- ally and culturally a backward country. As Russia overcomes its economic backwardness and with the: spread of revolution to other countries (China, Eastern Europe), the conditions which gave rise to and have hitherto maintained the bureaucracy in power are now disappearing. But just as capitalism does not peacefully disappear from the scene even though it has long out- lived its usefulness, so the Soviet bureaucracy clings desperately to its power and privileges. In every country today where a Stalinist bureau- cracy is in power, this bureaucracy is heading towards a head-on collision with the working class. In Hungary this head-on collision has led to the struggle coming out into the open as a violent clash of armed conflict. In Bulgaria and Rumania, in Czechoslovakia and Pol- and—and even in the Soviet Union itself, these same driving forces of history continue inexorably to do their work .The need of these countries for workers’ democracy is now matured and all the tanks, all the forces of terrorism which the bureaucracy has at its command cannot prevent the final victory of workers. Was the Hungarian upsurge a popular mass move- ment or an attempted counter-revolutionary coup d’etat? This is the question which R. Palme Dutt asks himself in the December Labour Monthly. Dutt writes: “The question presents a false alternative. Both ele ments were present . . . there is no reason to believe that the majority desired the destruction of their socialist achievements or the return of the big landlords and capitalists.” But then he goes on to try and prove that despite the fact that the majority wanted only to defend their socialist heritage, the forces of counter-revolution were so well organised that they were able to “exploit the confusion” of the workers. WHO CONFUSED THE WORKERS? If the workers of Hungary are a little confused as to who is a counter-revolutionary and a fascist, the Stalin- ists are not a little to blame for this. They have seen Tito denounced as a Fascist; they have witnessed the execution of Rajk and the imprisonment of Nagy and Kadar as “counter-revolutionary fascists.” Those who are old enough to remember the Moscow Trials of the nineteen-thirties will call to mind that almost all those who served with Lenin on the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks during the Revolution of 1917 were executed as “Fascist mad dogs”—and Palme Dutt and the British Communist Party leaders did not hesitate to join in the chorus of foul-mouthed denunciation. Is it remarkable then that the workers and peasants of Hungary and of the rest of the world are more than somewhat suspicious of the current Russian and King Street charges of “counter-revolutionary fascists” hurled at the Hungarian revolutionaries? It is now possible to answer the question as to whe- ther there was any justification for the Russian armed forces to intervene in Hungary in support of the Kadar Government. In passing, it is interesting to note that those who now like Dutt applaud this intervention of the Russian Army were among those who accused Trotsky—during the struggle with Stalin over the issue of “Socialism in One Country”—of wanting to export the revolution on the bayonets of the Red Army. But we have all lost count of their self-contradictions. Giving evidence before the Dewey Commission which carried out an enquiry into the Moscow Trials,

[p010] Trotsky was asked the question: “Did you ever believe that the Soviet Union should send the Red Army into other countries for the purpose of overthrowing the rule of the capitalist classes?” Trotsky answered: “In such an abstract form it is difficult to answer. It is possible to imagine a situation where civil war is developing in one country. The pro- letariat creates one government, and the fascists an- other government. Then the government of the pro- letariat appeals to the Soviet Government for help. Naturally, I will not refuse if I can. ... It would be the elementary duty—as during a strike it is the duty of the trade unionists in every country to help the strike, the same duty it is to help by military force if it is not imposed on them and if they themselves ask for aid.” In reply to a further question, Trotsky added: “To try to impose revolution on other people by the Red Army would be adventurism.” ““Ah,” say the Campbells, Gollans and Dutts, eager- ly grabbing at any straw, “but isn’t this exactly what happened? Did not the Kadar Government ask for help?” But first we must ask—who does the Kadar Government represent? Who elected it to power? By what right does it appeal in the name of the Hungarian working class? The unpalatable truth is that it is clear that the Kadar regime represents only the Soviet and Hungarian bureaucrats. On the whole it is the capitalist and land- lord opponents of the regime who have fled across the borders into the safe haven of the “West”, whilst the workers have remained behind to carry on the fight. The Revolutionary Workers’ Councils are today the centre of resistance to Stalinism in Hungary. How on earth can workers’ councils, democratically elected by the workers be counter-revolutionary fascist organisa- tions since everyone is agreed that anyone who foists a programme of reaction on the councils would receive short shift from the revolutionary workers. ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS’ COUNCILS The Workers’ Revolutionary Councils are popular organs of the people, similar to the Soviets which sprang up in Russia in 1917. All sorts of currents pre- vail within these councils, just as they did in Russia. When the Bolsheviks put forward the call “All power to the Soviets” they were in a minority in the Soviets. But Lenin raised this slogan precisely because he re- cognised the Soviets as the elemental forms of the rule of the working class. The Bolsheviks had confidence in the workers even though the majority did not yet sup- port them . . . and it was this fact which finally won for them the majority. In like manner, “All power to the Workers’ Coun- cils” is becoming the central slogan of the revolution in Hungary today. It is a demand which international soli- darity requires the working class of every country to support. The events in Hungary will prove to be the flame of that political revolution which will set on fire every land east of the Oder. Revolution will eventually spread to all the countries of the Soviet bloc and to the Soviet Union itself. In place of the rotten Stalinist states will rise, not capitalist-landlord states, as the capitalist press hopes or as the Daily Worker says to frighten its readers, but genuine workers’ democracies in which socialist ideas will flourish and which will act as a signal for the end of capitalism throughout the world. Thus, precisely because the resurgence of workers’ democracy means also the end of the Stalinist bureau- cracy, the workers of Hungary are now being crushed with the might of the Russian Army assisted by the re- institution of all those terrorist measures so long asso- ciated with the name Stalin. The workers of the world must not and will not stand idly by while this happens.