What Really Happened in Hungary? by Basil Davidson

[p033] 6d.); What Really Happened in Hungary? by Basil Davidson (UDC, 1/-). Coutts worked as an official in a “youth-international” office in Budapest for three years, but there is no evidence in his pamphlet that he had learnt the language or mixed with the ordinary people. For example, he seems unaware when “watch- ing workers holidaymaking in the former preserves of the bourgeoisie” at Lake Balaton (p. 29) that there were separate “special bathing beaches” for the Communist leaders, “shut off from the common people by barbed wire” (Peter Fryer, Hungarian Tragedy, p. 94; compare also Davidson, p. 8). Again he writes on p. 9: “I must admit I didn’t at the time know the expression for shoot him, but that’s what they were saying all right.” Moreover, as one may gather from Fryer’s Hungarian Tra- gedy (pp. 47-9), the articles collected in this pamphlet do not represent unadulterated Coutts’ original views. But whether Coutts is honest and blind or a willing tool, the key to the publication by the Daily Worker of this selection from the articles of this second-rate observer is to be found in J. R. Campbell’s tendentious foreword. Campbell is prepared to “face the question as to whether there were grave errors in its (the Daily Worker’s) previous estimation of the People’s

[p034] Democracy in Hungary”, but he will never admit the possibi- lity of Soviet action at the time of speaking being incorrect. He therefore has to scrape the bottom of the barrel for shreds of “evidence” to justify Soviet intervention in Hungary and “without agreeing with all Charlie’s judgments” emphasizes those parts of Coutts’ account favourable to his case but which when examined in the light of other accounts are revealed as not substantiated or not an argument, or neither. Even judging Campbell’s argument by its internal logic, it is a miserable piece of legerdemain in its progression from “or- ganised groups” within the mass movement (shown to be counter-revolutionary by their knowing “where to get arms and transport” and “where to direct their attacks against Party and Soviet institutions”!) to a “situation” in which “a slide” to World War ITI was “inevitable”, and the conclusion that “to encourage the Hungarian workers in any other course (than that of co-operating with the Kadar Government) is criminal folly”. But no doubt such an argument is not only the only resort but also sufficiently convincing to one for whom the only reliable force for “peace” is the Soviet Government and its agencies, and opposition to any of their policies, “counter- revolution”. Fortunately the “politically minded readers” to whom he appeals are showing a better political understanding than Campbell himself. Two threads run through Coutts’ account, together consti- tuting the argument that the only alternative to Soviet inter- vention was the victory of counter-revolution: one, the strength of the counter-revolutionary elements; the other, the weakness of the Nagy government. This is as if one had said in 1917 that Kornilov was bound to win because Kerensky was weak, when in the event the Soviets defeated both in turn. In fact, Coutts is able to represent the “counter-revolution- ary elements” as strong only by including in them some of the popular progressive forces. Of the revolutionary councils in the provinces Coutts saw and says nothing, and on p. 15 he calls the Hungarian Social Democrats “hardly a real political orce’”’. Coutts accordingly counts as “counter-revolutionary” any manifestation of hostility to the Soviet Government or to the Communist Party (e.g. on p. 5, the destruction of “Red” stars; on p. 14, the National Guard and Maleter), when as a Marxist he should be judging the Soviet Government and its agents by their attitude to the working class. “Reaction had a tre- mendous area to work in, for there was no doubt that there was mass anti-Soviet feeling,” he writes on p. 16. The elements he actually represents as anti-working-class (pp. 6-10, Dudas, etc.; pp. 15-17, anti-Nagy) are (with the ex- ception of pp. 12-14, the burning of TU newspapers) a sur- prisingly thin sample of the revolt’s reactionary wing that undoubtedly existed. The other thread is the discrediting of Nagy (pp. 15, 17, 19-21), as compared with Kadar (p. 20), and the argument that the leadership of the working class was so busy faction- alizing against the Stalinists (is this a lesson intended for British Communists?) that the masses were left at any demo- gogue’s mercy (p. 20). Coutts’ final analysis (pp. 20-21) of why the Hungarian Communists failed, puts the blame for mechanical application of Soviet methods on—the Hungarians; e.g., Mikoyan had merely “advised” that Gero should replace Rakosi, but “the story grew” that he had “insisted”. It also denies that the split in the Workers’ Party shows that “democratic centralism” is “outmoded”, without of course mentioning the degeneration of “democratic centralism” under Stalinism. In other words, his “analysis” is an apologia for the whole line, not only on Hungary, of the Executive Committee of the British Com- munist Party. His conclusion “that on the question of the position of the Communist Party and its relation to Government organs when the working class is in power, there is a lot of thinking to be done yet”, while ignoring the thinking already done by Marxist opponents of Stalinism, does provide a ray of hope of honesty among even the most recalcitrant of Executive Committee supporters. Moreover, it is noteworthy that, of the two mutually con- tradictory lines presented in one statement by the E.C. of the British Communist Party (World News, Christmas number), viz., that the Hungarian working class was reactionary from its past history, and that the counter-revolutionary leaders had to use socialist slogans, all that can be salvaged in presenting this eye-witness report is (p. 15), “an extreme example’, a case of coercion of an election meeting of 600 people by 40 young armed men and a priest, and (p. 18) the admission that “it would not be reaction alone that Soviet troops, and those units of the army who were with the (Kadar) Government, would have to fight but thousands of young Hungarians who would be honestly thinking that they fought in a just cause.” That this last is an understatement is shown by the words (no doubt of the pseudo-socialist slogans!) of Rajk Radio, November 8: “Comrades, let us preserve the fighting spirit of Marxism-Leninism, let us continue to fight within the frame- work of our betrayed and outraged Party for the independence of 108) Socialist. Hungarian nation.” (The Revolt in Hungary, . 104). P Beside Coutts, Davidson’s pamphlet is a model of objective description. However, it remains considerably inferior to Fryer’s book, even allowing for length, and its conclusions are inadequate. There is some tendency in Davidson to make not the Soviet Government but the Hungarian Rakosists the principal vil- lains, e.g., p.12: “The Soviet léaders...out of touch with realities in Hungary...ousted Rakosi; but...allowed the Rakosi-ite Gero to take Rakosi’s place” (our emphasis). Coutts’ villains, the counter-revolutionary “elements”, inflated as they are, at least have a basis in the economic interests of foreign and the old Hungarian exploiting classes. The Rakosists and other Stalinists owe their existence as a bureaucracy capable of temporary power, to their complete subordination to the Soviet bureaucracy. Davidson is quite right to oppose re-opening of the Cold War, to say “British-Soviet friendship is indeed more necessary than ever”, and to advocate bilateral neutralization of Eastern Europe and Germany (pp. 23-4). But let us have no illusions: capitalist governments and the present Soviet bureaucracy, the partners in “peaceful co-existence”, and even UNO constituted as it is, are not enough to bring the kind of peace required by the peoples of the world. The Hungarian masses demand not only neutrality but soci- alism with workers’ democracy. The real lesson both of Coutts’ and of Davidson’s material is the need for a real Marxist leadership of the working class, theoretically equipped to or- ganize victoriously the working masses’ struggle for both social and political liberation. One of Stalin’s Victims