Hungarian revolution commemorated: lessons of international struggle against bureaucracy stressed on 10th anniversary

SPEAKERS FROM BRITAIN and France commemorated the 10th anniversary of the heroic struggle of the Hungarian working class in 1956 against the Stalinist bureaucracy at a meeting of over 400 London members of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League and other young and adult workers last Thursday (November 17).

The lessons of the Hungarian revolution for the struggle of the international working class today were sharply drawn by G. Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League, Pierre Lambert, secretary of the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste of France and Aileen Jennings, Editor of the Young Socialist newspaper Keep Left'. Michael Banda, editor of The Newsletter, was the chairman.

G. Healy told the enthusiastic audience: • WE ARE NOT here tonight to commemorate a memory of a revolution fought out for six weeks. We are here because this revolution lives very much in all the events and all the happenings that are now taking place in Britain.

I well remember when I came Young Communist League and had the privilege meeting a number of YCL members who were sent into Europe to do illegal work against the dictatorship in Hungary. Hungary at that time was known the White graveyard for communists went into Hungary and they lasted on the average months. Then they were prisoned, tortured and disappearterrible dictatorship which preceded the developments place after the end of the Second World War is something that every one of us should understand and know about in relation to capitalism.

When we talk of Hungary today we are talking of something to the regime of Horthy, not to return to the dictatorship of big capital, but to cleanse Hungary of this vile bureaucratic dictatorship.

The Hunarian Revolution was different from the Russian Revolution in 1917. There was no question that the Hungarian fighters opposed the economic reorganisation of the means of production-they defended this.

What they fought to do was to cleanse their movement of bureaucracy and dictatorship, to return to the Bolshevik tradition, to return to the kind of Party which lead the revolution of 1917.

I recently spoke to a convenor of a very large factory who came from Western Europe in the 1930s. He said that when he came to England he sincerely believed that the English working class would never take the revolutionary road.

They had so much order, so much taith in their organisations, that they would take the road to socialism through these organisations at some future time.

He never believed that what he had seen in Europe would take place in this country. But now it is different.

After a few months of the present Labour government an enormous change is taking place because the Labour government and the trade union leaders who were elected to carry forward the interests of the working class in the struggle against capital are Budapest had declared a strike and the whole character of what began as a revolt of youth against autocracy now took on a different character.

The big battalions of the working class now came into action. Workers who had appeared to e suttering the dictatorship, now came on the streets and joined the students.

And then we remember what happened after the second intervention when the tanks came over the bridges at Budapest and pumped shell after shell into the working people's homes.

They could not quench the revolutionary working class in Pierre Lambert action. The general strike held. This nameless number of people would not go back.

Now it was no longer just a few students. Now the working class fought on, deserted by everybody.

At the United Nations, the American John Foster Dulles declared that this was not an international question.

It is a lie to say that the American imperialists embarrassed the Soviet bureaucracy. They permitted the Soviet bureaucracy to go in and crush this revolution because American imperialism knows that a socialist revolution will rid them of their privileged positions.

It was under these conditions that the Hungarian workers fought on. But by December 6 the end was near.

At last the Soviet bureaucracy entered the countryside.

The workers' councils were arrested and carted off to concentration camps without trial. They were brutally treated. There are many still in jail today in Hungary without trial.

And what was the truth about this revolution? After all the investigations carried out by the Soviet bureaucracy there was not one single piece of evidence to demonstrate that there was an imperialist influence which had a hold on these workers. They stuck it out to the end for socialism.

The working class had been forgotten by all the Labour politicians. The middle class had forgotten it.

The real force that can change society is ignored.

The only movement all over the world that recognises the power of the working class and that recognised the power of the Hungarian working class is the Trotskyist movement; the International Committee of the Fourth International.

We recognise this great power and that is why we have never turned away from the fact that capitalism is a system of crisis.

Even though it may carry on isit is today back ears a sale crisis. The private ownership of the means of wealth is something which the working class in Britain is now beginning to move against.

Where was cowardly British Communist Party when the tanks were pumping shells into the workers' quarters in Budapest?

Some members protested.

But the Communist Party leadership justified everything the Russians did in Hungary. They justified everything that Stalin did in the Mocow Trials. They have justified every bureaucratic attack on the working class all over the world.

The Communist Party is the greatest party of hypocrites.

But the Communist Party will have to answer for Hungary.

The role of the Communist Party in relation to the working class in this country is the same treacherous role as it was in Hungary and in the Moscow Trials.

It is the idea of compromise with world imperialism, of doing a deal wherever they can as they did in Spain, as they did with Hitler in August 1939. And this type of opportunism has led the Communist Party into one attack after another against the working class.

Stalinism today is as treacherous as Wilson. Today in Europe if it were not for the French Communist Party, the Italian_Communist Party and the British Labour Party, we would make a great leap forward to socialism.

Any tendency which in any shape or form adapts itself to Stalinism or covers up for Stalinism is thoroughly corrupt and is not a working-class tendency. It is fighting the working class.

We will not be silent about what happened in Hungary, in the Soviet Union, in Vietnam or anywhere else.

That is what Trotsky taught us.

The development of Marxism will proceed without anything being covered up and we will give no concessions to those who want to crush it.

The working class has a long memory. It is much longer than the life of an average human being.

The memory of the working class begins when capitalist production begins. The memory of the working class in Britain is at least 350 years old.

So when the working class yoU Aileen Jennings speaking in front o moves into struggle it moves with this memory unconsciously strapped across its back.

Workers are forced to think under the conditions imposed on them by the system.

It is not true that the Hungarian workers will not be vindicated. bureaucrats, change.

The history of man is the history struggle to go forward into the light of the future. It is a socialist future end this exploitation of man by man to conquer the powers of nature in order to develop each person as a human being.

In this struggle for socialism the Hungarian workers will be vindicated because the bureaucrats will not be allowed to continue without the truth being told.

February 1956 Khrushchev made a speech in which he said, without naming names, that everything that Stalin did was crime against the working class.

At that moment we were proud to be Trotskyists. We felt that if we had done nothing else but keep the opposition to Stalinism alive until other youth could take up the struggle, then we had done our job.

We understood what Stalinisn meant and what it had done to the workers' movement.

The Soviet people move into he future while the bureaucrats move from one crisis to the next. NU% EVOLUTION RD SOCIALISA of the Hungarian Revolution banner The more imperialism gets into a crisis, the more its puppets go into crisis.

arde So lea people push forward; leading authors have protested against the sentences on Daniel and Sinyavsky. There is growing up Soviet Union this great opposition.

So when we commemorate it is because of the living things of today.

tion defeatedhe Hungarian revolu Lenin proved to the whole world that unless she truth are al party that tells times to the working class that prepares the working class for all the difficulties it has to face and that will not compromise with capitalism then the struggle will be defeated.

We must have a party that will train its members to be disciplined communists, teach them not to sell their principles for conneromise.

Leninism is above all else his torical truth. But the backbone working class. It is inseparable from the working class. It de. velops and is part of the living struggles and experiences of the working class.

We are intensely interested now in all the events beginning to unfold in Britain.

The working class is now coming on to the scene. The task is not to repeat the mistakes of Hungary but to learn this lesson: the workers will fight, they will give unqualified support to real leaders, to people who won't be frightened, who will build a real party, who will fight as we did year against the Prices and Incomes Act, against the war in Vietnam, for the nationalization of the basic means of production, under workers' control. Like we did when the terrible disaster occurred in Aberfan. That was a class question.

This is a class system. Now that this new situation is coming in Britain you have to answer one question.

Do not commemorate Hungary to Hungary Dre working as a memory.

but then turn part build this revolu king class here tionary party Help us to make the Hungarian people stronger when they rise again.

Teach them to do what we did in Liège-to campaign in the face of police provocation against all those who we m are aking is bes road ot revolutionary struggle for the construction of the revolutionars mise with ith capitalise no 3 витріо- party. the revolutionary and Hungarian the whole spirit of the volution will live for ever in the ang-class history. y WOTT.

P. Lambert, seretary of the OCI in France and a long time comrade in the Trotskyist movement, described the foun ding of the First International development of the theory of class struggle Marxism.

The struggles of the working class in the late 19th century cul minated in the Paris Commune From this struggle imortant lessons were developed whick the Bolshevik leader. was able to itself in was the unity of the working class struggle all over the world.

Lambert pointed out that the Stalinist bureaucracy had expropriated the victories of the revolution in same way that the trade union bureaucracy used rebetray the working class the same way that the revolutionaries must defend the trade unions against the ureaucrats must the conquests of 191: be defended.

Then Lambert described period of defeat for the working In France in 1936 the working 1938 sas bee beaten and Spain crusning the workers' revolution.

The Bolsheviks exterminated during the Stalin purge imperialism, Trotsky Wak murdered by Stalinist agents 'But in spite of world imperial ism, Stalinists dura SOCA lution, Lambert said. aculocials rene proletarian revo- will conquer new posiEast Berlin 1953 the lithe mad against workers raced bureaucracy. This action coinFrance one later, 5.5. cided with a general strike 1954, French imperialism was defeated in Vietnam at Dien Bien Ph We had to trot it ad to m become a material force. • in 1956 the Hungarian workers began build workers' councils. Their the state against imperialism, prost allime was the defence Lambert explained.

'Workers' delegates were subject to immediate recall. These workers were fighting for the elimiaon or lue parasitic bureau cracy, freedom of thought inside the camp of the working class, the creation of an armed militia and the suppression of the permanent olice force the Soviet Union had sent 1 its troops. out ther had refused fire and fraternised with the Hungarian workers Khrushchev had to witharaw these troops and send in others, explaining that they were going to fight fascism.

was ese ause they sara tin the struggle of the Hungarian workers problems which were their probsaid Lambert.

He went on to explain that the crisis is rinening for _The Soviet Union bureaucracy. In a country which was 110 Y advanced TeNS thousands of youth were knocking on the door of the bureaucracy.

upheavals were not confined to these countries. Imperialism was aware that these revolutionary acuons Worcink with upheavals in the West. That wand the raist tea napalm terrorised people victuall [ne bureau crat Gromyko was having dinner with Johnson in the United States The Chinese was a position peap out coe cistenese Chinese Communist Party bore the responsibility for

the murder of the Indonesian Communist Party.

But we say this to those who try to make profit out of these mistakes-look at what is happening in China' On the other hand the war in Vietnam is . a preparation for a war on China. US imperialism would not stop at Hanoi, he said.

The Chinese leadership's policy of socialism in one country could not defeat imperialism. The Red Guard felt this. They were going to the highest leaders, not with a rogramme, but with the words must fight with other methods'.

Events internationally were showing that it had been correct to answer Trotsky's call 30 years ago. In the ranks of the Fourth International many cadres had been tried out and many more infiltrated simply hoping for quick victory of the working class Such people did not understand the long struggle for consciousness.

Some tried to use the name of the Fourth International to explain that the bureaucracy could reform itself. The Pabloites justified the second intervention of the Soviet tanks in Hungary.

'In France and England we have demonstrated that the Fourth International lives. There can be no Marxism in our age without he rebuilding of the Fourth In. ternational. It is up to us and our discipline to convince the vanguard of the working class to build the Fourth International, he said.

A. Jennings, Editor •Keep Left', said that when the Hungarian Revolution took place many at the meeting were not active in the socialist movement.

But the full lessons of the courageous fight of the Hungarian workers against bureaucracy bec me much clearer through the ex eriences of the youth in the Lak our Party in the early 1960s.

"Tae Hungarian revolution was not a social revolution but a political revolution against Stalinist bureaucracy. The heroic struggle of the workers, students and youth was a definite mation of Trotsky's most brilliant Stalinist bureaucracy,' He explained that it was based lished on the property relations estabwould have be removed in order for a development towards socialism.

'The task of smashing the bureaucracy is the task of the working class. This is the basic principle which was proved SO correct in the Hungarian revolutionhe Hungarian revolution was an international question she said. Its historical significance affected every Young Socialist in Britain. Young Socialists had a basic affinity with the Hungarian working class in that they had both shared an experience of struggle against bureaucracy.

*From 1962 right through to 1964 we fought the bureaucracy of Transport House-the same bureaucracy which today plans in the Labour government to attack the working class through the wage freeze and anti-trade union legislation.

'We mobilised the unemployed working-class youth to fight for socialist policies against the Labour bureaucracy. Our campaign forced the Labour Party to run campaign against unemployment.

"Throughout our fight we were led by the theories of Trotskyism and Marxism. For this reason only were we able to bring about a crushing defeat for the Labour bureaucracy.

'Our victory took place right on the eve of the General Election in 1964 and the effects of our success have been widespread. Ours was a victory over one of the most highly-organised Labour bureaucracies in the world. Hence our determination to build from this achievement a socialist youth movement on a mass scale.

"Today we celebrate the Hungarian revolution under much more favourable circumstances than when it took place. Today capitalism is in an insoluble international crisis.' The working class was rapidly becoming more and more radicalised as its basic conditions were threatened. Everywhere youth were to the fore in the struggle against imperialism and bureaucracy.

'Trotskyism shows itself to be force in Western Europe through the experiences of the YS and our comrades in Révoltes in France,' she said.

"The Liège demonstration in Belgium on October 15 reflected the enormous changes which have taken place within the working class. The Fourth International mobilised a contingent of 900.

"Taking the Hungarian banner on the demonstration was very important for us. We have to see the struggle of the working class as being international in which the experiences of the Hungarian revolution were vital.

"The police intervened to ask us to take down the banner on behalf of the revisionists and the Stalinists, because these people far from wanting the defeat of imperialism, assist it to continue and betray the interests of the working class.

"The Young Socialists see the question of the victory of the workers and peasants in Vietnam being inseparable from the victorious struggle of the working class over the bureaucracy.

'Hungary showed the power of the working class. The main lesson emerging from that struggle is the need for a revolutionary leadership. We know the working class will fight. Our task is to build the revolutionary leadership which will take the working class forward.