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The Methods of Communist Conquest: Hungary 1944–1947

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Stephen D. Kertesz
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Extract

In the general picture of Eastern European developments the Hungarian scene has some peculiar features. Hungary did not succeed in changing sides effectively during the recent war and at the close of hostilities was probably in the worst political position among the former Axis satellites. She did not enjoy much sympathy in the West, and was positively disliked by the Russians. In point of time Hungary was the last of the Axis satellites to conclude an armistice treaty with the three major Allies (January 20, 1945).

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , October 1950 , pp. 20 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1950

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References

1 The Kállay government initiated armistice negotiations with the Western powers in 1943 and declared that Hungary was ready to accept the Casablanca formula of unconditional surrender, should the Allied forces reach the frontiers of the country. For details see Ullein-Reviczky, A., Guerre Allemande Paix Russe, Neuchatel, 1947Google Scholar; Kertesz, S., “The Plight of Satellite Diplomacy,” Review of Politics, XI (1949), 26–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Anthony Eden explained in Washington on March 12, 1943 that “he thought Stalin would want to be pretty arbitrary about Hungary because the Russians do not like the Hungarians, and that Stalin would be unwilling to give them any favors at the Peace Table.” —Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins, New York, Harper, 1948, p. 711.Google Scholar

3 See the two articles by Duchacek, Ivo, “The Strategy of Communist Infiltration: Czechoslovakia, 1944–48,” World Politics, Vol. II, No. 3 (April 1950), pp. 345–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The February Coup in Czechoslovakia,” World Politics, Vol. II, No. 4 (July 1950), pp. 511–32. For factors favorable to Communist penetration in Czechoslovakia, see pp. 346–49.

4 Kállai, Gyula, A Magyar Függetlenségi Mozgalom, 1936–1945, Budapest, 1948, p. 242.Google Scholar The text of this agreement was prepared by Lászlo Rajk, General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, and signed by Arpád Szakasits in the name of the Social Democrats. Rajk became Minister of Interior in 1946, Foreign Minister in 1948, and was hanged in October 1949 as a traitor. Szakasits was elected President of the Republic in 1948. See footnote 45, infra.

5 The text of the proclamation appears in Montgomery, J. F., Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite, New York, Devin-Adair, 1947, pp. 236–38.Google Scholar

6 See Kertesz, , loc. cit., pp. 60–61.Google Scholar

7 The Arrow Cross Party was the Hungarian version of Nazism.

8 According to the estimates of the Hungarian Central Office of Statistics, total amount of war damages amounted to 22,000 million prewar pengös, i.e., 40.2 percent of the national wealth in 1944. See special edition of Hungarian Bulletin, Budapest, August, 1949, p. 1.

9 All Eastern European Soviet satellites have Communist leaders who spent a considerable number of years in Moscow and received there a special training for their future task. These fanatic and deeply indoctrinated soldiers of Communist world revolution use the same tactics and act in the same way even without detailed instructions. This is one of the reasons for the similarity of Communist methods used in different countries in a variety of situations.

10 A similar situation existed in Czechoslovakia as well, though in a milder form. Cf. Duchacek, , loe. cit. p. 353.Google Scholar

11 The National Committees were used in all Eastern European countries for the seizure of municipal administration. These fulfilled substantially the same role in Czechoslovakia as in Hungary. A notable difference had been that the members of the National Committees were elected by the people in Czechoslovakia until February 1948, whereas in Hungary they were designated by the political parties and the trade-unions. In Hungary local autonomy was not allowed to function under the new regime. Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 350–56.Google Scholar

12 The history of the Debrecen period of the new regime has been published by Paál, Jób and Radó, Antal, A debreceni feltdmadás (Resurrection of Debrecen), Debrecen, 1947.Google Scholar

13 Altogether thirty-eight towns and villages, representing 1,381,000 people in the Russian liberated areas, took part in these “elections” whereas on the same territory lived about three and a half million people. Regular elections, of course, could not haves taken place in those apocalyptic days. Paál, and Radó, , op. cit., p. 160.Google Scholar

l4 Paál, and Radó, , op. cit., p. 180.Google Scholar

15 Count Géza Teleki and General Gábor Faragó were sent by Regent Horthy to Moscow in September 1944 to negotiate an armistice agreement. General Miklós was the commandant of the first Hungarian Army fighting against the Russians and General János Vörös was the chief of the General Staff. Both Miklós and Vörös went over to the Russians after the armistice proclamation of Regent Horthy. Faragó and Vörös became members of the Miklós cabinet.

16 Since in European countries the Ministry of Interior controls the police, the Communists asked in all coalition regimes for this ministry. Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 361–63.Google Scholar

17 Mr. Duchacek describes the different types of fellow travelers. (Loc. cit., pp. 369–72.) To his explanations I would like to add that the terms imply a certain amount of freedom of choice. However, in countries occupied by Russian troops and ruled by Russian-dominated Allied Control Commissions the freedom of choice in political matters was very limited. In Hungary the representatives of the Western powers themselves advised the non-Communist politicians in the first period of the new regime to cooperate sincerely with the Russians and Communists. Under such conditions, later rapidly getting worse, it was sometimes difficult to change the course of individual attitudes and, in connection therewith, to draw the line between (1) the various categories of fellow travelers and (2) the people who had to cooperate in one form or another in order to exist.

18 Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 354–56.Google Scholar

19 Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 365–66.Google Scholar

20 For details see Stowe, Leland, “Hungary's Agrarian Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, XXV (1946–1947), 490–502.Google Scholar Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 364–65.Google Scholar

21 The Administrative Delegation of the Czechoslovak Government had the same experience upon entering the so-called Rear Zone, following the Red Army. Duchacek, , loc. cit., p. 352.Google Scholar

22 The infiltration of trade-unions is everywhere the first step in Communist conquest. This attitude is a consequence of Lenin's teaching who advised strongly the Communists to enter even “reactionary” trade-unions in order to conquer them from within. See Lenin's “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder” (April 27, 1920), reprinted in The Strategy and Tactics of World Communism, Supplement I, Washington, Govt. Printing Office, 1948, pp. 34–42. The Communist International declared, moreover, that “It is the bounden duty of every Communist to belong to a trade union, even a most reactionary one, provided it is a mass organization.” (Blueprint for World Conquest, as outlined by the Communist International with an introduction by W. H. Chamberlin, Human Events, Washington-Chicago, 1946, p. 241.) The Italian and French situations are eloquent examples of the manner in which Communists penetrate and use trade-unions in free countries. John Williamson, the national labor secretary of the Communist Party, developed the argumentation of American Communists in a letter published in the New York Times, Oct. 4, 1949. Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 359–62.Google Scholar

23 The founder of the party, Imre Kovács, resigned as Secretary-General when the party joined the leftist bloc in 1946, and resigned from the party when the Secretary-General of the Smallholder Party, Béla Kovács, was arrested by the Russians on February 25, 1947.

24 La Hongrie et La Conference de Paris, published by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Budapest, 1947, Tome 1er, pp. 52, 84. Cf. pamphlets of “New Hungary,” Hungarian Economic Resistance Against German Penetration, Budapest, 1946.

25 Cf. Jászi, Oscar, “The Choices in Hungary,” Foreign Affairs, XXIV (1946), 462.Google Scholar Jászi points out that “the Small Landholders’ Party is not reactionary, nor even conservative; it is a progressive party in favor of social and cultural reforms.”

26 Cf. Duchacek, , loc. cit., pp. 358–359Google Scholar, 369–370.

27 Nagy, Ferenc, The Struggle behind the Iron Curtain, New York, Macmillan, 1948, p. 72.Google Scholar

28 Jászi, Oscar, op. cit., p. 454.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., pp. 457–58.

30 The former American Minister to Hungary, H. F. Shoenfeld, observed in this respect: “Rakosi told me, in one of our early conversations, that he and his Communist colleagues who had been trained in Moscow had a great advantage over the somewhat nondescript aggregation of non-Communist political leaders in Hungary. He said that he and his associates had been part of the working mechanism of government in the Soviet Union. This, he claimed, gave them an understanding of practical problems of government which other Hungarian leaders emerging on the political scene could not match, and made them the only effective leaders available to the Hungarian people. There was some truth in Rakosi's statement. The Communist leaders were energetic and able men; and it was apparent that they intended to fill the administrative vacuum, with or without the backing of the electorate.” — “Soviet Imperialism in Hungary,” Foreign Affairs, XXVI (1948), p. 558.

31 The results of the general elections were:

(Magyarország Történeti, Gazdasági és Kulturális Eukänyu, Budapest, 1948, p. 83.)

The Budapest municipal elections and the general elections of November 4, had world-wide repercussions. Both were considered highly important because the evidence showed the elections free and unfettered. The leading Western newspapers featured front-page articles and editorials. For instance, the London correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor stated in a dispatch referring to the Budapest elections: “This concrete proof that free elections—as they are understood in the United States and Great Britain—have occurred in at least one Balkan country is heartily welcomed by Anglo-American officials. This election result would indicate that even in areas beyond Anglo-American control—and about which many officials had been privately worrying—the peoples of Europe can be given a chance to choose their own officials honestly and openly.…

“In view of the fact that Hungary is wholly under control of the Red Army and that this quite naturally has been of no small benefit to the Communist Party, some observers had been concerned that it might be difficult to conduct completely free and unhindered elections. The result of the week-end ballotting would seem to have disposed of that worry in convincing manner.” —Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 9, 1945.

32 The results of the general elections were:

(Magyarország Törteneti, Gazdasági és Kulturális Eukönyu, Budapest, 1948, p. 83.)

33 Nagy, Ferenc, op. cit., p. 154.Google Scholar

34 Hungary was declared a republic by a law promulgated on January 31, 1946.

35 This text was published in Whitebook Documents on the Conspiracy against the Hungarian Republic and Democracy (in Hungarian), published by Ministry for Propaganda, Budapest, 1947, pp. 110–13.

36 Ferenc Nagy gives an account of the “conspiracy,” abduction of Béla Kovács by the Russians, and his enforced resignation. Op. cit., pp. 311–425.

37 At the time of this crisis I was Hungarian Minister to Italy. I refused to return to Budapest and to obey orders of the new government. On June 21, I addressed the following cypher-telegram to the President of the Republic:

“Every good Hungarian is filled with deep anxiety because of the repercussions of the last weeks' events abroad and in the masses at home. I feel it my duty to propose to the President and to the Leaders of the Parties the following.

1. I agreed in Zurich with the head of the Political Department that the government should announce in a public declaration all guarantees necessary to assure the purity of the elections, and further announce agreed concrete particulars concerning the independence of Hungarian foreign policy. It is desirable that this should be done as soon as possible and in a very definite form.

2. The coalition government should be enlarged with politicians of the opposition and with non-party men, against whom Soviet Russia could not raise objections and who would represent a guarantee towards the West as well.

3. The police should be reorganized by reliable experts of the Social Democratic and non-labour parties. The present police, and particularly the political police, have the characteristics of a Communist party-formation, which, actually, is not a benefit to the Communist party either.

4. Freedom of the press, of opinion and freedom to form associations should be gradually assured.

5. For the sake of our international prestige it would be important to keep our press and radio up to a reputable standard. It is regrettable that the evergrowing cursings and incitements remind us of the bygone Arrow Cross regime.

The government could regain the confidence of the Hungarian people and of foreign public opinion through the enactment of the above proposed measures and through some energetic reforms putting an end to the abuses of party politics and corruption. Otherwise the abyss between the government and the large masses of the people will but increase. This will make it impossible to govern in a democratic way. Hungary will sink to the level of a dictatorial police-state. This is the unanimous opinion I heard about Hungary in the last weeks from persons with the most varied allegiances.

The recommended reforms are all the more important since cooperation on a realistic basis with our neighbours, and first of all with Soviet Russia, is Hungary's vital interest. This, however, could be achieved only by a democratic government based on the large majority of the Hungarian people. A government without popular support might provoke ultra-nationalist movements. These would shake the confidence in Hungary.”

I received from the Foreign Minister some general assurances and was asked again to go home for “consultation.” This I refused. Of course, I knew my recommendations would remain a voice in the wilderness but I tried to impress the government as much as I could under the circumstances.

38 General Sviridov was the deputy of Marshal Voroshilov in the Allied Control Commission.

39 Concerning the history of the “Freedom” Party, see Sulyok, Desiderius, Zwei Nächte ohne Tag, Ungarn unter dem Sovietstern, Zürich, 1948, pp. 358–374.Google Scholar

40 The Tomorrow was an opposition paper published for two weeks in postwar Hungary. During the short period of its existence the paper enjoyed incredible popu larity even among workers. People were willing to pay many times its price in order to secure a copy. Tomorrow, of course, never received sufficient newsprint and soon the printers refused its printing. For more particulars see Sulyok, , op. cit., pp. 375–79Google Scholar; Nagy, Ferenc, op. cit., pp. 306–7.Google Scholar

41 The results of the elections were:

(Magyarország Történeti, Gazasági és Kulturális Évkönyu, Budapest, 1948, p. 84.)

42 The new law permitted the vote to persons absent from their residence with so called blue tickets. These tickets were issued to Communist brigades who were transported from one community to the other and voted ten to twenty times. A great many persons were excluded from the elections under ridiculous charges.

43 The reason for Tildy's resignation was the arrest of his son-in-law, Victor Chor-noky. He was recalled for “consultation” from his post as Minister to Egypt, then arrested, charged with treason, sentenced, and hanged on December 6, 1948.

44 In the course of 1948, the unification of the Communist and Socialist Parties was carried out throughout Eastern Europe.

45 According to the new Constitution entered into force on August 20, 1949, the Parliament elects from among its own members the Presidential Council of the People's Republic, consisting of a president, two vice-presidents, a secretary, and seventeen members. Arpád Szakasits was elected as President of the Presidential Council. He resigned on April 26, 1950, giving ill health as the reason. His successor became Sándor Rónai, formerly Minister of Foreign Trade.

46 Hungarian Bulletin, May 21, 1949, pp. 1, 7–8. This Bulletin is distributed in the United States by the Hungarian Legation.

47 New York Times, January 23, 1949.

48 The order of persecution of Catholics and Protestants is only a question of timing. The Catholic Church is enemy number one, for Catholics are more numerous in Eastern Europe and the centrally organized Catholic Church is a world-wide obstacle to Communist expansion. In Hungary, however, Lutheran Bishop Ordass was imprisoned before the Mindszenty trial. His successor became recently a Lutheran priest, member of the Communist Party. The first great onslaught against the activities of the Catholic Church had been staged in July 1946, when the Government was forced to dissolve all Catholic youth organizations on unsubstantiated Russian accusations. Their office buildings were given to Communist organizations. The Church Schools were nationalized in June 1948. The Calvinists accepted a compromise solution negotiated with the Government and thus kept some of their schools. Since Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty followed an uncompromising policy, he was arrested and sentenced to life in February 1949. The Hungarian Government published in two volumes available in English the documents concerning the Mindszenty case and his trial before the People's Court. The Cardinal himself anticipated his arrest and sent documents abroad, which were published in the Authorized White Book: Cardinal Mindszenty Speaks, New York, Longmans, Green, 1949.

49 In the course of 1946 the coal mines, and the electric power stations of a capacity above 20,000 kilowatts, were nationalized and the five largest heavy industry enterprises of the country placed under state control. In November 1947 the large banks were nationalized. In March 1948 all industrial plants employing one hundred or more workers were nationalized. The nationalization decree of December 28, 1949 seized all enterprises in which the total number of employees reached ten, and in some cases even five. Cf. Kertesz, Stephen, “Church and State in Hungary: The Background of the Cardinal Mindszenty Trial,” Review of Politics, XI, No. 2 (April 1949), 208–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 The nationalization decree of March 1948 exempted enterprises owned by foreign citizens or corporations. Though this exemption was more theoretical than real, the last nationalization decree did not incorporate such legal niceties. To complete Hungary's isolation from the West, officials of foreign-owned companies were arrested on trumped-up charges of sabotage and spying. The subsequent “confessions” and trials were greatly publicized in order to prove the necessity of seizure of foreignowned concerns. A model procedure is in this respect the seizure of the gas and oil com pany, MAORT, Owned by the Standard Oil Company. See Report of the Hungarian Ministry of Home Affairs on the MAORT Sabotage, Budapest, 1948Google Scholar, and Standard Oil Company [New Jersey] and Oil Production in Hungary by MAORT, 1931–1948, New York, 1949. Similar procedure has been followed more recently in the case of the International Telephone and Telegraph Company. The American and British representatives of this company, Robert A. Vogeler and Edgar Sanders, were arrested, charged with espionage and sabotage, and sentenced to prison terms of fifteen and thirteen years respectively.

51 Rákosi explained in an address to the Czech workers at Prague that 200,000 persons had been expelled from the Hungarian Communist Party (New York Times, June 24, 1949).Google Scholar This action means reversal of the first stage of Communist policy which was a drive for mass membership.

52 See László Rajk and His Accomplices before the People's Court, Budapest, 1949.

53 Révai, Joseph, “On the Character of our People's Democracy.” The original article appeared in the Társadalmi Szemle, Budapest, March-April, 1949.Google Scholar An English translation of the article was published in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 28 (1949) pp. 143–52.

54 “The armed forces of the great Soviet Union liberated our country from the yoke of the German fascists, crushed the power of the great landowners and capitalists who were ever hostile to our people and opened the road of democratic progress to our working people… the Hungarian working class, in alliance with the working peasantry and with the generous assistance of the Soviet Union, rebuilt our warravaged country. Led by the experiences of the socialist revolution of 1919 and supported by the Soviet Union, our people began to lay down the foundations of socialism and now our country is advancing towards socialism along the road of a people's democracy.” (Italics mine.)— Constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic, Budapest, 1949.