ceeded in crushing the armed uprising, it was again the Hungarian workers who continued to combat, by mass strikes and passive resistance, the very régime in support of which Soviet forces had intervened. In every case, the workers of Hungary announced their intention of keeping the mines and factories in their own hands. They made it abundantly clear, in the Workers' Councils and elsewhere, that no return to pre-1945 conditions would be tolerated. These workers had shown all over Hungary the strength of their will to resist. They had arms in their hands and, until the second Soviet intervention, they were virtually in control of the country. It is the Committee's view that no putsch by reactionary landowners or by dispossessed industrialists could have prevailed against the determination of these fully aroused workers and peasants to defend the reforms which they had gained and to pursue their genuine fulfillment.

D. THE PROGRESS OF EVENTS

113. Spokesmen for the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár have always maintained that the course of events in Hungary, being well-known, called for no further investigation. The version of these events put forward by the two Governments, beginning with their views on the legitimate grievances of the Hungarian people, may be summarized as follows.

(1) Legitimate grievances

114. "There is no doubt that the blame for the Hungarian events rests with the former State and Party leadership of Hungary headed by Rákosi and Gerö”, wrote Pravda on 23 November.

115. Grave errors were said to have been made in the political, economic and cultural spheres and there was no attempt to remedy them, because Hungary's leaders had become isolated from the Hungarian working class, peasantry and intelligentsia. The methods used by Rákosi and his supporters had allegedly shaken the faith of the working masses in the Party and had undermined the foundations of its strength. On 1 November it was announced that the Hungarian Workers' Party had changed its name to Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, in order to make it plain that a complete break was proposed with the past.

116. Legitimate grievances mentioned by spokesmen for the USSR and for János Kádár included "crudest violations of legality", in which many "honest Party and State workers" suffered unjustly, the Rajk case being only one of a number of well-known instances. It was said that little or no protest had been heard against these violations of the law, because the excessive growth of bureaucracy within the Party encouraged "boot-lickers and lackeys" of Rákosi, who repeated slogans like parrots in the interest of their careers; even the best officials were compelled to carry out many instructions running counter to the interests of the masses. This situation was declared to have arisen all the more easily because the Party had more than 900,000 members in a country with a total population of only 9 million. This meant, Soviet spokesmen explained, that "nationalist" and "alien" elements poured into its ranks and, when difficulties arose, the Party was found to lack essential training in a “MarxistLeninist spirit" and could not rouse the forces of the people for a struggle against "reaction"."

117. Rákosi and Gerö were criticized by Soviet commentators for mechanically following the slogan of accelerated industrialization which was appropriate to conditions in the USSR, but in Hungary led to the construction of large new enterprises beyond the capacity of a small people. In so doing, they were said to have ignored "comradely advice" from the USSR to proceed from the specific conditions obtaining in Hungary and to raise the standard of living of the Hungarian people by devoting more resources to the development of agriculture and to the production of consumer goods. It was not only by slavishly following industrial methods appropriate to conditions in the USSR that the Party leaders did not, in the Soviet view, "take sufficient account of the national peculiarities of the country". Hungarians should have been promoted more often to leadership within the Party, while there were other acts wounding to national pride, such as the introduction of a military uniform resembling that of the USSR. "Is the same Army haircut" asked Pravda, "or the same system of school grades really indicative of the unity and international solidarity of the socialist countries?" 6

118. While many grievances of the Hungarian people were well founded, it was said that certain recognizable limits had to be set to the demand for changes, unless this demand was to constitute a threat to the very structure of the People's Democratic system. It was this opportunity which was alleged to have been seized by reactionary and bourgeois elements to "confuse" the people and to press demands to a point where acceptance of them would have brought the People's Democracy down in ruins. By its own natural dynamics, declared a Soviet spokesman, the counter-revolution could never stop half-way. 119. The argument put forward by some Communists that the excesses of bureaucratic rule might become the principal danger against which Communists had to fight was seen by Soviet commentators as misleading and dangerous. It was said to obscure the fact that the class enemy, namely bourgeois and reactionary elements, would always constitute the standing menace to every Communist people. The idea that bureaucracy, however excessive, could be the greatest danger for Communists would lead easily to a justification of counter-revolutionary rebellions against the People's Democracy itself.' (2) Alleged preparations for counter-revolution

120. That such "counter-revolutionary" ideas were current in Hungarian intellectual circles before 23 October is, Soviet observers claim, a well-established fact. The forces of reaction had long been at work, they say, waiting for an opportunity. A Russian man of letters declared that bourgeois ideology, "a wind from the West permeated with the foul odour of corruption", had long assailed Hungarian writers.* Before the events of October, many Hungarian writers had openly opposed the Leninist principle of Party allegiance in literature. They were said to have spread false and "nihilistic" conceptions under the banner of "freedom of thought" or "freedom of creation". Open propaganda against the Government and the Party had been disguised as criticism of individual leaders. In the ranks of the critics were to be found writers who were described as having long ago "severed themselves from the people and sold their souls to the West."

121. A celebrated example of the writings alluded to is the article published in the Irodalmi Ujság in June 1956 by Gyula Háy, the playwright, a veteran of the 1919 Communist régime in Hungary. Háy's article contained a plea for freedom of the press. It was said that this article threw the intellectuals of Hungary into a ferment. The "corruption" complained of by the Russian man of letters was declared, however, to have progressed in direct proportion to the mounting efforts allegedly being made abroad to bring about the downfall of the People's Democracies.

122. The Hungarian White Book, Volumes I and II, and the Hungarian memorandum to the United Nations of 4 February all gave examples of what were declared to be counter-revolutionary organs promoted by the West. The memorandum specifically claims that the existence of organized counter-revolutionary activity had been proved by "facts that have come to light during the events and every day since then." It was maintained in the memorandum that the peacefully demonstrating crowds of 23 October could not have planned such simultaneous attacks as were made, according to the memorandum, "on the international department of the Budapest Józsefváros telephone exchange, the radio transmitter at Lakihegy, the Ferihegy airport, the ammunition plant and the military arsenal in Timot Street". The fact that these events took place almost concurrently and "in an organized manner" is brought forward to show that "the counter-revolution had a well-prepared purpose and a unified military command".

123. Spokesmen for the Soviet Government and for that of Mr. Kádár place the origin of that purpose and the centre of that military command in Western Europe and, ultimately, in the United States. Thus, the White Book, Volume II, quotes a certain United States magazine as having said, as far back as 9 April 1948, that there was a school of thought, both in Washington and abroad, which desired that "Operation X" should employ tactics behind the Iron Curtain similar to those applied during the war by the Office of Strategic Services. It was said that ruthless means, "including murder where necessary", should be used "to keep the Russian part of the world in unrest". In October 1951, states the White Book, the U. S. Congress adopted an amendment to the Mutual Secu

Pravda, 18 December 1956.

Al. Romanov, Literaturnaya Gazeta, 1 December 1956.

rity Act, providing funds of up to $100 million for financing the activity of "selected individuals who are residing in or escapees from" Eastern Europe. The White Book alleges that a detailed programme elaborated in the United States in the Spring of 1955, "envisaged the preparation of armed actions involving the traitors who had absconded from the People's Democracies". It declared that the President of the Radio Corporation of America was reported by American newspapers to have advocated the mass use of "well-organized and well-indoctrinated anti-communist groups".

124. Exponents of the Soviet thesis declared that a network of organizations was set up in Western Germany to train spies, saboteurs and diversionists. It was said that leaders were instructed in the formation of resistance groups and prepared for the task of carrying out administrative functions after the overthrow of the People's Democratic Régime. Volume II of the White Book declared that, apart from “countless numbers of fascists, emigrés, newspapermen, radio reporters, etc." other, more important, foreigners "of greater weight" also walked in and out across the Hungarian frontier-and that "for obvious purposes".

125. The memorandum of the Permanent Delegate of Hungary dated 4 February 1957 claimed that the supply of arms from abroad had been proved by examples captured by the armed forces. These were alleged to include pistols, sub-machine-guns, and rifles of Western type.

126. Both the White Book and the Hungarian memorandum of 4 February— indeed all sources from which the views of the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár have been obtained-stress the alleged role played by Radio Free Europe in stimulating and prolonging the insurrection. This station was said to have incited the revolt in the first place and also to have issued instructions to the fighters while it was in progress. It was alleged that Radio Free Europe was one of the principal means chosen by the West to organize a movement that developed into a counter-revolution.

127. Spokesmen for the Soviet and Kádár version of events declared that the Hungarian authorities were aware of the activities allegedly directed against them. On 14 July 1956, the State security police was said to have arrested a group of persons who had been engaged in espionage for months, under the control of a former Horthy officer. Shortly before the uprising, the Hungarian Supreme Court was declared to have considered the case of seventeen men accused of establishing a counter-revolutionary organization.

128. The above is a summary of views put forward by official spokesmen for the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár. Those Governments have maintained that the Hungarian uprising was planned well in advance, carefully thought out and directed during the fighting by leaders supplied or guided from abroad and by foreign broadcasting stations. The Committee gave thorough consideration to the possibility that the uprising may have been planned in advance, but it could find no evidence to justify any such hypothesis. The Committee is convinced that the demonstrators on 23 October had at first no thought of violence. When arms were obtained by the insurgents, they were almost always seized by workers from depots known to them or were voluntarily handed over by Hungarian troops, by the regular Hungarian police-not the AVH-and even, in some cases, by Russian troops themselves.

129. After its study of all the facts, the Committee has no doubt that the Hungarian uprising was not only nation-wide, but also spontaneous in character. The Committee was meticulous in its questioning on this point and sought to discover in various ways the possibility of advance preparation. But the way in which great numbers of people, who could not possibly have shared secret orders in advance, organized themselves to press their demands and to fight the Soviet troops seems to the Committee to bear the hallmark of improvisation. Their efforts collapsed because of the Soviet armed intervention and because no support was forthcoming for them from abroad. The thesis which alleges that the uprising owed its origin to such support from abroad did not survive the examination to which the Committee subjected it.

130. The Committee took pains to ascertain from witnesses what precise role, if any, Radio Free Europe had taken in the events of October and November. It was satisfied that this station had many listeners in Hungary, most of whom appear to have turned to it, as well as to the BBC and other Western broadcasts, as a relief from the stereotyped news service, with fulsome praise of the régime, to which they were accustomed. "I felt," said one student witness, "that its most positive contribution was its attempt to give a general picture

of the situation in the West and the help it gave to Hungarian youth through its youth programmes, together with detailed information about the political situation, which unfortunately we could not get from our own newspapers." The Committee was told that during the uprising, Radio Free Europe "was very encouraging" and obviously sympathetic. Listeners had the feeling that Radio Free Europe promised help, although witnesses said clearly that it gave no reason for expecting military help. Rather, the general tone of these broadcasts aroused an expectation of support, which some listeners hoped might take the form of a United Nations token force to help in stabilizing the situation.

131. In a tense atmosphere such as that prevailing in Hungary during these critical weeks, optimistic and encouraging broadcasts, which paid tribute to the aims of the uprising, were welcomed. The generally hopeful tone of such broadcasts may well have been over-emphasized in the process of passing from mouth to mouth what various speakers were alleged to have said.10 The attitude of the Hungarian people toward foreign broadcasting was perhaps best summed up by the student referred to above, who said: "It was our only hope, and we tried to console ourselves with it." It would appear that certain broadcasts by Radio Free Europe helped to create an impression that support might be forthcoming for the Hungarians. The Committee feels that in such circumstances the greatest restraint and circumspection are called for in international broadcasting. (3) Reaction in the saddle

132. Spokesmen for the USSR and the Government of Mr. Kádár maintain that reactionary influences changed the uprising, within a matter of days, into a fascist counter-revolution. One professor at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts sought to compare what took place with his memories of the beginnings of the White counter-revolution in 1919. "I can say", he wrote, "that on the morning of 23 October my pupils, though they had a few just demands, had not the slightest inkling of the eventual development of events and within a few hours became, as a matter of fact, blind instruments in the hands of the counter revolutionary forces."

133. The Government of János Kádár has condemned that of Imre Nagy for failing to take action to deal with this growing movement. Mr. Nagy was accused of drifting helplessly in the face of events, making concession after concession to right wing forces. As he hesitated, it is said that the forces of reaction became more and more violent and the degree of assistance from the West was stepped up in proportion. On 2 November, the Soviet news agency Tass, quoting the Austrian Communist newspaper Oesterreichische Volksstimme, declared: "Squadrons of planes are continuously leaving Austrian airfields for Budapest. They are not only carrying medical supplies, as official reports try to show; with such a large number of aircraft, all continents could be provided with medical supplies. Observers are convinced that hundreds of Hungarian soldiers are being sent to Hungary from the West, including former officers of Horthy's army and hundreds of Hungarian officers and soldiers who served in the Hitlerite army. Among the aircraft, one could see some planes belonging to the West German frontier services, some British planes and others."

134. Many allegations were made that Red Cross facilities were used for the transportation of counter-revolutionary agents and arms. One report stated that, of one hundred Red Cross planes that landed in Hungary before Novem ber 1956, more than forty brought counter-revolutionaries.

135. Meanwhile, frenzy-so it is contended-seized upon the people in Budapest and in other cities where, under the alleged influence of fascist provocateurs, armed gangs are said to have roamed about, looting and terrorizing the people. A man hunt was organized for members of the State security services and also, said the exponents of this thesis, for honest Communist Party members and "progressive-minded" friends of the USSR, great numbers of whom are alleged to have been hanged in the streets or otherwise done to death. Exponents of this view of events have maintained that the Hungarian crowds,

10 At a press conference on 25 January 1957, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany made the following statement regarding Radio Free Europe: "This investigation has shown that the assertions which appeared in the press, that Radio Free Europe promised the Hungarians assistance by the West-armed assistance by the West-are not consistent with the facts. However, remarks were also made which were liable to cause misinterpretations. But a discussion, an exchange of views, took place which also resulted in personnel changes and I believe that the matter can be considered settled for the time being."

in their sadistic fury, made no distinction between the AVH and the ordinary members of the Party or Communist officials. The Committee is convinced that the acts of violence which took place were directed, in all but a very few cases, against recognized members of the AVH and that many Communists were among the crowds which wreaked vengeance on them.

136. As soon as the "reactionary" leaders felt their power, it is said that popular demands for change became rapidly right wing in character and threatened the whole structure of the People's Democracy. The Hungarian White Book, Volume II, says that Archduke Joseph and Crown Prince Otto were among the personalities whose names "again rose to the surface". Pravda reported on 16 November that Admiral Horthy himself, then 88 years of age, had offered his services, and Pravda's correspondents in Budapest said that Prince Pál Eszterházy, formerly Hungary's largest landowner, re-established himself in that city, after his release from prison, and talked of joining the Government. 137. Much stress has been laid by spokesmen for the USSR and for Mr. Kádár on the reappearance of Cardinal Mindszenty, whose release from prison was said to have been engineered by Major Anton Pálinkás, referred to as a son of Count Pallavincini, "the butcher of the Hungarian workers" in the White Terror of 1919. The Hungarian White Book declared that the Cardinal "lost no time in getting down to business", and on 3 November broadcast a message in which, "notwithstanding all its restraint, he openly set forth the aims of the counterrevolution". The Cardinal was said to have described the victory of the counterrevolution as an accomplished fact. However, the presence of Soviet troops at the approaches to Budapest and the news that Soviet reinforcements had arrived caused the Cardinal, in the words of the White Book, to "tread warily". Among other remarks, he was declared to have said that "there should be responsibility before the law along all lines". The White Book deems this remark to be "nothing less than the proclamation of a general crusade against the supporters of proletarian rule".

138. Special attention has been given by spokesmen for the Soviet Union and for Mr. Kádár's Government to the phenomenon of the Workers' Councils, a feature of the Hungarian uprising which linked it with similar movements following the 1917 Revolution in Russia. "Horthyite" and other counter-revolutionary elements, it is alleged, installed themselves on these Councils and used them, according to the normal counter-revolutionary technique, to mislead the Hungarian workers and to oppose the "real organs of popular authority". In July 1917, Lenin had found himself obliged to withdraw the slogan "All power to the Soviets !", because the Mensheviks and Socialists, who had ensconced themselves in the Soviets at the height of the struggle, deserted to what were called the "enemies of the working-class". According to Lenin, the passing of political authority from the Bolsheviks to some indeterminate alliances of heterogeneous elements, only slightly to the right of the Bolsheviks, or even to the left of them, would always signify a victory for the counter-revolution. Essentially the same tactics were declared to have been used by "bourgeois reactionary elements" in the Hungarian Workers' Councils.

139. In its examination of witnesses, the Committee has given particular attention to the thesis that the Hungarian uprising speedily degenerated into a reactionary movement reminiscent of fascism." It considers it appropriate, however, to summarize here certain of its comments on this aspect of the Soviet thesis.

13

140. The Committee has, indeed, noted that several times during the last week of October and the first days of November prominent personalities drew attention to the need to be on the alert for signs of counter-revolution. On 2 November, Byula Kelemen, the Secretary-General of the Social Democratic Party, wrote: "Let our peasant members unite their forces to frustrate all attempts to restore the large estates.' While the Committee has noted this and similar warnings, it feels that there was never, at any time a serious danger of counterrevolution in Hungary. The very few dispossessed landowners still living in that country exercised no influence either with the leaders or with the rank and file of those who took part in the uprising. No suggestion was entertained to return the estates to the former landowners or to undo the nationalization of

12 Two later Chapters of the present report also bear on the allegations of counterrevolutionary danger: Chapter IX, which sets out the objectives and character of the uprising and Chapter XII, which deals with changes in the political structure of Hungary during the week preceding the second Soviet intervention.

13 Népszava, 2 November 1956.