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HUNGARY UNDER SOVIET RULE

A SURVEY OF DEVELOPMENTS SINCE THE REPORT OF THE U. N.

SPECIAL COMMITTEE

Prepared by the American Friends of the Captive Nations, and the Assembly of Captive European Nations, in Association With the Hungarian Freedom Fighters Federation, the Hungarian National Council, the National Representation of Free Hungary

Editorial Committee: A. A. Berle, Jr., Leo Cherne, Clare Boothe Luce,

Reinhold Niebuhr

PREFACE

As organizations working for the restoration of freedom in Eastern Europe, we welcomed the report of the U. N. Special Committee on Hungary as an historic document. The report saved the honor and restored the prestige of the United Nations, which was so gravely shaken by its failure to act more vigorously during the Hungarian Revolution of last October. By providing the occasion for the Special Session of the U. N. General Assembly on Hungary, on September 10, the Special Committee's report has given the world organization a second chance to do some of the things public opinion hoped it would do last autumn.

However, although the U. N. Special Committee closed its hearings in April and completed its report in May, the report was not published until June 20 and its consideration by the Assembly was postponed to September 10. The report is complete in great detail through the month of February and reasonably complete for the month of March. But it only contains a few references to developments of April and early May and none thereafter. Thus, through no fault of the Special Committee's, there is a time lag of almost five months between the terminal point of the report and the date of its discussion by the Assembly. It was basically for the purpose of filling this hiatus that the present study was undertaken.

Since the U. N. Special Committee completed its hearings, the Soviet-controlled government in Budapest has continued at an accelerated rate the destruction of human and political liberties so graphically described in the Committee's report. Our organizations believe that the delegates to the U. N. Assembly, and world opinion in general, will welcome this wholly unofficial but carefully documented study of the tragic events of recent months. It is our hope that the information contained in this study will be of some help to the delegates in carrying the record of Soviet intervention right down to the end of August.

Our purpose is to support and supplement the magnificent work of the U. N. Special Committee. We hope that this modest effort will serve to emphasize the absolute necessity of keeping the U. N. Special Committee in being, encharged with the task of submitting periodic, official, supplementary reports-so long as the Soviet Union continues to defy the U. N. General Assembly by refusing to withdraw its troops from Hungary and by continuing its intervention in the internal affairs of that country.

We wish to express our appreciation to the distinguished members of the Edi torial Committee Mr. Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Mr. Leo Cherne, Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce and Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr-who, despite the pressure of their private responsibilities, undertook the task of weighing and shaping the report for final presentation. And we wish also to express our gratitude to Mr. David Martin who was chiefly responsible for initiating this study and for the tremendous labor of coordinating the work of research and presentation.

CHRISTOPHER EMMET, Chairman, American Friends of the Captive Nations. VILIS MASENS,

Chairman, Assembly of Captive European Nations.

INTRODUCTION

Several weeks ago the American Friends of the Captive Nations and the Assembly of Captive European Nations invited the undersigned to assume editorial responsibility for a study designed to provide the U.N. delegates with an account of events in Hungary from the time the U.N. Special Committee terminated its hearings until the end of August. We agreed to serve as an editorial board because we considered it of the greatest importance that the delegates, in addition to discussing the revolution, the Soviet invasion and the post-occupation terror, should also be able to discuss the situation as it exists today.

As the work got under way, it was decided to extend our study to include a fairly comprehensive and documented summary of Soviet rule in Hungary prior to October 1956. The report of the U.N. Special Committee contained certain information on the political background; but the Committee was restricted by a mandate that, of necessity, placed emphasis on the central subject of the revolution and Soviet intervention. We feel that the material contained in our chapter "Soviet Intervention and the Violation of Human Rights Prior to the Revolution" will help to provide a better understanding of the revolution itself. Indeed, there is a vital conclusion to be drawn from this chapter-Soviet intervention did not begin on October 23, but in the early post-war period, and the revolution itself can best be understood as a national uprising against existing intervention.

Our material has been interwoven deliberately with the material of the U.N. Report, because only in this way could it be extended intelligently in both directions.

Although our effort cannot hope to emulate the authority and thoroughness of the splendid report of the U.N. Special Committee, the nature and authenticity of the evidence contained in this text is similar. It is based to a large degree on official Communist documents, speeches, radio broadcasts and items in the controlled Communist press. In addition, the material submitted to our staff included numerous statements by recent escapees, statements and documents smuggled out of Hungary, and letters written directly from Budapest-several of them mailed during the month of August.

Although time and facilities were limited, we believe that our report adheres to the same common sense laws of evidence which governed the report of the U.N. Special Committee. Where the information submitted by individual Hungarians was completely consistent with reports contained in the official Communist press, such information was considered acceptable. Information from individual Hungarians which is basically substantiated by independent statements from several other Hungarian sources was also accepted as almost certainly authentic. Certain items of information which had the quality of plausibility but which lacked confirmation were not included. Because this report had to be prepared within a three-week period, it may contain a few errors in detail-but in all fundamental points, we believe that facts contained in our report are authentic and beyond challenge.

We must express our deep gratitude not only to the great Hungarian organizations whose cooperation made this report possible but also to the many volunteer workers who did the research and helped prepare the material. We should like especially to mention the following individuals who carried a major share of the work:

Moshe Decter

Janos Horvath

General Bela Kiraly

Andrew Kovats

Imre Kovacs

David Martin

George Perenyi-Lukacs
Istvan Szabo

Dr. Laszlo Varga

We are indebted to Mr. Moshe Decter and Mr. David Martin for their assistance in preparing the final text of this report.

(Signed)

ADOLF A. BERLE, JR.
LEO CHERNE.
CLARE BOOTHE LUCE.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR.

NEW YORK, N. Y., September 3, 1957.

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