1956
This is the second of two issues partly devoted to the 1956 Revolution on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary.
Simon Bourgin was Time's correspondent in Vienna after the war and a frequent visitor to Hungary. In 1956, on several occasions he briefed Radio Free Europe's staff in Munich on his visits in Budapest. The transcripts of these briefings, describing the dramatic political changes that preceded the revolution, are published here for the first time. (The first of the two instalments appeared in the Summer issue, No. 142.) Returning to Budapest in August after an absence of only two months, the American journalist, hitherto used to being watched by secret police and to finding most people unwilling to talk with him, is overwhelmed by the new openness and great expectations that could everywhere be felt. He describes these momentous changes in detail. The talk of the town is whether Rákosi -- the Stalinist leader -- will go and if he will, who is likely to take over: Gerõ, another staunch Stalinist, or Imre Nagy, the reformist former prime minister ousted by Rákosi or, perhaps, Kádár, a dark horse, of whom little can be known. In reply to questions put to him by Radio Free Europe staff, Mr Bourgin explains that in all probability the changes are happening with Moscow's full support, are here to stay, and must lead to further relaxation. Soon after this briefing Mr Bourgin had to return to the US and therefore missed the revolution. What makes his account so fascinating is the fact that neither he nor anyone else in the country could have had the slightest inkling of what was soon to follow: a national uprising and revolution that cost more than 20,000 dead, the first all out war between socialist countries, suppressed in blood by the Soviets but changing the course of communism for ever.
***
(Click here for part one)
The detailed presentation of perhaps the most important document to date about the Soviet handling of the Hungarian crisis in 1956 to have come from the Moscow archives continues in this issue. Strangely enough, no minutes were taken at the sessions of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, but Vladimir Nikiforovich Malin, a non member, who headed the CC's secretariat, took notes in longhand, summarizing the proceedings in his own words. This unique document allows an insight into the workings of the body that eventually decided on the fate of the Hungarian Revolution. Against the background of the Cold War, the Suez crisis, a China demanding a greater role in decision making within the communist world, the unrest in Poland and the general malaise to be felt in most Socialist countries, as well as the declared thaw and the improvement in relations with Tito's Yugoslavia, the Soviet leaders are faced with some of the most difficult decisions of their lives. It becomes clear that there were hawks and doves in the Kremlin over the appropriate response to events in Hungary and that Khrushchev, initially siding with the doves and inclining to a political rather than a military solution, eventually had to support the military option. János M. Rainer, a leading specialist on the subject, puts all this in perspective, using not just hindsight but Khrushchev's memoirs as well as various other sources. What makes this second instalment especially interesting is the hitherto surmised but not documented appearance on November 2 in Moscow of János Kádár, then still a member of Imre Nagy's constitutional revolutionary government who just the day before had cast his vote for the country's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and a declaration of neutrality. Kádár's account of the Budapest events to members of the Soviet CC, as recorded by Malin, is not only a unique document of the high treason he committed by delivering his country to a foreign power but also a fascinating proof of the instinctive political skills that he possessed. He spoke not knowing what was expected of him and why he had been brought there in the first place, describing events in a way that was both factual and apologetical, as befits a good colonial official, but also indicative of his fear of a military solution and its consequences for the party (not the country!), all the while leaving the way open for himself to take an opposite course should the need arise, the article explains.
***
The man who reigned over Hungary for almost a quarter of a century like a monarch but was not one, the admiral who rode into power on horseback to occupy the capital of this country without a sea, the man who became Hitler's last, albeit reluctant, ally in spite of his own better conviction and allowed the deportation of more than half million Hungarian Jews, is still a controversial figure, almost forty years after he died in exile in 1957. The reinterment of his remains in 1993 provoked demonstrations and fierce debate, widening further the deep chasm that separates right and left, conservatives and liberals in this country.
István Deák, the Hungarian-born American historian, professor at Columbia University and author of highly acclaimed books on Central European and Austro-Hungarian history, casts an impartial eye on the regent's historical record. With at best mediocre mental qualities, Horthy was invited to become an aide de camp to the Emperor and King Francis Joseph, and subsequently rose to be the most successful commander in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Great War. Deák points out the pattern of dichotomy in Horthy's career. In spite of his often expressed respect for the British especially the Royal Navy he fought in both world wars in coalitions opposed to Great Britain. Although a most loyal subject to the House of Habsburg, he prevented King Charles by force from reclaiming his throne in 1921.
After the disastrous Peace Treaty of Trianon, signed in 1920, that truncated the country and gave two thirds of its territory and sixty per cent of its population (more than three million ethnic Hungarians among them) to neighbouring states, territorial revision became his supreme goal when he rose to become regent after the fall of Béla Kun's short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. As head of state in a country that nominally remained a monarchy, Deák points out, he had considerably more power than a constitutional monarch, but still substantially less than a dictator. The fact that the leaders of the Hungarian Bolsheviks had been middle class Jews and that Jews had played a dominant role in commerce, industry, banking, and some of the professions, gave rise to strong anti-Semitism in the new, non Jewish middle class that supported Horthy and his counter-revolution. Deák describes the parliamentary system and social conditions in the Horthy era, and the road that lead to the German alliance which resulted in some territorial gains but for which the country had soon to pay a terrible price. Horthy's indirect responsibility in the loss of half million Jewish lives is undeniable, though the situation was far from simple. His half hearted and awkward attempts at pulling out of the war and concluding a separate truce with the western Allies so as to save Hungary from Soviet occupation are skilfully described. His last function as head of state was when, already under arrest by the German SS, he accepted the oath of Szálasi, the half mad fascist leader, and his government in October 1944. Soon after that the Germans removed him and the country came to total ruin. The article concludes by explaining that he was neither better nor worse than most other military men who emerged as political leaders in the interwar years.
***
Professor Andorka, a sociologist, begins with formulating a definition of what constitutes a modern society. In this country, modernization in the past equalled efforts to catch up with the west. That was the aim of the Reform Age (1833 1848), and then of the period of rapid growth following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, up to the Great War. Attempts were again made in the 1930s. The long years of the socialist experiment can also be seen as a failed attempt at modernization, based on false premises and ideological constraints. The essay then sets out to investigate the changes that have taken place since the collapse of socialism and see if they point in the direction of modernization or not.
Democracy is, from a constitutional point of view, firmly in place and functioning fully. Economic transformation, still underway, is less successful. The burdens inherited from the past and the largely unforeseen difficulties of the transformation of a centralized, planned economy produced a dramatic drop in the GDP, high unemployment and inflation, causing a painful lowering of living standards for the majority in society. Impoverishment is still on the increase. Inequality has grown considerably. A new and highly visible, though small, class of rich entrepreneurs and well to do managers has appeared on the scene. The change in ownership structure has made good progress, D though ownership relations are far from clear. The second or "grey" economy still plays a very important part in the economy and through tax evasion hinders the functioning of the market economy. All this has had a marked influence on the social structure.
Disillusionment and dissatisfaction are widespread. Hungarians are more pessimistic and negativistic than other nations with a similar past and an even worse present. According to Andorka, for sociologists the most important question right now is whether the democratic political system is able to survive until economic improvement will be felt by everybody and until the modern culture needed will take shape. Disagreeing with both pessimistic and overoptimistic images of the future, Andorka concludes by saying that the future of the present Hungarian attempt at modernization is still open.
***
In volume two of his magisterial biography of Liszt (Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years 1848-1861) Alan Walker devotes a whole chapter to a love affair Liszt had with one of his pupils, Agnes Street-Klindworth. She was a beautiful and highly intelligent young woman and Liszt knew that she was a political agent, a collaborator of her father, Georg Klindworth. Metternich's master spy who controlled an espionage network which stretched across Europe. Liszt's letters to Carolyne Sayn-Witgenstein, his companion, contain long political passages which correspond almost verbatim with Georg Klindworth's secret reports now housed in various archives. Though Liszt burnt the letters Agnes sent to him, he could have obtained such information from Agnes. Indeed, we know from his letters to Agnes that it was on his explicit request that she passed his father's secret political reports on to him.
Three samples of parallel texts, complete with their facsimiles, are published here for the first time in a preparatory study by Pauline Pocknell to her forthcoming edition of Liszt's complete correspondence with Agnes Street-Klindworth. They shed light on Liszt's passionate interests in politics, in the affairs of the Catholic Church, the close links he had with the Vatican and also to the problems caused by his complicated relationship with Carolyne Sayn-Witgenstein.
Ultimately, this sensational article raises a major question. Was Liszt secret agent? What made him deliberately forward information to the court in Weimar, to Napoleon III or to Pius IX?
Pauline Pocknell firmly rejects the spy theory and furnishes a sophisticated picture of Liszt's political loyalties, his amazing intellect and energy and shows him as a man of conviction and noble mind.
