György Litván
Fatal
Attraction
Lee Congdon: Seeing Red. Hungarian Intellectuals in Exile and the Challenge
of Communism. Northern Illinois University Press, 2001, 223 pp.
[...]
In this book he deals with those Hungarian
exiles in whose lives Communism played a part, discussing their relations
with their Hungarian and British counterparts. His principal characters are
the Polányi brothers (the economic historian Karl Polányi and the chemist,
economist and philosopher Michael Polányi), Ilona Duczynska, Arthur Koestler,
Aurél Kolnai, Pál Ignotus, István Mészáros, Imre Lakatos and Tibor Szamuely.
Instead of discussing separately the role and the work of these thinkers,
some of whom became world famous while others were known only within their
respective professions, Lee Congdon presents them in a peculiar amalgamation,
introducing many supporting characters, publishing letters, describing divergent
and intertwined lives, stories and legends, all set against the background
of the period's great ideological and historical issues. Mostly, he moves
from one character to another in a seemingly erratic manner; nevertheless,
through this peculiar mode of composition, he succeeds in presenting Hungarians,
who had very different lives and attitudes - although most shared Jewish origins
- as a community living almost as a family, rather than as isolated individuals.
Save the case of the last three, (who left the country after 1956) this more
or less fits the facts. With the exception of Koestler, they all experienced
the vigorous intellectual revival in Budapest of the early twentieth century,
growing up in the radical, reformist and occasionally revolutionary milieu
characterising the social science journal Huszadik Század (1900 - 1919),
the associated Social Science Society and the Galieo Circle; but even Arthur
Koestler began his "studies" in the experimental school founded and directed
by Laura Polányi (sister of Karl and Michael), with his subsequent life intertwined
with the various members of this large and exceptionally gifted family. From
secondary school on, Aurél Kolnai was a member of the Galileo Circle headed
by Karl Polányi; later he became Oszkár Jászi's disciple and student, he worked
with Polányi in Vienna, in the editorial office of Österreichischer Volkswirt.
Through his father, who had been the editor of Nyugat, the most important
literary journal of the first half of the century, Pál Ignotus, who was of
the same age as Kolnai, had links with progressives in Hungary. The individuals
featuring in the book kept in touch, remained friends and continued their
debates with each other (as well as with those of their friends later scattered
around in the world) for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the presentation
and analysis of their respective lives in such a "collective" and "interactive"
manner not only seems justified but even promises some additional rewards.
[...]
In 1927 Polányi severely crticised western
democracy. "An abstract notion of democracy, which highhandedly ignores the
reality of class division, religion, war and violence, deserves to be ignored
by reality." Congdon has managed to come up with much new and interesting
information on the relationship between Karl Polányi and the British Christian
Left, as well as on the Polányi couple's participation in the London group
of Hungarian exiles led by Count Mihály Károlyi. Polányi's career was, indeed,
rather unusual among left - wing exiles.
In direct contrast to the typical trend, he came to the West not as a communist
or a sympathiser who would gradually become disillusioned, but as a non - Marxist
liberal socialist, who became the ideologist of market - free economic redistribution
and an atypical but stubborn Soviet sympathiser unshaken even by the Moscow
trials. Although this was not in connection with his years in Britain, it
is worth mentioning that the anti - etatist grass - roots socialism of the 1956
Hungarian Revolution for a brief period enchanted his capricious intellect.
In an unpublished article written in early 1957 and entitled "A Hungarian
Lesson", he tried to trace the Hungarian uprising back to economic causes,
then wrote an enthusiastic letter to his younger brother, Michael: "1956 re - conquered
me for Hungary... I admire the fighters of October".
But that was not his last word on the subject. The "sacred hatred" got the
upper hand in him, reviving his anti - capitalist and anti - American sentiments.
In an open letter written in 1960 he broke off relations with the London -
based Association of Hungarian Writers Abroad. Then in 1963, shortly before
his death, he visited Hungary and in a document entitled "Hazánk kötelessége"
(The Duty of Our Country), which read almost like a confession of faith, he
called on the young writers and scientists of Hungary to fight against capitalism.
His last venture was the launching of Co - Existence, a magazine promoting
peaceful coexistence. Karl Polányi and his wife Ilona Duczynska were among
those exiles in England, and later also in America (in Canada, to be precise,
because Duczynska's request for a visa to the United States was refused on
the grounds of her Communist affiliation), who, despite their reservations,
continued to support "existing socialism" right to the end of their lives.
For this reason, the Polányi brothers were rarely in agreement, although they
made an effort to avoid engaging in public polemics. One of their rare debates
took place in the 1930s in England. It concerned the problems of a centrally
planned economy and employment in connection with John Maynard Keynes's The
General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, and involved a third
Hungarian intellectual, Karl Mannheim. In his Full Employment and Free Trade,
Michael Polányi partly accepted Keynes' analysis, but - in sharp contrast
with Mannheim's views - rejected the idea of central planning and stood by
the principle of separating politics and the economy, a view contested by
his brother. In his discussion of contemporary articles and letters, Congdon
here throws light on a scholarly debate on a problem of key importance.
[...]
Congdon discusses three men who emigrated to
Great Britain after 1956. Of the three, only Imre Lakatos qualified as a '56
refugee, settling in Cambridge late in the year. István Mészáros and Tibor
Szamuely arrived later, and their intellectual influence cannot be compared
to that of Lakatos. Mészáros, who was Lukács's student, went to Italy on a
scholarship in 1956, where he published his book La rivolta degli intellettuali
in Ungheria in 1958. The book outlined a one - sidedly "left - wing" picture
of the 1956 Revolution, in the context of a - practically nonexistent - "workers'
socialism". Although Congdon quotes extensively from his English - language
works published later (Marx's Theory of Alienation, 1970; Lukacs' Concept
of Dialectics, 1972; Beyond. Towards a Theory of Transition, 1995), they
do not appear to have had a substantial influence on British intellectual
life. The situation is different with Szamuely's work, The Russian Tradition
(1974), which constituted a major and influential piece of Kremlinology, a
popular genre at the time, regardless of the author's lack of credibility.
Congdon is mistaken in writing the following: "There were, in fact, two Szamuelys,
and the anti - Communist was beginning to get the upper hand". Tibor Szamuely's
political attitude in Hungary showed no sign whatsoever of any intellectual
vacillation: he showed himself a Stalinist through - and - through both before
and after 1956. Although on October 23, 1956 he marched in the front row of
the protesters representing Eötvös Loránd University's Humanities Department,
after the Revolution's suppression he also took a leading role in purging
the Department of its "counter - revolutionary" teachers and students. Later
he, too, was removed from the University, but that was the result of the rival
Communist faction's successful coup, rather than his political resistance
- as he claimed later. Unlike Koestler or Lakatos, Szamuely demonstrated no
remorse, self - criticism or oppositional attitudes before he escaped from
an African university to England to become a Kremlinologist there - on the
strength of considerable knowledge acquired in the Soviet Union. The British
historians paid no attention to his record and admitted him to their fold.
Thanks to his degree in mathematics, Imre Lakatos was included in one of the
first contingents in Vienna. Great Britain took him in not as an established
scholar, but as a relatively young (34 years old) and promising intellectual
who then paid back this act of good faith with interest. Lakatos's youthful
record as a fanatical Communist is widely known by now, together with all
its essential factors and darkest details. However, Congdon is not content
with the facts established by Hungarian researchers; he tries to dish out
the "story" to foreign readers with all the thrilling details - primarily based
on the recollections of friends and contemporaries. When he refers in his
notes to police documents hitherto unknown, they are of highly dubious origin,
with the source and date given being incomplete or improbable. ("Secret document
from the Ministry of Interior, July 17, 1956. Bureau of History".) It is not
quite clear why Congdon tried to establish the causes and precise details
of Lakatos's arrest and internment from such a great distance, by employing
foreign researchers. This had no bearing on Lakatos's activities and role
in England, which are the subject of the book. The author's intention was
to show that Lakatos wanted to unmask József Révai, then chief ideologist
of the Communist Party, member of the Politburo, and one of the "almighty
four", and that Lakatos's elimination was a consequence of that. One cannot
exclude the possibility of such an assignment, otherwise Lakatos's actions would have been
quite unthinkable, along with his acrimonious debates with the powerful and
arrogant Révai, but the quoted interviews and the belated recollections by
distant friends are not sufficient corroboration. Yet the author concludes,
"That must have been the truth."
In the infamous Recsk labour camp, Lakatos became an ÁVH (State Security Bureau)
informer. According to some allegations, he volunteered for the task thinking
that in that way he could still be a member of the vanguard regardless of
his being in detention. After his release - on his own admission - he informed
the ÁVH not just on the psychologist Ferenc Mérei, as Congdon writes, but
also on the mathematician and historian Árpád Szabó and the professor of English
literature Tibor Lutter (a man who had once sympathised with the Nazis and
then became a servile Communist), two friends who gave him most help in his
first days outside. His friends and acquaintances, who at that time sympathised
with Imre Nagy's oppositional faction within the party, noticed how difficult
it was for Lakatos to break with the "party line". I personally remember one
occasion when, in his typical manner, he put a provocative question to me
in the spring or summer of 1956, during the debates of the Petőfi Circle,
the harbringer of the Revolution: "So what do you think about a multi - party
system then?" Naturally, it soon turned out that this was at the bottom of
the debates and of the entire de - Stalinization process, yet this was the only
issue that could not be addressed because of the Stalinists lurking around
the Petőfi Circle. To this day I cannot tell whether Lakatos acted on "party
orders" or whether he genuinely wanted to know my answer. His autumn lecture
in the Petőfi Circle was, on the other hand, one of the best and most important
speeches: he spoke to an audience of young brainwashed intellectuals about
to come to their senses on how to discriminate between confirmed and unconfirmed
facts and what scientific thinking involves.
As is commonly known, in addition to renouncing his earlier political and
general world view for good, Lakatos also demonstrated a clear move to the
right in exile. Congdon quotes some of his statements made in 1968, testifying
to his firm opposition to the student movements, and also his feeling whereby
he perceived a fatal shift to the left in Great Britain and in the world.
This makes it highly doubtful that it was only death that prevented him from
working out a well - balanced theory of "Open Society Liberalism" in keeping
with Sir Karl Popper's ideas.
György Litván
who headed the Institute for the History of the 1956 Revolution between 1991 - 1999,
has published widely on modern Hungarian history.
