Revolution in Hungary (continued)

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40 years after the Bolshevik revolution had given po Stalinist tanks crushed the power of workers' counc Kruscher L inadequate to the revolution. seen."

I But also he was forced to go far in his promises in order! by provocative gunfire, probto distance himself from the ably from the AVH; and Soviet overlords: to the rumours of Massacit and Kremlin bureaucracy, too, betrayal fractured the fragile he was inadequate. coming together of the comOn Sunday 4 November, batants. The fresh, misinafter some days of peace formed troops of the second when the streets had been wave were allowed deserted by the tanks and chance of learning, with the the workers were being Hungarian people, of their advised by their leaders to trading tom Briers true common enemy end the general strike, Budapest was attacked for the leading second time by Soviet arms. government, now came Stalinism came with as great a ferocity and savagery He called regime Ine as counter-revolution has •Kevo lionary Workers and been able to muster from Peasants Government'-but the putting down of the the Hungarians were onl Paris Commune onwards; it too aware of the bureau came with tanks blazing cracy's lying abuse of lanphosphorus and shells, with guage. artillery and bomber aircraft. Over the next four days Budapest-above all the lying accusations: "The working class districts-was reduced nearly to ruins. 2I00 fascists the Csepel Many of the rank and file works strike on!" Soviet troops, enclosed in their tanks, had thought at first they were in Berlin runed fighting fascists. But the pied the ruined remnants fighting now was too deper- ate to allow for any frater- ine Red nisation-which must have been. the bureaucracy's Trotsky had once built defence of proletarian revolution. greatest fear.

In fact, after the first substantial moves towards Soviet attack, there had been continued. They had entered the insurrection unorganised, fraternisation. On 25 WiLl vancularo political october, Parliament Square party to lead them. Stalinist witnessed what an American journalist called the most poitical trade ganisations, joyous fraternisation between a populace and replacing them with tilt foreign troops I had ever. MOTO BEN institutions or the deformed wer to the Soviets, ils in Hungary Ousted- Rakosi workers' state. process in The German The joy had been ended And the leadership which Ideology.

had emerged spontaneously as the workers established on a large scale of this comtheir control over the indus- munist consciousness and for trial enterprises, was tested the success the cause itself, the alteration of men again and again in the fire of struggle and of proletarian on a mass scale is necessary, democracy. an alteration which can only Often when leaders were take place in a practical found inadequate to their movement, a revolution. The task, or used-the strength of revolution is necessary, The workers' • councils as a therefore, not only because basis for compromise with the ruling class cannot be Kadar, proletarian demo- overthrown in any other cracy saw to it that they way, but also because the astride a Soviet tank. were replaced. class overthrowing it can Inevitably, with the only in a revolution succeed working class groping in ridding itself of all the towards full awareness of its muck of ages and become own strength, the limits of fitted to found society spontaneity began to have anew." their ful effects. programme of action striatic act to readar through which this process can be carried through, and it is only the active intervention of vanguard party No proletarian revolution is simply the result of some By November the mystically-raised class con- gramme can be carried sciousness, of the workers through. having perceived in any clear way the roots and conditions the months between of its social, political and economic oppression, and so the process of developing from such a perception proceeding to take the necessary particularly through the But the workers' struggle counter-measure-revolution.

It is a process in which the proletariat gathers in October 1956. The together all its forces, mental and physical, and transforms had estroyed LIlC itself, as a class, into a power which can govern the social organisations, reality which had until then seemed to implacably govern it. power.

Marx spoke of this factories, mines, etc., came demands-for democratic rights, for the break-up of the monolithicism of Stalinist rule, for the immediate withdrawal of soviet troops, IOT the replacement oi bureaucratic administration of the economy by a system of elected workers' councils which would have power at all levels. "The most pressing demand in our free life is the building of effective workers' councils. Their members, workers and young people, will know how to heal the wounds of the past. Let us show that we can manage things better than our former bosses."

Denouncing the Stalinist hes, they emphasised that their goal was not capitalist restoration, but genuine "We repeat, we will not return the land to the great landowners, the factories to the capitalists, the mines to the barons and the direction of our army to the Hortyite enemies of the people."

Efforts towards coordination and joint action between workers' councils had been made from the start; regional councils were re-organised and extended when fighting died down after the second invasion.

The Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest (CWC) was formed on 14 November, with delegates from all the major factories and districts of Budapest.

Already on 31 October a Parliament Workers Councils had been convened for the whole of Budapest, in recognition of the need for more centralised organisation and direction.

Political power Some of the authors of this thoroughiv socialist orogramme refused to accept that it : could be realised and "Both for the production defended by the councils Takane INE0 Them own hands the political pro. gramme implicit in revolution: they tried restrict the councils to 'pure. economic matters' as fa as possible.

Yet they vere all tl time dealing with wider and wider range of mattersof food distribution, power supplies, transport provision, ele alter wert being understood by the mass of workers as being not merely but political, insofar as the were revealed to contain questions Contols Marxism offers a such things? In whose interTests are they run?' Sandor Bali, the general secretary of the CWC opposed the most radical section of the Counci: 'We based on the perspective of. know quite well", he Marxism that such a pro- declared, "that the workers' councus cannor oe polacal organisations."

As it was in Russia in Yet the councils were the February and October 1917, Comic thrust revoluthe seeds of a new society, of a revolutionary leadership soviet-type bodies of prolet- to develop them as such, to arian democracy, was begun their ultimate potential.

The general strikes Hungarian workers' councils which were the backdrop were to become, in the the growth-el the councils, months that followed, the une question or power was embodiment and expression continuously posed. .But the of the workers' struggle, the revolutionary answer to the site of growing workers question was not given by those in leadership from the strikebound Many, fact, acted to turn back the tide of general strikes, in favour of negotiating with Kadar's government. The leading regional councils had, after all, proposed to end the strike, only days before the invasion of November 4.

Under the influence of the Compromisers, on November 16, the CWC again called off the strike, primarily to facilitate negotiations with Kadar. (After making this decision, CWC members came close to attack from workers and provincial delegates gathered outside. One recalls that they "were called all possible names: scoundrels, traitors, etc.")

Two days after the return to work, delegates from throughout the country assembled in Budapest to discuss convening a National Workers Council. Soviet tanks surrounded the venue and rumours spread that the delegates had been arrested. Within hours the workers were on strike again. Only days after the leadership had called off the strike because, they claimed, the workers were exhausted, it was forced to recognise a 48-hour protest strike.

But the folinwing day, the Csepel regional council, now committed to compromise at all costs, condemned the strike, pleading the need for avoiding collision with the government. Proletarian democracy swung into action-Csepel workers immediately sacked and replaced the Council.

If anything could exhaust the workers it was an irresolute leadership which could offer no perspective for victory; which could not make clear to workers the tendencies of the revolution; which had insufficient faith in the proletariat's strength.

Only much later-too late -did it become clearer to the majority of the CWC that even if they were willing to negotiate and to attempt to placate Kadar by surrendering the workers greatest weapon-their control over production-Kadar himself was not willing to negotiate.

On the contrary, he was looking for every sign of weakness-then he would attack. By November 27 the CWC was convinced of this and ready to declare:

"We can categoricall state that the real interest: of the working class in Hungary are represented by the workers councils, and that in addition there is no stronger political power in existence than theirs . . . We have received our mission from the working class and we shall work with all our might for the strengthening of the workers' power."

But throughout the period of negotiation and indecisiveness, Kadar was rebuilding repressive apparatuses of Stalinism, particularly the AVH police, and using them to attack the councils.

Occupying

army The bureaucracy was growing stronger and getting bolder as the revolution failed to "move forward. It was only the taut mobilisation of workers throughout the country that prevented him-for a while-from taking decisive action against the councils.

But a state of extreme tension cannot be maintained for long. And always there was, blocking the revolutionary road, an occupying force of 3,000 tanks and 200,000 troops. For success it was vital that either those troops be won over or at least neutralised, or that the revolution should spread to the other Stalinist states.

Un 9 December, Kadar found the signal for the bureaucracy's definitive assault in the delayed inaugural meeting of the National Workers Council. That meeting would finally have unified the struggle on a national scale-at a time, moreover, when fewer workers' leaders had any remaining illusions in the road of negotiations and compromise.

A majority of the Budapest CWC was arrested, the CWC itself was declared dissolved. Around the country brutal and often bloody repression was stepped up as, yet again, a general strike broke out.

The final decisive battles of the Hungarian revolution took place. The government declared a state of emergency -and disbanded all workers councils above those at factory level. The bureaucracy's managers re-entered the factories-protected there, in many cases, by occupying troops.

Armed clashes, strikes and demonstrations recurred, to be beaten down. The government extended the death penalty to striking or inciting to strike.

Later it was further extended: the so-called Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Government had to be immune from all criticism -especially that of the workers and peasants.

Nevertheless, throughout 1957 sabotage, passive resistance, even occasional strikes and demonstrations continued. But the Hungarian proletariat had been decisively defeated-though it was not until November 1957 that Kadar felt able to decree the final dissolution of the last remnants of the factory councils.

Forty years after the Bolsheviks had fought for "All power to the Soviets"

the ruling bureaucracy of the degenerated workers' state had sent all its might to crush the workers' councils, the workers' revolution, in Hungary-decisive proof yet again, that, the Stalinist bureaucracy is the betrayer, the outright enemy of proletarian revolution.

The Hungarian workers never attained in 1956 the power achieved by the Russian Soviets in 1917. But the faith and determination of Lenin, when the Russian Revolution was also endangered by counter-revolutionary invasion, was redeemed again in 1956:

"We may not be able to hold out for long, so let us do such things during our brief tenure of power that the working classes of the world will remember them for ever."

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This week we are giving extended space to a letter received from a Palestinian Trotskyist. The Workers League of Palestine is affiliated to the Fourth Internationalist Tendency. Socialist Organiser, Thursday Page