Footnotes

Submitted by libcom on March 27, 2005

FOOTNOTES

1. In July 1945, the Japanese had offered to negotiate on 'unconditional surrender' terms. They were ignored. The A-bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9. Paradoxically, the Russians were not opposed to this. They were curious to see the result: they were already working diligently to produce their own nuclear weapons.

2. Politics, New York Times, March 1945.

3. With the advent of Marshall Aid two years later, they were kicked out of these governments, without a word of thanks for the services they had rendered to the capitalist class.

4. That genuine revolution by the people must be avoided at all costs, was a point on which both 'communist' parties and capitalist ones were completely united.

5. Molotov speech of April 2, 1944.

6. August 23, 1944.

7. The Kremlin's explanation to the British Government was that the Sanatescu Government was unable to maintain control over 'fascists' and ' pro-Hitlerite elements' in the country.

8. World News and Views, November 19, 1938.

9. New York Times, March 17, 1945.

10. New York Times, September 26, 1945.

11. Radio Bucharest reported that Groza had made this statement when describing his talks with Stalin in autumn 1945.

12. At an election meeting in Bucharest on November 17, 1946, Gheorghiu Dej (leader of the Communist Party) ended his speech with the slogans: "Vote for the King's government! Long live the King! Long live his commanders and soldiers! Long live the Army which is his and the people's!" [Ygael Gluckstein, Stalin's Satellites in Europe, Allen & Unwin, p.141.]

13. Maniu died in 1955.

14. In 1923, the Military League organised a coup d'état and overthrew the progressive regime of Stambulinski. Stambulinski was assassinated. Tens of thousands of his supporters, together with many Communists and socialists, were murdered.

15. The Economist, October 7, 1944.

16. New York Times, January 16, 1945.

17. The Nation, June 23, 1945.

18. Kun was Foreign Minister, but he dominated the Government. ]

19. Kun opposed Stalin during the great purges of the middle thirties and was executed. In February 1962 a national delegate conference of Kadar's Hungarian Journalists' Union 'cleared' Kun's name. The Union's President, Dr. Arpad Szakasits, paid high tributes to Kun, his "great central committee,: and his Voros Utsag - the first Hungarian Communist newspaper. It was also reported (Feb. '62) that Bela Kun's widow and son, who live on a farm in the Soviet Union, had been invited by Kadar to return and settle in Hungary. (Szakasits was an ex-Social Democratic leader and editor of Nepszava in 1944. He succeeded Tildy as President of Hungary in 1948. Became a victim of Rakosi's 'Salami tactics' (see Chapter 41 and was imprisoned for four years)

20. See Admiral Nicholas Horthy - Memoirs, p.222.

21. At this time the Germans still occupied the capital. They fought in every street, leaving a devastated city behind them.

22. For further information on this subject see Solidarity Pamphlet No. 7, The Workers Opposition, by Alexandra Kollontai.

23. The Guardian, September 29, 1962.

24. Solidarity Pamphlet No. 7, The Workers Opposition, by Alexandra Kollontai, p.20.

25. The author, who was a P.O.W. in Austria and remained there for six months after the war had ended, has personal experience of all this.

While working with American Intelligence in Styria, he was arrested on the order of the American Military Governor of the area. He was again put behind barbed wire in ex-P.O.W. camp in the town of Stainach. An American guard was placed over the camp. Two American members of the Intelligence Unit were also arrested, but were not seen again by Anderson, who escaped from the camp the very same night and went into hiding.

Anderson and the others had been actively objecting to leading local Nazis being retained in or given positions of authority by the American Military Government. When the British took over this particular zone from the Americans, Anderson came out of hiding and joined a British Intelligence Unit operating from the town of Liezen. Things were no better. The British Military Government also regarded the strutting Nazi administrators and managers of only a few weeks earlier as the only people they could rely on. A similar situation developed as with the American Military Government. Anderson was again arrested.

26. From Rakosi's speech of February 29, 1952, to the Party Academy (see The Road of our People's Democracy, published in June 1952 by the Hungarian News and Information Service).

27. See speech by the Polish Foreign Minister Modzelewski, to a Committee of the U.N. General Assembly (November 2, 1948).

28. Ygael Gluckstein - Stalin's Satellites in Europe (p.66) - an excellent source of information for the period up to 1950.

29. Similar developments occurred in Bulgaria, Poland, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia.

30. Lord Chandos, chairman of Associated Electrical Industries, and head of the Institute of Directors, said at a luncheon of the Coal Industry Society at the Hyde Park Hotel, in London, on January 8. 1962: "Nationalization of a fairly substantial sector of industry has come to stay... It is quite clear that every loyal citizen must try to make our nationalized industries work efficiently. I congratulate Lord Robens (ex-front bench Labour M.P.) Chairman of the National Coal Board, on having many ideas. I congratulate the coal trade upon the lively revival in marketing. As an industrialist I want cheap fuel and reliable supplies and I believe that is what you will secure for us.' (The Guardian. January 1, 1962).

31. Continental News Service, April 16, 1948.

32. Another similarity between the Hungarian (or any other) Communist Party and the British (or any other) Labour Party is that both profess to be parties of the working class. Both no doubt started with the objective of 'emancipating labour'. Both have become obstacles to this end. Both are now the mouthpieces of non-proletarian strata. In their internal organization - and in their conceptions of their relations to the masses - both now reflect the fundamental division of exploiting society into order-givers and order-takers. Objectively, the function of both types of party is to force the working class to accept a rationalised form of exploitation.

33. Pravda, September 7, 1929.

34. Pravda, March 11, 1937.

35. Although there is an almost monastic silence about them, forced labour camps certainly existed in Hungary. An indication of their existence was given on August 21, 1950, when Radio Budapest reported that I. Olagos, a worker in the wagon factory at Györ, had been found guilty of a 'wages swindle' and sentenced to six years compulsory labour.

36. See Solidarity, vol. II, No. 1, p.15 "Who Sabots?"

37. Kossa was a former Budapest tramworkers' leader who had been sent with a penal labour battalion to the Russian front, captured by the Red Army and 'politically educated' at a Russian training centre. He became boss of the Communist-reorganized trade unions, in 1945.

38. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, September 6, 1949.

39. Re-named "Karl Marx Allee." [November 14, 1961.]

40. Syndicalist Workers Federation pamphlet - The Hungarian Workers' Revolution, p.15.

41. George Mikes says that Tito expressed dissatisfaction at the restoration of Rakosi. Krushchev replied: "I have to keep Rakosi in Hungary because, in Hungary, the whole structure will collapse if he goes." George Mikes, Hungarian Revolution, p.61.

42. Peter Fryer - Hungarian Tragedy.

43. Nagy was a member of a Government and of the Party which had, for years, faithfully carried out all Stalin's wishes.

44. The first Hungarian Five Year Plan, which ended in 1954, was to be followed in 1955 by a second, "in close co-ordination with the Soviet Union." Other countries involved were Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Poland, and East Germany.

45. We do not have space here to describe the Russian treachery during the magnificent campaign of the Polish workers of Warsaw against the Nazis in 1944. This was a betrayal of such sickening magnitude that few Poles will ever forget it. The memory of these events played a large part in the post-war attitude of the Poles to the U.S.S.R.

46. Sandor Petöfi was a poet who played an important part in the Hungarian revolution against the Hapsburg oppression, in 1848. Czar Nicholas I sent troops to suppress the Hungarians.

47. Gyula Hay was well known at the time of Bela Kun's regime of 1919, when one of his plays was performed at the Hungarian National Theatre. He fled Hungary from Horthy's White Terror and wandered through Europe with a suitcase full of unperformed plays. He returned to Budapest at the end of World War II when another of his plays became a great success.

48. Communist Party daily.

49. Rakosi had kept them both in jail for years as "Titoist Fascists", etc. Kadar still bore the marks on his face and body of the tortures he suffered on orders of the 'Leadership.'

50. We use the term loosely to describe the type taking part in this movement. There were, of course, a few industrial workers at the meetings, but the large majority were writers and students plus a number of schoolteachers, doctors, etc.

51. A famous coffee house damaged during the war and rebuilt by the Government.

52. The Daily Worker carried no report of this very important event.

53. Peter Fryer - Hungarian Tragedy, p.39.

54. We call this 'workers' management' - see Solidarity pamphlet No. 6: The Meaning of Socialism.

55. Not necessarily a revolutionary demand. See Solidarity pamphlet No. 7: The Workers' Opposition p.66.

56. The great industrial area of Budapest renowned as 'Red Czepel' because of the large number of its workers who were Party members.

57. Perhaps this was carried by the student who, at the Polytechnic the previous evening, had caused an apprehensive hush to fall on the meeting when he suddenly shouted: "Out with the Russians!" There was some laughter when the silence was broken by the quiet voice of a lecturer: "Our friend means, of course, to suggest that it would be desirable for each nation to keep its army on its own soil."

58. For the full text of the resolution, see Appendix I.

59. Quoted from Socialisme ou Barbarie - vol. IV, No. 20, p.87.

60. It is remarkable that, during the whole course of the revolution, no cases of looting were reported by any observers other than die-hard Stalinists.

61. Hubert Ripka, Eastern Europe in the Post War World, p.163.

62. Related by Matyas Bajor-see Appendix IV.

63. All observers interviewed say dum-dum bullets were used.

64. A British Communist who had lived in Budapest for three years. Editor of World Youth.

65. Related by Peter Fryer in Hungarian Tragedy, p.46.

66. Hubert Ripka was a minister in the post-war government of Czechoslovakia, during the presidency of Benes. After the Communist coup of 1948, he went into exile. He died in 1958. Ripka was certainly not a revolutionary socialist. Just as certainly, he was no fascist. He was one of the more liberal-minded Czech social democrats.

67. Hubert Ripka, Eastern Europe in the Post War World, p.166.

68. For an account of the Babolna Peasants' Council, see Peter Fryer - Hungarian Tragedy, pp.60-62.

69. Even the bureaucrats of U.N.O. recognised this. A U.N. special committee report on Hungary stated: "The Workers' Councils emerged from the Revolution as the only organisations commanding the support of the overwhelming majority of the people and in a position to require the government to negotiate with them, because they constituted a force able to bring about the resumption of work."

70. North-East Hungary, on the borders of Czechoslovakia. Coal mines and steel works amongst the most important in the country. Large power station, iron-smelting, and centre of the Hungarian chemical industry.

71. Quoted from Socialisme ou Barbarie - Vol. IV, No. 20. pp. 90-91.

72. "Counter-revolution in Hungary staged an uprising in the hours of darkness on Tuesday night." (Daily Worker, October 25, 1956.) The same edition ran an article entitled "The Hell that was Horthy's", thus implying that the current revolt was of fascist nature.

73. In his book A Handful of Ashes, Noel Barber of the Daily Mail quotes what he calls "the demands of the Writers' Union" (pp. 89-90). His words bear little relation to the original text. For example, he makes absolutely no mention of workers' management or workers' control.

74. Quoted from Socialisme ou Barbaric - vol. IV, No. 20, p.92.

75. The Daily Worker's special correspondent in Budapest, Peter Fryer, had his dispatches mutilated beyond recognition by the Editor and finally suppressed altogether.

76. Daily Worker, October 29, 1956.

77. There had already been a resumption of work in some factories. Public transport had started running again on Saturday, October 27.

78. George Mikes, The Hungarian Revolution, p.145.

79. New York Times, October 23, 1956.

80. The Daily Worker of November 5, reported that Kadar had "called for the arming of the workers in the factories."

81. Peter Fryer, Hungarian Tragedy, p.85.

82. The four principal Ministers were: Foreign Minister, Imre Horvath; Deputy Prime Minister, Ferenc Münnich; Minister of Defence and Interior, Antal Apro; Minister of Agriculture, Imre Degoe. Two Social Democrats were also given Ministries: Minister of State, Gyorgy Morosan and Minister of Trade, Sandor Ronal.

83. In the same issue, the front page headlines ran: "New Hungarian Anti-fascist Government in Action - Soviet Troops called in to stop White Terror." Further down the page the Daily Worker reported "Budapest Radio, under control of the Kadar Government, said that Ernö Gerö, former First Secretary of the Hungarian Workers' Party had been murdered in a 'barbarous fashion' by the rebels." In fact Gerö had been taken to Moscow by the Russians on October 24.

84. Daily Worker, November 5, 1956.

85. Daily Worker, November 5, 1956.

86. This was started by Moscow radio on the afternoon of November 4, which, according to the Daily Worker of November 5, announced "All honest Hungarian patriots are taking an active part ... in disarming the mutineers and in overcoming individual nests of resistance of fascist groups."

87. Peter Fryer. Hungarian Tragedy, p.83.

88. This appears to contradict the Daily Worker report that Gerö had been killed by the rebels on November 4. Perhaps the Daily Worker's News Editor, knowing in what kind of esteem Gerö was held by the workers, had made an 'intelligent guess' about his fate. If so, the Daily Worker had been thwarted by the Russians who had 'arrested' Gerö on October 24, and taken him to Moscow. Gerö was not expelled at this time. On August 19, 1962, the Soviet news agency Tass reported that a meeting of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist (Communist) Party had just expelled Gerö - and Rakosi (see The Guardian, August 20, 1962, pp.1 and 7).

89. Before, during, and since the period of the Hungarian revolution, all strikes were 'unofficial' except, perhaps, during the short life of the National Council of Free Trade Unions, formed in October.

90. Marosán, together with Kadar, Apró and Münnich, disappeared the day before the second Russian attack, presumably to form a 'Government.'

91. Early in 1957, the Writers' Union was banned. So was the Union of journalists [see entries for January 17 and 19, 1957 in Appendix III].

92. See also other extracts from Kadar's speech to the National Assembly in Appendix III [May 10-11, 1957].

93. Confirmed by Krushchev at the 20th Congress.

94. The Chinese Communists now reproach the Russians with not having acted vigorously enough in suppressing the Hungarian Revolution!

95. Peter Fryer, Hungarian Tragedy.

96. Quoted from Socialism ou Barbarism [Solidarity pamphlet No. 11, p.3].

97. Ibid. pp.13-14.

98. Ibid, p.20.

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