Demise and Revival of a Communist Party: an Autopsy of the Hungarian Revolution

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296001300315
• Author: George Ginsburgs
• Published date: 01 September 1960
• Date: 01 September 1960
• Subject Matter: Articles

DEMISE AND REVIVAL OF A COMMUNIST PARTY:
AN AUTOPSY OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION
GEORGE GINSBURGS*
University of California, Los Angeles
HE
HUNGARIAN
REVOLUTION of October, 1956, exposed to pub-
T
lic view many hitherto unknown, and even unsuspected, facets of a
JL
Communist regime’s inner workings. Perhaps in no other area were the
revelations of those fateful days as momentous as in the field of the party’s
activities. Indeed, the chance ebb and flow of the uprising laid bare almost the
entire internal mechanism of the local Communist party. Thus, at the height
of the popular outbreak, the revolution triumphant uncovered all the weaknesses
and failings of the Hungarian Workers’ party, all its inherent defects in condi-
tions of confusion and retreat. In its turn, shortly thereafter the tragic defeat
of the uprising lifted the veil from a renascent Communist party in the process
of retaking the offensive, once again arrogant, vindictive, and implacable.
Taken together the two pictures succeed in giving a complete illustration,
in miniature, of the underlying psychology, basic techniques, and tactical meth-
ods of a typical Communist party operating in two widely different sets of cir-
cumstances, both quite extreme, of course, yet strangely representative and un-
distorted, since even in normal times the party functions in an uniquely engi-
neered atmosphere of recurrent crises and aggressive militancy. On the whole,
therefore, the dramatic developments of October, 1956, merely pinpointed,
enhanced, and magnified the normal modus operandi of a satellite party at two
particularly decisive moments: (1) when desperately fighting for survival at a
time of mortal danger and in the face of a threat of total annihilation; and (2)
when seeking to reimpose its will on a people by all and every means at its dis-
posal and to extirpate all actual and fancied opposition to its absolute rule in
the context of an overwhelmingly hostile environment. The purpose of this
study is to examine and analyze the former situation.
I
Long before the pent-up hatred of the Hungarian nation finally sought relief
in armed rebellion, innumerable internal frictions and difficulties had already
succeeded to a considerable extent in disorienting the rank-and-file of the party
itself and in sowing serious disruption among its members. The repeated volte-
faces by the ruling party clique, the successive and drastic reversals of policies
and lines, the uncertain vacillations of the leadership between extremes of
Stalinism, then Nagy’s &dquo;New Course,&dquo; then again neo-Stalinist R~kosiism,
only to have the latter discredited by Khrushchev’s secret confessions at the
Twentieth Party Congress, yet continue to rule -
all this maneuvering had, by
the fall of 1956, reduced the Hungarian Workers’ party to a pitiable faction-
* The author gratefully acknowledges the invaluable assistance of Miss Ida G. Csanyi with the
necessary research in Hungarian language sources.
780

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781
and doubt-ridden ghost of its former assured self. RAkosi’s resignation under
fire from the intellectuals and the rank-and-file in July of that year and the in-
fusion of so-called &dquo;national Communists&dquo; and former Social Democrats into
the party’s Politburo marked the last major peaceful concession by the leader-
ship to mounting criticism from below before the latter degenerated into vio-
lence.’
Always reluctant and tardy in adjusting itself to new developments within
the country, constantly behind in acceding to the growing demands for reform
from within the mass of its own membership, while unwilling or unable to re-
press them vigorously, on the eve of the October outbreak the party had al-
ready largely ceased to function as an effective instrument of rule and control,
its erstwhile forbidding and monolithic fagade now openly split and crumbling.
Factionalist struggle between stubborn Stalinists and impatient partisans of Imre
Nagy, who himself was not quite certain as to the path to follow, the abyss of
resentment and misunderstanding separating the leaders from the bewildered
rank-and-file, the thaw and ferment alienating the articulate sections of the
society from the regime, the silent, but deep, hostility of the populace at large
- such is the portrait of the Hungarian State on October 22, 1956. Ironically,
it was the unexpected decision of the Politburo itself, of October 23, to permit
popular demonstrations, forbidden earlier by the Ministry of the Interior without
any visible adverse repercussions, which set the stage for the subsequent develop-
ments finally leading to open revolution.2
2
Faced with this incontrovertible evidence of wide-spread anti-regime senti-
ment, the party leadership floundered. Without doubt, one of the main reasons
behind the Politburo’s wavering attitude and its inability to chart a clear course
of action either for or against the turbulent developments unrolling before its
eyes was due to the crucial fact that by then it was no longer in effective control
either of the country nor, what is more important, of the party, f or the initial
spark and impetus of the revolution had clearly come from within that elite
group itself, from amidst the anonymous mass of its frustrated and disgruntled
lay members.3
3
From this sudden explosion from below, originating within the
confines of the lower echelons of party membership, the Hungarian Workers’
party, whose birth in 1948 from a merger of the Communist and Social Demo-
1
For an excellent survey of Hungarian events preceding the revolution see P. E. Zinner, "Revolu-
tion in Hungary: Reflections on the Vicissitudes of a Totalitarian System," Journal of
Politics,
XXI
(February, 1959), 3-29.
2
For the communiqué from the Ministry of the Interior, broadcast by Radio Budapest on October
23 at 11:53 hrs. and 12:15 hrs., see The Revolt in Hungary — A Documentary Chronology
of Events Based Exclusively on Internal Broadcasts by Central and Provincial Radios.
October 23, 1956-November 4, 1956 (published by Free Europe Committee, New York,
n.d.), p. 3 (hereafter cited The Revolt in Hungary
).
Also, Radio Budapest broadcast of
October 23 at 17:30 hrs., ibid., p. 4: "Although at noon today the Ministry of the Interior
banned all demonstrations, the Politburo of the Hungarian Workers’ Party changed the
decision." As Zinner, op. cit., p. 29, aptly notes: "No police regime can behave this way
without inviting disaster."
3
Subsequently this was admitted by Kádár himself on various occasions. See, for example, below,
note 40. Similarly, a Szabad Nép editorial on October 28, wrote that "the struggle waged
by Communist and non-Party intellectuals for the freedom of constructive work and the
moral purity of our system has strengthened this movement."

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782
cratic parties had been publicized with much fanfare as a decisive step in the
&dquo;socialization&dquo; of the country, even by the admission of Communist apologists
completely &dquo;disintegrated during the very first days&dquo; 4 of the October Revolu-
tion. In a matter of hours all that was left of a once proud party, counting in
its heyday 900,000 dues-paying followers, was an isolated group of individuals
purporting to speak in the name of the Central Committee and the formerly
all-powerful Politburo and frantically, but unsuccessfully, trying to make them-
selves heard and obeyed over the din of the uprising.5
Although in fact repudiated and abandoned by the party at large, the ruling
organs of the Hungarian Workers’ party did not for that reason immediately
abdicate from power or disband themselves. Ineffectual and non-representative
though they now were, the top strata of the party persisted in maintaining the
appearance of rule and continued to formulate programs and policies almost
as if they hoped that by issuing communiqu6s and directives they could recap-
ture their former ascendancy over the nation and that by making last-minute
personnel changes and organizational rearrangements they could recover leader-
ship and control of the unchained social and political forces in Hungary. These
final futile efforts of a deposed and truncated leadership operating in vacuo
resemble nothing so much as the last death-throes of a moribund organism re-
fusing until the very end to reconcile itself with its impending fate. The record
’
of the post rnortem almost speaks for itself.
’.’
Broadcasting on the night of October 23, the party briefly announced that
its Politburo had met that day, primarily, it would seem, in order to rescind the
Minister of the Interior’s ban against the holding of youth demonstrations and to
draft the authorities’ next step in coping with popular unrest. Ostensibly still
unaware of the magnitude of the ferment or, more likely, refusing to give
credence to the gravity of the situation, the Politburo leisurely decided that a
meeting of the Central Committee would be called for October 31, with an
agenda comprising questions regarding the political situation and the tasks of the
party (speaker -
Em6 Ger6, the Stalinist successor to RAkosi as First Secretary
of the Hungarian Workers’ party) and problems of organization. Hard upon
this announcement came an official statement by Ger6 amounting in effect to
an unambiguous reaffirmation of allegiance to the essential tenets of the former
line. &dquo;There are those who intend to create a conflict between proletarian in-
ternationalism and Hungarian patriotism,&dquo; Ger6 declared. &dquo;We Communists
are Hungarian...