Hungary: The Limits of Liberalization

Through an assiduous campaign of relative liberalization, Hungarian Communist Boss Janos Kadar hoped to erase the image of a Moscow toady that attached to him after Russia’s brutal repression of the 1956 Hungarian revolt. He largely succeeded. In addition to other forms of relaxation, including somewhat freer speech and more permissive economic planning, Kadar seemed inclined to ease up on the church. After 18 months of complex and arduous negotiations with the Vatican, he recently agreed to replenish Hungary’s dwindling supply of Roman Catholic priests and permit freer practice of religion. But liberalization can go only so far.

Radio Budapest last week announced the arrest of nine men—including two Jesuit priests—for “justified suspicion of having prepared a plot.” Chief among them was Father Laszlo Emodi, who in 1961 had been sentenced to seven years in prison for organizing religious instruction for children, but was set free last year in a general amnesty. Two days after the Radio Budapest announcement, the Hungarian Supreme Court sentenced five more persons to jail for “conspiracy against the state and organizing an illegal party.”

Hardest hit (with a ten-year term) was Dr. Ferenc Matheovicz, 50, onetime leader of the outlawed Democratic People’s Party, who has already spent seven years in prison for his democratic political beliefs. The charge this time smacked of the absurd: Matheovicz was planning to restore the Habsburg dynasty, with himself as Premier. There was a more likely explanation, however. Matheovicz has long been a follower of Hungary’s Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, who still lives in self-confinement at the U.S. legation in Budapest, despite long-standing rumors that the regime would let him go free. Last week’s sentences show that Kadar, despite his easing of religious restrictions, still cannot afford the resurgence of Catholic political influence.