HUNGARY: Behind the Bars

Where there’s tyranny,there’s tyranny, not only in the gun barrel, not only in the prison cell, not only in the torture rooms . . . There is tyranny in the facial expression firmly set like iron bars, and in the stillborn tormented cry of pain within these bars.

These words of Hungarian Poet Gyula Illyes, written in 1950, were first published a year ago in Budapest when, for a moment, there was freedom. Last week on the first anniversary of the day the nation rose in revolt, Hungarians could demonstrate only by sullen silence.

A cold rain fell from early morning. Premier Janos Kadar had warned that any attempt to commemorate Hungary’s brief interlude of freedom would be “smashed with an iron fist.” Armed police, soldiers and goon-squad “workers’ militia” patrolled street, school and factory.

Not only were Hungarians forbidden to demonstrate; they were forbidden to mourn. They were warned not to wear arm bands or to display candles in their windows. Secret police even knocked on the doors of birthday parties. Heavy chains were hung across the gate of the Magyarovar grave site of fallen Freedom Fighters. All Budapest dared to do was to boycott all cafés, cinemas and places of entertainment.

“Nothing will happen on Oct. 23,” Kadar’s spokesmen had predicted sternly. And on Oct. 23, under the menace of the nine Soviet divisions which ringed Budapest, nothing visible happened.