Hungary: Humanizing Communism

After the revolutions of 1848 swept the Continent, Hungarian Patriot Lajos Kossuth said that his countrymen were the “reddest republicans in Europe.” Today, seven years after Russian tanks crushed the Hungarian revolt, Hun gary’s 14 million people are fast be coming Europe’s most republican Reds.

Western influences pop up every where throughout the country. Despite a scarcity of eggs and meat, store win dows display Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, Napoleon brandy and a selection of Scotch. Modern art hangs on gallery walls, and newspaper censorship has been relaxed; when President Kennedy’s sisters, Pat Lawford and Jean Smith, visited Budapest, television and radio crews dogged their footsteps. Restrictions against travel to the West have been eased; long lines of visa applicants daily queue up outside Western embassies in Budapest, and it is now chic for vacationing Hungarian couples to agree to meet in Venice.

Hungary’s new look is largely the result of efforts by Premier Janos Kadar to wipe out the stain of having personally called in Russian troops and tanks to suppress the 1956 revolution. Having found that a lighter yoke yields greater economic prosperity and less political unrest, Kadar has made Hungary — next to Poland — the most liberal of the satellite regimes. That, of course, is still very much a relative matter, but Hungarians are grateful for small favors. “Times can never be the same again,” says one.

“The revolt was not in vain.” Subtle Revision. Kadar’s new stance has had a favorable effect at the U.N., which since 1956 has refused to approve or disapprove the credentials of Kadar’s U.N. delegates (though they actually take part in debates and vote). The final trace of U.N. disapproval disappeared recently when Secretary-General U Thant spent three days in Hungary and seven hours with Kadar himself. Even the U.S., unable to round up continued support to block Hungarian accreditation, will not oppose the official seating of Hungary’s delegation at the next General Assembly session.

Aiming to “humanize Communism,” Kadar has sacked Stalinist political hacks, appointed non-Communists to Cabinet posts, and allowed nonparty members to serve in the Parliament. He has granted amnesty to thousands of political prisoners and encouraged refugees who fled in 1956 to return with free pardons; today the government claims that more than one-third of 1956’s 200,000 refugees have come back home. Worker membership in the Communist Party is not a sure guarantee of success. “We are not going to give red bloods the same privilege once enjoyed by bluebloods,” says Kadar.

Travel restrictions on U.S. diplomats in Budapest have been lifted, enabling them to go anywhere in the country except to military zones. Delicate negotiations are being carried on with the Vatican over the future of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, who is still in asylum at the U.S. legation and whom the government wants to leave the country. First signs of a rapport with Rome appeared when the government announced that it would approve Pope Paul’s assignment of six new Catholic bishops to vacant Hungarian sees. But the government still refuses to let other bishops and some 1,000 priests perform their duties.

Off to Belgrade. More than 90% of Hungarian agriculture has been collectivized, but farmers can use state machinery to cultivate their own tiny plots.

Increasingly, the government is trying to channel a larger part of the economy into the production of consumer goods. Today some Hungarian gypsies actually have TV sets—though they often go around barefoot.

Hungary, of course, is still a totalitarian state. Watchtowers, minefields and barbed-wire fences seal off the country from the West. Though the midnight knock by the secret police is almost a thing of the past, more than 40,000 Russian troops—and the hideous memory of 1956—still remain. Kadar steadfastly follows every new twist of Kremlin policy. No sooner had Nikita Khrushchev left Yugoslavia after making his peace with Marshal Tito than Kadar made plans to visit Belgrade this week, seeking to strengthen Hungary’s economic, diplomatic and cultural ties with the onetime “revisionist” bad boy of the satellites.

Never in Hungary. But Kadar’s liberalization does permit Hungarians to laugh at themselves—and at their regime—as long as Communist ideology itself is not attacked. In the latest issue of the Hungarian satirical weekly Ludas Matyi, the editors reflect on Britain’s recent $7,000,000 mail train robbery and conclude that it could never have happened in Hungary. “We lack all the requirements for it,” said the magazine. “First, of the 30 men in the gang, at least four would have been out sick, eight would have gone by mistake to another railway embankment, and three would have telegraphed from Lake Balaton that they could not come for two days. It would also not have been possible to cover the green track signal because we still have a cover shortage. In addition, a mail train here would have been two hours late. The bandits loaded the money they stole in a truck. They could do that in England, but here, where the truck service stations are three months behind in their work, what could they have loaded the bags on?”