The Hungarian Quarterly, 1996 (38. évfolyam, 147. szám)

THE RECENT PAST - Miklós Szabó: Kádár's Pied Piper (Sándor Révész)

November 4, 1956, he joined Kádár's col­laborationist regime, supporting a Com­munist dictatorship which hé saw as the only force capable of resisting attempts at a fascist restoration. His other objective, however, was to do all in his power to abort a possible full return to Stalinism. Aczél favoured a line aimed at driving the Stalinists out of the camp of the new regime’s supporters, while taking over as much of the policies of Imre Nagy—the Revolution's Prime Minister—as was pos­sible. In the debates within the Party lead­ership, Aczél urged that Imre Nagy be in­cluded in the new leadership and allowed to found a new Peasant Party, and he also suggested the withdrawal of Soviet troops and their replacement by Yugoslav and "Gomulkaist" Polish troops, to ensure the elimination of the counter-revolutionary threat and, to guarantee the survival of so­cialism while the country could become neutral. When all this turned out to be an illu­sion, he was not among those few mem­bers of the early Kádár leadership who had been followers of Imre Nagy, and who— because of their insistence on demands of a similar kind—were expelled from the leadership. One of the reasons that he was allowed to stay on may have been his ef­forts to strengthen the position of rehabili­tated politicians in the new leadership. Early on it had been unacceptable to Moscow that in Poland and Hungary the rehabilitated survivors of show trials should be returned to leading positions af­ter 1954. On November 4, 1956, it was the rehabilitated Kádár who became the head of the collaborationist government and Party, and there were several other reha­bilitated persons on the second and third levels of leadership. Aczél also intended to support Kádár in the internal struggle in the leadership between the Stalinists and the rehabilitated. A conflict developed (once again behind the scenes) over the judgement of the role of the Rákosi leadership and over the re­taliation policies. The Stalinists demanded full-scale reprisals, while the Kádár leader­ship wanted to limit reprisals and punish­ment to those who had taken up arms. They wanted to spare the influential writ­ers, artists and scientists who had played a major role in paving the way toward the revolution if they, in turn, were ready to stop organizing resistance. They wanted to calm these intellectuals rather than terror­ize them. In 1957, attempts were made to put on trial the most influential workers' council or Party organizers, those who were con­sidered key figures. At the same time, about a quarter of the "minor" wrongdoers were imprisoned, more or less at random, without any real selection, mainly to set an example. By early 1958, those concerned began to sense that having escaped pun­ishment so far, they were no longer in danger. This method of pacification ap­peared very successful: the examples were enough for those who got away to show them what they had succeeded in avoid­ing, thus ensuring they would appreciate their good luck. In the first half of 1957, great efforts were made by the Stalinists to extend the scope of reprisals. The struggle was decid­ed in Moscow. The defeat of the Molotov- Kaganovich group helped those around Kádár in the Hungarian leadership to vic­tory, since the Hungarian Stalinists were regarded by the Khrushchev leadership as the allies of Molotov and Co. It also meant that Kádár had won the trust of Khrushchev who, from then on, was no longer troubled by the fact that the Hungarian leadership was headed by reha­bilitated politicians. The battle between the Stalinist and Kádárist wings within the Hungarian Party leadership was brought to 93 The Recent Past

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