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Old Friday, November 16, 2007
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Post Lessons from Hungary

Lessons from Hungary
Throughout the Hungarian peoples’ struggle in 1956 Washington kept quiet and unwilling to confront Moscow.
By Ayesha Siddiqa

A LOT of people in Pakistan these days seem a little upset with the United States’ lack of action against the Musharraf regime. Why can Bush not just tell the Pakistani president to back off? This is because Pakistan is a sovereign state and so can make up its own mind. Or is it because Washington is just not interested in rescuing the civil society? After all, the US has its own calculations about what is happening in Pakistan and the possible remedy.

The Bush administration is more worried about the possibility of the nukes falling in the hands of rogue elements than civil liberties of average Pakistanis. One would not be surprised if some day the Americans manage to convince the pro-West Pakistani elite about the threat of extremism and make them agree to surrender the nuclear weapons. After all, is this not what happened in South Africa where the change of government and an end to apartheid were accompanied with the country surrendering its nuclear capability?

Understandably the fear of militancy and religious extremism is much greater than lack of democracy. The battle in Swat or Waziristan by characters that were connected with the intelligence agencies in the past creates the necessary image to justify the murder of democracy in Pakistan. Surely, the American elite and government is too scared to trust Pakistanis with democracy and are too self-absorbed in their neo-liberal agenda to find out more about the games being played by the terrorists.

But extremism is just another matter not to be discussed at length in this column. The issue under discussion is American reaction, which should not come as a surprise to people if they remember American reaction during the Hungarian resistance against the Soviet forces in 1956. While the Soviet troops butchered hundreds of innocent Hungarians, policymakers in Washington sat silent and played the flute. More important, despite the CIA investing millions of dollars in promoting the gospel of democracy, the Eisenhower administration balked at providing support to the Hungarians in their fight for democracy.

In fact, as the author Victor Sebastian states in his book, Twelve Days: Revolution 1956. How the Hungarians Tried to Topple Their Soviet Masters, Richard Nixon, who was then the American vice-president, was of the idea that Washington must not stop Moscow from dealing with the Hungarian revolution with an iron fist – all in the name of realpolitik. So, while Communist USSR is to be blamed entirely for slaughtering the civilians who were protesting against authoritarianism, the US must own up to its responsibility for remaining strategically silent during the 1956 crisis.

The story of the 12 days Hungarian resistance against a superpower is interesting in many ways. First, it tells how resistance movements can produce unlikely heroes and leaders. Second, it is about tricks repressive leadership plays in fooling the people to surrender. Third, it is a lesson in how realpolitik does not allow bigger countries to help the downtrodden. For the powerful, it is eventually a matter of national interests, which define values and principles than the other way around.

Finally, professional militaries take some time before they abandon their authoritarian masters and join the side of the people. More important, they do not decide in favour of the public until they are compelled by visible mass outcry.

The genesis of the 12 days Hungarian resistance in 1956 lies in the eight years of brutal authoritarianism of the Soviet stooge, Matyas Rakosi who had cleverly imposed communist rule on his country. Having personal terms with Stalin, Rakosi used salami-slicing tactics in suppressing the civil society. Such technique involved using soft and hard coercion to suppress all resistance and clamping down on alternative sources of political opinion. Moscow, in any case, was biased against Hungry due to the history of Hungarian invasion of Russia during the Second World War. Hungary was turned into a Soviet colony, which was exploited to Moscow’s advantage. For instance, the steel mill built near Budapest imported iron ore and coke from the USSR while Hungary itself was abundant in these ores.

Such policies, however, made Rakosi unpopular amongst his people to a degree that the Russian leadership thought it necessary to reduce his significance through a powersharing arrangement with another politician Imre Nagy who was made the prime minister. Such change coincided with Stalin’s death and ascendancy of new leadership in Moscow headed by Nikita Khrushchev. Nagy was a relatively unimpressive man who was honest but not a firebrand revolutionary. He did not even have the finesse to counter Rakosi who managed to sideline him in a short time. The infighting was bound to happen because the Soviet leadership expected Rakosi, who had earlier
enjoyed absolute power, to share his authority.

The Hungarian leadership was too preoccupied in their own internal battles to notice the resistance developing in the streets, the culmination of which was a student demonstration in October 1956 in Budapest, which was dispersed through use of force. Clearly the Hungarian Communist elite had failed to get the message and could not predict that the small demo would grow into a more forceful resistance. The resistance grew to a degree that Moscow had to consider sending in troops to conduct a police operation.

The organized armed resistance, however, surprised the Soviet forces. Although the freedom fighters had no central command, they managed to repulse the invading forces. At this point, Imre Nagy was brought in to manage the situation.

Nagy proved to be a weak leader who could not initially understand the mood in the streets. The honest man that he was, he finally stuck by the side of the freedom fighters. In fact, Nagy emerged as an unexpected leader who stood by his people, a sin for which he was eventually tried and hanged in the summer of 1958. The Soviets managed the situation through a frontal attack on the innocent people and by bringing in a quisling, Janos Kedar.
The most noticeable fact is that throughout the struggle Washington kept quiet and unwilling to confront Moscow. In fact, Eisenhower decided not to interfere in Hungary despite that the resistance movement and the civil society kept asking for help. The American leadership chose to concentrate on the Middle East instead.

The resistance could not finally manage to defeat the Soviet forces due to the role of the Hungarian armed forces, which initially played a confusing role. The professional officers of the military tried to tackle the problem as a law and order issue without noticing that the bulk of troops would not become willing partners to the massacre of their own people. Although some segments of the military participated in curbing resistance, others crossed over to fight alongside the freedom fighters. Eventually the resistance was crushed with massive use of force in which hundreds of people were killed and the reign of fear was established again. The biggest blunder made by the leadership of the resistance was to believe in fake promises made by the invading forces to buy time. The time gained through negotiations was used by the Soviet troops to regroup and crush the resistance.

In the end, the Hungarians were abandoned by the very power, which claimed to be the epitome of a democratic free world. This is sufficient lesson for others that societies have to find their own strength to win their battles.

http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.a...1_2007_007_004
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