Hungary 56 by A. Anderson

Description

The demands for economic and political self-management were common to many revolutions of the past, but were unique in that they occurred in the context of the ‘Communist’ USSR, and after Stalin’s regime had ended.

Co-published by Phoenix, Active and AK Press 2002
ISBN: 0 934868 01 8

“We shall drag the blood-soaked Hungarian mud on to the carpets of your drawing rooms.

In vain do you take us into your homes – we still remain homeless. In vain do you dress us in new clothes – we remain in rags. From now on a hundred thousand question marks confront you.

If you wish to live in the illusion of a false peace, do not heed us. In our streets there are still cobble-stones from which to build barricades. From our woods we can still get stout sticks. We still have clear consciences with which to face the guns.

But if you will heed us, listen. And at long last understand. We not only want to bear witness to the sufferings of the Hungarian people in their fight for freedom. We want to draw the attention of all people to the simple truth that freedom can only be achieved through struggle.

Peace is not simply an absence of war. No people have longed more passionately for peace than we. But it must not be the peace of quiescence. This involves complicity in oppression. We promise the world that we shall remain the apostles of freedom.

All workers, socialists, even communists, must at last understand that a bureaucratic state has nothing to do with socialism.”