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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 30-3-184
TITLE:             Agitprop Chief Calls "Revisionism" A "Fifth Column"
BY:                Leason
DATE:              1958-2-20
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  General Desk No. 109
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Communist Parties--Ideology, Political Persecution

--- Begin ---

NEWS & INFORMATION SERVICE 1958
EVALUATION & RESEARCH SECTION
GENERAL DESK - Nr. 109

1958

H - AGITPROP CHIEF CALLS "REVISIONISM" A "FIFTH COLUMN"

News Background

MUNICH, February 20 (LEASON)... The chief of the Hungarian Communist
Party's Central Committee Agitprop Department, Istvan SZIRMAI, wrote
in yesterday's "Nepszabadsag" that the current aim of the
"Imperialists'" "Fifth Column" or "revisionists" in Hungary is to slow the
development of socialism and stop progress. The purpose of this "Fifth
Column" in 1956 was to defeat socialism and to restore capitalism
in Hungary, SZIRMAI said.

SZIRMAI became chief of the Agitprop Department of the Central
Committee in October 1957; his rapid rise in the Communist Party
hierarchy is probably indicative of the Party-Government regime's need
for faithful supporters. In December 1956, at the time of the final
armed defeat of the Revolution, SZIRMAI organized the government's
Office for Information for the newly-installed KADAR regime. A few
months later, in June 1957, he was named a member of the Central
Committee. His promotion to head Agitprop also reflects what seems
to be the present trend to reinforce the Party itself by men who
served in the government during the crucial period (for the Party)
of 1957. (KADAR and his political friend KALLAI, who had both served
in the government through 1957, returned to fulltime Party duties
after the meeting of the Hungarian parliament last month).

SZIRMAI's article in "Nepszabadsag" was interesting for the same
reasons that the one by the Party's chief of cadres, Karoly KISS,
in the February 9 issue of "Nepszabadsag" was interesting. Both
appear to attempt to achieve a middle policy between the dangers of
"revisionism" and "sectarianism"; but whereas KISS criticized the
"sectarians" most severely, SZIRMAI attacked "revisionism"; this,
in itself, represents a balance of sorts by the two men who probably
are most influential in Party thinking at a rank-and-file level.
KADAR, who now -- according to formulations expressed at the last
parliamentary session -- will concentrate specifically on Party
duties, presumably sits at the apex, combining both ideological actions;

[page 2]

H - (1) AGITPROP Chief

NEWS BACKGROUND No. 109, 

F-150

i.e. against the "left" and the "right".

X	X	X	X	X

SZIRMAI's use of the term "Fifth Column" to describe "revisionists"
is a rare polemical device. With all the World War II connotations,
the term "Fifth Column" perhaps signifies how serious a problem
"revisionism" has come to be to the Communists, not only in BUDAPEST
but in MOSCOW. Two recent radio commentaries by Radio MOSCOW, in
Serbo-Croatian, have identified the Polish philosopher Leszek
KOLAKOWSKI with the Yugoslav "revisionist", Milovan DJILAS, who is now
in jail. Other commentaries have linked these two with the man who
probably can be considered the supreme "revisionist", Imre NAGY.
(But KOLAKOWSKI's philosophical and moral argumentation against
the Communist "system" and "ideology" will assuredly prove in the
long-run to have been the most dangerous of all.)

To the two categories of "sectarians" and "revisionists" -- whose
deviations or crimes remain roughly the same as those outlined by
Karoly KISS, SZIRMAI now adds a category of "opportunists" who do
not demand a rendering of accounts of the "counter-revolution" and
do not "oppose the nationalists and anti-Semites for (fear) of
diminishing the mass base of the Party! This "opportunist" view also
holds that the Party has become sufficiently strong since it has
encompassed the "majority of workers".

Opposing this view SZIRMAI stipulates, however, that the circle of
allies of the working class can never be enlarged at the cost of
"compromise".

He seems to say that this is so because the "international
reaction" still hold an important "political base" in Hungary. Its
influence is "much larger" than the numerical force it represents.
It is no accident that among the supporters of Imre NAGY there were
a number of "petit bourgeois". "Capitalism" is not represented only
by it supporters in Hungary but also by an "economic base" which
is still important. (Efforts to diminish this "economic base" are
currently increasing. BUDAPEST Radio announced on February 18 a new
law which forbids Hungarian workers from transferring from State to
private industry and which decrees that private craftsman will not
in the future be given licenses unless there is sufficient raw
material to support them. In addition, new tax laws have been announced
which discriminate against private businessmen and craftsmen.)

[page 3]

H -(2)- AGITPROP Chief
NEWS BACKGROUND No. 109,

F-151

SZIRMAI declared that October 1956 proved that the "enemy" is
"still capable of an armed attack "in certain favorable conditions
-- for him"; such conditions would be when "the directors are cut
off from the masses or when the Party is eaten away by treason or
when the unity of the Party is disturbed".

In these conditions, said the Agitprop chief, it is "not only
unjust but directly dangerous" to 3peak of peace among opposing forces.

The above would seem to be a very telling attack on SZIRMAI's
"opportunist" faction.

X	x	x	x	x

SZIRMAI said the "enemy" (obviously the "revisionist" enemy) has
adopted a tactic whereby at every regime advance toward "socialism", it
cries out that this is a "return to the old methods, of the sectarian
policy of RAKOSI, of compulsory deliveries and of a forced
socialization of the countryside".

In a very significant statement, SZIRMAI says: "We must prove that
even without compulsory deliveries, without violence and without
sectarian methods we can (nevertheless) progress." This is another
regime statement that it will not return to the "old methods" to
rebuild the "socialized structure" of the countryside .

SZIRMAI said that "revisionism" amounts to treachery to the workers'
regime and national independence and that it "prepares war".

Repeating KISS almost word-for-word, he spoke of the "untenable
character" of "Stalin's thesis which affirmed that the class struggle
is automatically sharpened during the construction of socialism".
But at the same time, SZIRMAI, according to MTI, "showed the error
of those who speak of a necessary relaxation of this struggle": the
latter would "revive in another form an armed conflict in Hungary".

Thus, though SZIRMAI says that Stalin's thesis that the class struggle
automatically sharpens is "wrong, he leaves, little doubt that the
regime, to prevent "armed conflict" in Hungary, has decided that the
present "sharpness" must be maintained in Hungary, at least for the
present period. His logic here is that although the "enemy" has been
rebuffed, "its resistance can again eventually be intensified".

X	x	x	x	x

[page 4]

H -(3)- AGTPROP Chief
NEWS BACKGROUND No. 109,

F-152

SZIRMAI concluded his article by recalling the 12-Party declaration
signed in MOSCOW last November, in which it was stated that the
common traits of all countries building socialism must be observed but
that "true national peculiarities" must be taken into account.
Exactly what SZIRMAI means to imply by "true" in this phrase is not
elaborated upon. He adds that attempts to liquidate; the "leading role
of the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat" do not
represent a "national trait", but "counter-revolution".

X	X	X	X	X

In its divergences from the KISS article in "Nepszabadsag", SZIRMAI's
is a very strong statement of the dangers of "revisionism",
particularly as it comes from a man whose duty it is to lay down the Party
line for Party functionaries at every level.

But all the same, in his avowal that the Party will not resort to
coercion in its agricultural policy -- which question has come to
be a sort of touchstone in judging development in East Europe -- the
speech does adhere quite faithfully to KISS' relatively "centrist"
position. It can probably be said that SZ1EMAI, allowing for his
"tough" asides. also has decided it politic to support KADAR's line,
which is generally assumed to fall somewhere between the
"sectarianism" of a REVAI (RAKOSI's cultural chief) and the "opportunism" which
SZIRMAI criticized. Thus, it would appear that SZIHMAI Would prefer
that "revisionism", as on ideological arguing point, be expurgated
from Hungarian political vocabulary and that "opportunism" --
meaning willingness to make peace with the past and rebuild the Party
on that basis -- be accepted as the opposite of "sectarianism".

End.

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