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Hungary 56

Anderson, Andy
http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CX5382-AndersonHungary56.htm

Publisher:  Solidarity
Year Published:  1968   First Published:  1964
Pages:  48pp  
Dewey:  943.905
Resource Type:  Pamphlet

The Hungarian Revolution was far more than a national uprising or than an attempt to change one set of rulers for another. It was a social revolution in the fullest sense of the term.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:
In 1956 the Hungarian working class inscribed on its banner the demand for workers' management of production. It insisted that Workers' Councils should play a dominant role in all realms of social life. It did so in a society in which the private ownership of the means of production (and the old ruling class based on it) had been largely eliminated. And it did so in a society in which political power was held 'on behalf of the working class' by a self-styled working class party. In putting forward these two demands under these particular circumstances, the Hungarian workers blazed a trail. In the second half of the twentieth century their ideas will become the common heritage of all workers, in all lands.

The Hungarian Revolution was far more than a national uprising or than an attempt to change one set of rulers for another. It was a social revolution in the fullest sense of the term. Its object was a fundamental change in the relations of production, in the relations between ruler and ruled in factories, pits, and on the land. The elimination of private property in the means of production had solved none of these problems. The concentration of political power into the hands of a bureaucratic 'elite' had intensified them a thousandfold.

By its key demands, by its heroic example, and despite its temporary eclipse, the Hungarian Revolution upset all previous political classifications and prognoses. It created new lines of demarcation not only in the ranks of the working class movement, but in society in general.


Table of Contents


Introduction
East-West Agreement
Liberation?
Salami and Reparations
Methods of Exploitation and Subjugation
Resistance Grows
New Course?
Poland Erupts
Nearing Flashpoint
The First Demands
The October 23 Demonstration
Nagy Calls in the Russian Tanks
The Battle is Joined
The Massacres
The Workers' Councils
The Revolutionary Programme
Dual Power
The Second Russian Intervention
The Proletariat Fights On
The Nagy Abduction
The Proletariat Crushed
Fascist Counter-Revolution?
Why?
The Meaning of the Hungarian Revolution
Appendix I (Resolution of the Writers' Union)
Appendix II (Brief History of Personalities)
Appendix III (1957)
Appendix IV (Sources)
Footnotes

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