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From International Socialist Review, Vol.24 No.1, Winter 1963, pp.27-28.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Formation of the Central Workers Council of Budapest in 1956
by Balazs Nagy
Correspondences Socialistes, 72, avenue de Paris, Vincenn-(Seine), France.
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The decisive characteristic of the Hungarian proletarian revolution of 1956 was the leadership of the struggle by workers councils. This fact has been more-or-less consciously slighted by most “Western” accounts of the revolution, which generally stop at the second Russian intervention, Nov. 4, 1956. For Marxists, nevertheless, it is of vital importance to draw the crucial lessons of a revolution which, like the Paris Commune, stands as a prototype of future working-class revolutions. The study of the Budapest Central Workers Council by the Hungarian Marxist Balazs Nagy, published as a supplement to the French magazine Correspondances Socialistes, is an important contribution to a socialist comprehension of the Hungarian experience, both by its vivid and thoroughly documented retelling of events and by its provocative and penetrating analysis. For the information of our readers we here publish excerpts from that pamphlet, which they can obtain from the above address. |
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Although the Central Workers Council was born after Nov. 4, similar endeavors were already apparent during the victorious days. This was clearer in the provinces, where sometimes the workers’ council directed the political, economic, and administrative life of an entire industrial region. The absence of any central power made it easier for the councils to take over the direction of a region, and thus to create their own power. But even in Budapest, where the Imre Nagy government expressed the people’s demands, the workers attempted to organize themselves independently of the administration and the political organizations ...
The surprise-attack of the Soviet army at dawn on Nov. 4 completely altered the situation ... Just as the workers had determined to resume work on Nov. 5, they now naturally went on strike. And this was a much more important weapon than the armed struggle which was hopeless from the outset. There never has been a strike so total, so general, as the strike of the Hungarian workers following the Soviet invasion ...
What were the demands advanced by the workers? They were the same as those of the revolution. The Hungarian people, and in particular the workers, wanted to transform the Stalinist regime into an authentic socialism. In doing this they had to confront a system established by the Communist Party and thus by its foreign protector, the USSR. Consequently the revolutionary struggle was inevitably intertwined with the struggle for national independence. The reprisals therefore involved both the Soviet attack and the installation of Kadar in power ... The workers in response could only demand the evacuation of Soviet troops and the restoration to power of Imre Nagy, who they viewed as the sole guarantor of the realization of their revolutionary objectives ...
Against the counter-revolutionary activity of the Soviet army and the Kadar government the workers could see no real political force capable of defending their interests and those of the revolution. In these circumstances the workers themselves represented that force, the workers’ councils entered the political arena, even made up that arena. This demanded of them an increasingly developed organization, all the more so since it was they who were continually putting forward demands and protests backed by the weapon of the general strike ...
The intentions and aspirations of the workers could, in essence, be specified as: collective ownership of the factories in the hands of the workers through the medium of workers’ councils as the true and only directors of enterprises; on the basis of this council system an enlargement of their power in the economic, social, and cultural fields; organization of a public force of the militia type; on the political level, a system with several socialist parties.
Of course this amounted to a draft, rather than a true plan of social reorganization. In practise several problems would have arisen concerning the administrative form of collective property, the relationship between councils and parties, and so forth. But in Budapest it was workers, not theorists, who drew up this program. Their main concern was to formulate common demands; they were involved in a day-to-day struggle in which theory played almost no role. It was their spontaneous intentions, their working-class instinct, and, to a certain extent, their political “education” in a People’s Democracy which together made the profound goals of the Hungarian working class appear in these demands ...
The call for formation of the Central Workers’ Council was initiated at a meeting on Nov. 12 of the Workers’ Revolutionary Council of Ujpest. As was the general practise, several young intellectuals took part in the meeting. They proposed that the Council take the initiative of putting out an appeal for the formation of a central workers’ council. The proposal was speedily accepted, since the workers present wished for exactly the same thing ... The council called on the young intellectuals present to draw up and distribute a convocation of the delegates of all workers’ councils to a meeting to set up a Central Council.
This was done. The historic text entitled Appeal was written and approved by the council. It explained that the workers of Budapest wanted to establish order. “Of course we do not want any sort of order whatever” said the Appeal, “we want a revolutionary order based on the realization of the great demands of the revolution. The workers of Budapest will combat, on one side, all those who dishonor our revolution by illegal acts and, on the other, all those who merely recognize the revolution with purely formal phrases the better to make its essential content vanish” ...
Shortly thereafter a discussion took place between Kadar and the workers. The delegation presented the workers’ claims to Kadar and demanded, notably:
- Re-establishment of Imre Nagy as Prime Minister; the existence of several parties and the immediate convocation of an elected assembly
- evacuation of Soviet troops
- recognition of the workers’ councils and their right to take over the factories as collective property
- recognition of the right to strike
- re-establishment of democratic trade unions and cessation of the activity of “transmission-belt” unions ...
The answer of Kadar was brief, haughty, and blunt. The workers can do what they want, he said. If they do not work that is their concern – the government can work. The delegation has the right not to recognize his government but that is of no interest to him since the Soviet Union supports him ...
The founding meeting of the Central Workers Council took place on Nov. 14. The delegates were elected democratically by the ranks. In each factory the workers themselves chose that member of the council who would go to the meeting. He was elected, not by the council, but by the totality of workers ...
We do not mean to praise the spontaneous organization of that meeting, but to recognize that, despite its importance, it did without any bureaucratic organization, admission procedures, ushers, etc. It would, in a certain sense, be correct to speak of disorder. But this fact underlines an important factor, namely that the birth of the Central Workers Council had the approval of a working-class meeting – a parliament in which the representatives and the represented had the same speaking rights. Disorder, certainly, but disorder of a significant kind ...
Regarding the composition of the delegates the first important characteristic is that many were old militants of the labor movement. They had gained their experience in union struggles, in the Soviet Republic of 1919, and in the social-democratic party. Several of them were members of the Communist Party when, after the war, the CP appeared to be a real workers’ party ...
The other characteristic fact was the massive participation of youth. Almost half were young workers aged from 23 to 28 years who had therefore had their entire education under the People’s Democracy ...
Several provincial delegates were present also, notably those of the two most active provincial workers’ councils (the industrial province of Borsod and the industrial city of Gyor ... Several intellectuals, individually or as representatives of an organization of intellectuals, also participated. Once more this underlines the revolutionary alliance of workers and intellectuals which had already contributed substantially to the preparation of the Central Council ...
The meeting represented the workers of Budapest, but several delegates put forward the idea of immediately establishing a National Council that would express the will of the workers of the whole country. This proposal expressed an obvious truth, and that is why many delegates applauded it. Nevertheless several objected that, for one thing they were mandated only to establish a Central Workers Council for Greater Budapest, and, for another, that the absence of numerous provincial delegates made it impossible to take a decision without them.
The general approval shown for these objections may seem to show a petty outlook, the more so since a National Council would have been politically more effective, more dangerous for the government. But this problem, which at first sight seems like a purely organizational one, illuminates a very important aspect of the councils, namely, that the problem of the National Council was envisaged by the workers not only from the point of view of political efficacy but also and above all in a democratic spirit ...
In the concrete instance of the National Workers Council, for example, its formation would have given the workers a much greater and more effective political weight. It is certain that the government would have found itself in a much more embarrassing situation. Moreover the formation of a National Council would perhaps have mobilized the provincial workers more easily and led them more effectively.
But this is only an hypothesis, and not as good a one as it might seem to be. The attachment of these workers to democratic procedures is perhaps astonishing, but it was later shown to pay off, since it facilitated the adhesion of several dynamic provincial workers’ councils (for instance, those of the Northern miners) which for a certain period were critical of the policy adopted by the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest. Thus political “efficacy” is not always the most effective way ...
Should the Central Workers Council have envisaged the seizure of political power, or was it right in developing a struggle aimed at gaining concessions from the regime installed after Nov. 4? This is a question that demands a clear and unequivocal response ...
Two important points should here be emphasized. First of all, a political opposition, in itself, is never static. In other words, it always tends to go over to an attack upon the political power, even despite the opinions of its leaders. The nature of political struggle must sooner or later oblige any real oppositional movement to attempt to conquer power. Secondly the leaders of the Council spoke of it as a body “representing the entire country.” It is impossible to speak of such a body without raising the possibility of its taking power.
There was thus a contradiction here. The workers did not seek to take power, and their Central Council so declared, but in practise they did everything possible to gain power, notably by organizing a powerful and dynamic political opposition. This contradiction marked the formation of the Central Workers Council and its development constitutes one of the most interesting problems raised by the history of the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest.
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