throughwhichtheirpowercanbesafelychannelled.

And I t shouldbenotedthattheIsraeliaction,no
matterhow
111-advised, m a y In thelongrunforce
actlve great-power pressure to create the clrcumstances
whlchmightInducetheArabs
to sltdownwiththe
a lastlng peace.
Israelis and negotlate
Tlme 1s clearly on the side of peace If this brush-flre
warcanbestampedout
quickly I n years
a
tlme
and Erlta1nsesperlcncewlth
thenewsuper-tankers
atomlc power stations may place the Suez Canal issue
I n anentirelynewperspective.Andtheevents
of t h e
last six months may have convinced those who would

play the role of Nasser that there are easier ways

to
securefundsforAswanDamprolectsthan
to stage
tantrums.
I nt h em a n n e r
of theEgypt~anlegend,aphoenix
IS bemg consumed in the flames
of the Sinal pyre. The
pho-nixthat I S dying 1s a symbol of aworldthat
is
dy:ng,
world
a
of power
polltlcs,
military
alliances,
gun-boat diplomacy, curt ultlmatums, lrresponslble aggresslons, a world of natlonalstatesdedicatedtothe
war 1s the prime
mutually destructwe proposition that
instrument of natlonal
pollcy.
A newphoenixwill
arisefromtheseashes.

AYS that shook the WORLD

The counter-Revohtion
OCTOBER, 1956, m i l i surely join

..

by MARK GAYN

faith and loyalties t o the irreducible

symbol of himself. I shall not forget

t h e Icy-cold December day on which
I Jolnedthousands
of Hungarians
queuedupfora
look a tt h eg l f t s
Hungary was presenting to the beloved father, teacher and leader on
one of 111s last
birthday
anniverof
sarlesHustledalongbyagents
the Secret Police, we saw
a staggering dsplay that ranged from a priceless set of hand-cut crystal to a collection of p p e s for the greatest pipe
smoker of them all T h e people exammed i t all insdence,
for here,
clearly,werenotordinarybirthday
glfts, but a tnbute-such
as t h e people of &n once paid to the Mongol
of
conquerors.Stallnneedednone
these gifts, andprobablysawthem
muscum where
onlyhastilyinthe
dld retheywere~nstalled.Buthe
qlllre the
fearandthe
symbolism
which they implied
It IS not certain that, had he lived,
Stalln hmself could have coped wlth
the new counter-revolutionary forces.
It 1s certam that his h e m could not.
They n w e a s t u t e m e n a n d c a p a b l e
managers,buttheylackedStallns
poncr. Thus,
they
engaged
In a
series of actions designed to hold the
counter-revolution
within
bounds
nhde they conducted a fateful reappralsal. The r u n s i n satelllte Europe
-~
\,el-e loosened sllghtly ( a n d t h e E a s t
MARE= GAIYAV;,
a e t e r n x fo1elg:l~cor- German workers promptlytookadrespo?zdcT1t, ZJ t h e a u t h o r o j vzntzy vantage of I t toproducetheflrst
I:ook.r a ~ 07d tiLlZs O I L hrster11 E u r o p e , outl)rcak of countcr-revolutionary

thatother,morefamous,October
In theannals of communism. For if
the
October
Revolutmn
of 1917
markedthebirth
of thefirstCommunlst
state,
last
months
events
wereaphase
of thecounter-revolutlon. What the world saw in t h e t e n
fateful days in Poland and Hungary
were not coups dctat in minor Communiststates,butfragments
of a
vast
counter-revolutionary
movementwhichhasalreadyvitally
affectedSovietinfluenceandpower,
changedthenature
of therelatlons h l p sm t h mt h eC o m m u n i s t
bloc,
leadership
andexposed
a crls1.s
of
In Moscow.
The
counter-revolutionary
process
began
even
whlle Stalln
was
I f he
created
the
Red
ailve
For
know i t today,and
world
as
we
bound I t togcther, he alsosetmto
motion forces of dlslntegratlon mhch
nor comprehe could neither foresee
hend The day he died, the last rnaJor
obstaclebeforethecounter-revolutlonw3sremoved.ForStal~nalone
could hold the Red bIoc togetherthrough
hls
Immense
prestige,
his
capacrty to lnstlll fear, even through
theidolatryhemadeapart
of life
under communism. To hold the world
of the October Revolution together,
he reduced
the
Communlst
state,

ATovemLer 10, 1536

vlolence).TheSecretPoliceeverywhere were curbed, and an amnesty

set free a hundred thousand political
prlsoners. T h e so-calledMalenkov
Interlude of 1953-54 dangled before Eastern Europe the promise
of
betterpay,moreconsumergoods,
a
llttlemorefreedomfor
the writer
and a llttle less repression in the villages. Such tra~tors of the Stalinist
eraasTraichoKostovandLaszlo
RaJkwererehabllltated.andsuch
Stalinists
as
Ceplcka,
Bakosi
and
Chervenkov were dismissed. Finally,
theSovietleaderslaidasldetheir
prlde,
and
journeyed
to
Belgrade
with
apologies
and
professions
of
loveforMarshal
Tlto. Yugoslavia
was not a greatpower,butitwas
an
idea,
and
If the
gapbetween
lltos commun~sm and Khrushchevs
could bebrldged,pcrhapsthesame
111 readjustrng
formula could he used
thcrelatlonshlpswlthlntheSoviet
bloc itself before the counter-revolutlon erupted.
The
solutlon
that
AIoscow ap1953-54 was t o
parentlyreachedin
loosen sllghtly the od bonds between
Aloscow andItssatellltes,togive
thelatterameasure
of autonomy
andretaintightcontrolonlyover
forelgn affairs, defense and the overall economic planning Yet, even thls
w a s not a fastandfinaldeclsion.
Any reader of the Soviet and satell~te
p a r t y organs in the past two years
no trbuhlc
detectingthe
hashad
of tone,
from
frequent
changes

3 79

hard t o softyy and back again.

It right at this moment there are some word of troopmovements.

was one of such shifts of mood t h a t

saw Moscow, just a few months ago,
addressanother of itsfamous circular letters t o the satelhte central
committee, attacking Tito and reaffirming the Soviet Unlons pnmacy.
It was another change of mood t h a t
led Khrushchev to take his celebrated
(r vacatlon wlth Tltothisfall and
TitotoflytotheCrimeaonan
equallypuzzlingvacatlon.
Perhapsanevenmoreimportant
demonstration of t h e indecislonin
Moscowwas
t h e incredlblespeech
AnastasMlkoyandellveredatthe
CommunistCongress in Pekinglast
September The West either ignored
the speech, or did not understand it.
But
what
Mlkoyan
had
in effect
toldtheChlnesewasnottostray
toofarfromthepath
of Stalinist
orthodoxy, not to talk too much
of
eachCommunistcountryfollowing
its own speciflc road, and not t o pretendthattheChineseCommunists
it not
couldhavetriumphedhad
been for the increased might
of the
SovietUnion.
Mikoyan is perhapsthesubtlest
of the Moscow leaders, and he mixed
his sharp
sermon
t ot h e
Chinese
CommunistswithorchldsforMa0
Tse-tungButtherewasnomistakif Khrushchevs
inghistheme,and
in
complimentaryspeechinPeking
1954 wasinterrupted
by applause
no less than eighty-onetimes, MIkoyans was received wlth much less

joy.

IN THE face of these constant shifts

of emphasis, it was not unreasonable
to assume that the Great Debate in
Moscow was not over, and that there
to cope
wasdisagreementonhow
with the counter-revolutionary forces
that
were
tearing
apart
the
old
monolithicunlty of theCommunist
bloc. The champions of thesoft
approach
mlght
have
conceivably
been arguingthat,wlthStallnlong
deadanddlscredited,therewasno
way to reassert Moscows total control over the other Communist states
of the
andpartiesTheadvocates
hard pollcy.
on
theotherhand,
might have been warnlng that If the
remswere
loosened anymore,the
horse would unseattheRedhorseman.And~t
I S notlmposslblethat

3 80

among the eleven men who

rule the
Soviet Unlon who already know t h a t
the counter-revolutlon and the process of dlslntegratmn are too far gone
t o he arrested now.
However essentlal It was for Soviet
domestlcreasons,Khrushchevs
violentattack on StallnlastFebruary
becameanImportantfactor
In t h e
October counter-revolution. For wlth
thlssavageindlctment
of theways
of governmgand of the faith itself,
the peoples democracies" nowhad
every reason to seek out new paths.
InPoland,forInstance,therevolutlonary
ferment
became
unmlstakablelastMarchThestudents,the
wrlters
and
even
the
Communlst
a greater
press
began
to
demand
freedom of expresslon TheCommunlsttradeunlons,whoseonlyduty
was tothepartyandnottothe
In trouble
worker,foundthemselves
wlththeirmembersTheSecretPolice put through a serles of reorganizations,eachmoredrastlcthanthe
onebefore I n May, JacobBerman,
thetopStallnlstwhosearea
of interestrangedfromculture
t o pollce
I t advisabletoretire.
terror,iound
upInJunecametheelectrlfymg
rising inPoznan, which gaveboth
Warsaw and Moscow notlce that the
counter-revolution was close t ot h e
surfaceYet, in July,MarshallBulganln vlslted Warsaw to glve a sharp
andpubllcspankingtothePohsh
party leadership andpressforgetting out of hand. And as t h e Pollsh
leaders
debated
the
shape
of the
Poznan
trlals,
Wladlslsw
Gomulka
was beginnmg to hatch his plot from
hls modestapartment in a M7arsaw
suburb.

NO ONE w111 ever

know
what
N~krta
Khrushchev
expected
to
fllght
to
achleve by hls dramatlc
Warsaw on that Black
Friday
of
October 19 Perhapshethoughthe
could
Impress
Gomulka
wlth
the
enormlty of
hls
deflance.
Possibly
he thought Gomulka mlght be frightentedbytheslght
of thegreatest
Polltbureau aggregation ever to lournev abroad on a slngle mlsslon (only
Bulganln
and
hlalenkov
were
left
a t home) Perhaps he hoped he could,
In a face-to-faceencounter,frlghten
Gomulka and hls allles with the

Or per-

haps the fllght to Warsaw was what

Gomulka and Edward OchabapparI t to be-an
amazing
ently
took
demonstratlon of the confuslon, desperatlonandnear-panicthat
seized
the Sovlet leaders when they learned
of Gomulkaslmmlnentcoup.But
whatever the reason for thelr flight,
the Russlans failed. Even before the
Ten Days wereover,Moscowcapltulated.

THROUGH the ten days that shook

the Red world, the only people who
knew
next
to
nothlng
about
the
counter-revolutlonweretheSoviet
cltlzens T h e crms in Polandbegan
the
Soviet
on September 18, but
i t untiltwo
presshadnothingon
days later. On that day, Pravda ran
a brlef andmlsleadingcommunlque
on the Warsaw talks (conducted in
an atmosphere of party and frlendly
candor), and a long and singularly
venomous attack on the Pohsh press
and,byImplication,Polishleaders.
Notawordwassaldabout
Rokossovskys dismissal, and only the most
asslduousSovietreadercouldlearn
of I t by matchlng the llst
of Pohsh
Polltbureau
members
who
faced
Khrushchevwith
a subsequent list
of newPolltbureaumembers
A full
P~avdrc
week hadtoelapsebefore
finally publlshed,withnot
a word
of comment or explanatlon, the full
t e s t of anedltorlal In theWarsaw
Trzbunn Ludzc and the abridged text
of Gomulkas speech at a mass meeting The two statements were worded
in theusualJargon,andthespaces
so narrow
betweenthellneswere
that few Sovletreaders could have
detected In themtheshape
of t h e
Polishcounter-revolution.
StudentsdemonstratlnginBudapest at the outset
of the Hungarlan
revolt
cheered
Gomulkas
vlctory
over the Russlans. In Warsaw, thousandshaded the uprrsmg of t h e illarmed
Kungarlans
agalnst
Soviet
authorltyandtanks.TheRussians
alonen-erenotpermittedtoknow
of theupheavalthataffectedtheir
destlnles so closely What was Moscow afrald of, andwasthlsyetanotherdemonstration of the crlslsof
SovetIzadershlp?
T h e rollback of Sovletinfluence
h x been so rapld that I t is no longer
T h e NATION

Russians
managed
to
make
their
subsequent
patronage
and
fnendshlp offensive
Innloscowscommandmentto
dustrialize,
mdustrlallze
and
again
~ndustrlahzewas applied to Eastern
Europe
without
dlscrlmlnatlon
or
economlcsense
All theresources of
each small
country
were
brought
close toexhaustion In theconstructlon of avastheavyIndustryBut
TO understand the forces that comthe Soviet planners apparently never
pelled the Soviet Unron to pull back
consldered If thecountrysmineral
In theeventfultendays,onemust
or
manpower
or
knowit was resourczs,
look atEasternEuropeas
howJustifledsuchanIndustry.The
In mid-October At thattimesatelvillages weredrained of theirmanlite Europeembracedsevensharply
power until there was a shortage
of
differmg components-from
abackfarmhands,
Instead
of grain,
the
wardAlbaniaandagriculturalBulfarmersnowraisedindustrialcrops,
garia to
the
highly
mdustrlallzed
such as flaxandcotton;andthe
CzechoslovakiaYet,howeverthey
differed, they all borethebrand
of draconlccollectlvlzatlondeniedthe
tiller a n y incentivetoworkharder.
Communist unlformlty Impressedon
T h e results became apparent three
thembyStalm.Thiswastrue
of
puppet
shows
and
economy,
of yearsbeforeStalinsdeath.Yet,he
brlcklaymg and the ways of govern- perslsted, and I recall, back in 1950,
standing in aqueueforhoursfor
mg.
asmallpat
of butterinthesame
But if thesevencountrieswere
made to look and think alike, Stalm HungarynhlchoncewasEuropes
chief provider of fats, or trymgin
madesurethatnone
of themhad
in aBulgarian
any close contact with the other SIX. v a n tobuybread
It was easler for a Hungarian
t o go v~llage Since1950, scarcity has been
away of life all alongEastern Euto Italy than to Albania, and a Bulrope-pxrt
of thepricethisregion
garian could spend a lifetime waiting
as p a y ~ n gforitslndustrlahzatlon
for a vlsa t o cross theborderinto
and Stalms folly.
brotherly
Rumanla.
The
satell~te
governments exchanged careful courBUT EVEN the new industry, built
tesies; they remembered each others
annlversarlesandtradedart
shows, a t such a cost, was ill-considered and
Ill-balar7ced Hungary, Czechoslobut of phys~cal contact between the
neighboring peoples there
was
al- v a h a andPolandarestuddedwlth
Stallns
white
e1ephantsenormost none.
mous
plants
for which no raw mateOnecanonlyguessthatthereanals
were
av;u!able nearby,
and
sonforthis
rlgid compartmentallzawhose
steel
or
machines
could
comtlonwasStallnsfearthattheEast
pete~nthe
world marketonlyby
European
countrles
mlght
get
toexploiting the worker more and more
gether In some anti-Soviet move But
heapparentlydldnot
reallze t h a t and paylng hlm less and less
T h e prcatSztalinvarossteelomby keepingthesevencountrles
so
rlgldly apart, he was also helplnx t o hlne in Hungary had no coking coal
keepallve t h e s p m t of nationalism a n d no hgh-grade Iron ore,andit
had to import both from abroad.
(It
within each. From personal observal v a y orlglnally Iald close to the Yugotlon, I can testifythattheseComslav border, but. when Tlto was promunlst-controlled
countrles
hated
the
plant
was
claimed a traitor,
andsuspectedtheirRedneighbors
moved, hrlck by brick, to a Danube
only a llttle less than they hated the
s n a m p fartheran.ayfromtheborSovietUnlon.Some
of thesatellite
der 1 Some of t h e great C7ech plants
countries,
and
especially
Rumania,
Hungary
and
East
German>-.
h a d v.cre htlrr-ledly closed down after
partlcularlybitternlernor~es
of So- Stal1r~s death, for there \cas never
wet
llberation.
These
inen1ories ally economic cxcu5e for them.And
mllls of Poland
werenever allowed to dle, for t h e thegiantnewsteel

clearwhichEastEuropeancountry
is a satellite, and which is not. Could
a Poland that 1s demanding her own
share of German reparations allegedlywlthheldbyMoscowbestill
regarded as a satellrte? And could any
satellite thrnk-as
Hungary 1s doing
-of
installingaCatholicCardinal
as Its prime minister?

November 10, 1956

hungered for the

coal
which
the
countrywasrequiredtoexportto
theSovietUnionatreduced
prices.
TOthis burden in 1951 was added
the weight of a new, vast and enormously wasteful munltlons industry.
PoBy 1953, theseplantsbrought
land,forinstance,tothebrmk
of
bankruptcy,but
I t was
only
this
fall t h a t Polishofficials
foundthe
courage to admit it. And, inevitably,
apace wlth this unbalanced economy
therehadappearedunemployment.
I n 1953-54, special labor exchanges
had to be set up in Hungary to deal
wlth the Jobless thousands. And only
a few months
ago,
Warsaw
estimated
Polands
unemployment
at
500,000 and hidden unemployment
(people in economically useless jobs)
a t 2,000,000 out of thetotal work
force of 6,000,000.

THESE WERE all alegacy of t h e

nationalism,
Stalmlst era-fervent
andhatred of all thmgsSoviet;ineptplanningthatresultedin
food
shortages,
scarcity
a
of consumer
goods, unemploymentandindustrial
whlteelephants;and,finally,
police repression in forms so primltively
t o theMlddle
cruelonehadtogo
Ages ortheMlddleEastforanything tomatchthem.And
if t h e
testlmony of thecountlessnameless
victims
was
not
regarded
as
convincmg,oneonlyhadtosummon
Janos Kador, todaytheFirst
Secretary of the Hungarlan Communist
Party,
and
ask
h m t o raise his
hands
For
the
zealous
men
who
arrestedhlmsomefiveyears
ago,
pulledhis
nailsoff,oneby
one, t o
make his mind function wlth greater
clanty.
Moscows intelligenceinEastern
and
the
Soviet
Europe 1s superb,
leadersarecapable
of asoberappralsal. Yet, such
was
the
selfdcceptlon,
or
confidence,
or even
contemptforthesatellltepeoples
that no Russian ever sensed the immense power of the resentments bubhlmg up just under the red surface.
Since
the
October
counter-revoluIn Warsaw on Octotlon broke out
ber 19, NIoscow has been frantically
offering concessions. Buttheseare
conctssions of d~smay, and the rollLack contmutls.
This, then, is a time of reap-

381

prais31
for
everyone.
Moscow has
nowfoundthatItstough
policy
hasbackflred
In Hungary,and
Its
softpollcyhasfadeddlsmallyIn
urgent task,therePoland Its most
look a t t h e
fore, is to txkeafresh
sweeping
counter-revolut~on
now
much of Eastern Europe, try to loretellItscourse,anddecldehow
the
Sovlet Union canlivesidebyslde
wlth I t . As I write these lmes, M O S COW h a s offered all Its satellltes, past
and present, to withdraw Its troops,
revlse the harshly one-slded economic
agreements a n d , in general,correct
t h e clownrlghterrors of thepast.
ButtheSovletleadersarestill
not
of onemindonthescope
of t h e
concessions needed;thereare
d l catlons,forInstance,thatthe
Russ a n s are reinforang
rather
than
withdrawmg thelr troops from Hungary.
Perhaps the only consolation Moscow can have at the moment is that
thegovernment in Warsawremains
Cornmunlst, and (at the tlme of thls
wrltlng)
the
Communlsts
still
ret a m a volce~nBudapest
But Gomulkaisrebellious,andNagy
IS all

b a t hostile,
and
R!OSCOW cannot
watchwlthequanimitythetremendousImpactthelractmtlesmust
haveontheotherEastEuropean
states,notablyCzechos!ovakla
and
East Germany
Rut I f thls I S a tlme of reappraisal
for iLloscow, I t 1s also so for the West.
It is now abundantly clear that the
and
Rashlngton
West 111 general,
especially, never had a genulne policy
towards Eastern Europe What I t dld
have 111 thegulse of a pollcy w a s
such
slogans
as Llberatton
and
antl-Communlst
propaganda,
often
of a dublousquality. Now t h a t t h e
counter-revolutlon
has
begun,
the
Westcannolongeraffordtocoast
alongwlthoutapollcy
Wlll I t be
far-slghted
enough
to extend
generous help, wlth no strlngs attached,
totheformersatellltesnowheaded
by whatone might- callmarginal
Communlsts? Wlll I t useitsInfluence to Installinpower
the emigres
who for the past seven or elght years
have been gentlemen-farmers near
Washmgton,andwhoaredespised
In thelr natlve lands? Wlll I t be able
to recognlze the emergence of a pow-

erful and growing bloc of Ron-Soviet

nations, whlch will bepolltlcallyindependent,bound to Moscow only
by tenxous tles, and staunchly anticapltnllst~
T h I s , f m a i l y , is a tlme of reappralsalfor t h e Tlestern llberalwho,
fcr his lnablllty to b u ~ l d hisown
spmtual home, has sought I t In w h a t
hethought was a Soclallstparadlse
a generatlonand
intheEastFor
more, he remmned loyal not to w h a t
was truebuttowhntheimagined
tobetrue,andsought
a refuge In
rat1onnI1zat1on
each
tlme hlstory
showedhlmthatthehomehehad
chosenwasnoplaceforallberal.
For If hetrulysearchedhisconscience hewouldhavefoundthat
there was noJustlflcationfor
Janos
Kadarstorn-outnallsandthesystem of horror they represented. What
n l l l thellberalwhohadedthe
onglnalOctoberRevolutlonsaynow
of the men who revolted agalnst that
revolution? W h a t will h ed o
if a
clerrcal-Fasclstsystemarlsesinthe
he
rulns of Stallnrsm?Andwould
now be able to bulld a refuge of hls
own, on hls own ldeologlcal grounds?

ARABIA vs. ISRAEL

Background to War
[ W a l d o F r a n k , n o t e d author, lecturer 2nd critic - his Birth of a
World. Bolivar in T e r m s of His People w a s a n o u t s t a n d i n g contrzbutron
t o biography-recently returned from
a visit t o In-acl H e zs now wrtttng
TheLadderandtheThlgh:anonZionistPortralt of Israel, scheduled
for publicatzonnextyear
T ~ folP
loulzng article, e x t r a c t ef rdo m
a
chapter of t h e book, provides t i l e
background necessary for an nnderstandzny of todaysheadlines.
For topicalcomment
on l l f i d d e
EastdPrIelopments,seeeditorzal
on

page 337.-ED

FOR THE problem of Israel,there

is nopmacea.Thisperhaps
is t h e
it. Theproblrm
clearapproachto
conslsts of complex,confllctlng, lw3 52

..

by WALDO FRANK

zng elementswhichonlytime

and

internalchangecanintegrateinto
a llving
balance.
These
elements
mustbeadmitted,notobliterated,
to become organlc tensions.
Whataresome
of thesewarring
elements, whlch must be modulated,
as nuclear energy may be,
from deconstruction?
structlonto
1 TheWesternpowers,principallyGreatBrltainandFrance,
sustained their Orlental emplres through
of t h e
t h e access
and
thewealth
MiddleEast;andthrsassumedthe
submlsslon of theMlddleEasts
111habltants,
the
Arabs
Arablc
011,
whichturns
most of t h e wheelsof
Europe, I S merely a flnal,
cruclal
form of thedependence of Europe,
upon
hlnged, in Itspresentset-up,
thedepcndence of theArabs. W i t h

t h e decline of theWesternpowers,
their own position has givenpower
to the Arabs. They are being aroused
in nationallst and pan-Islamic movements
2. Their legitimate thirst for freedom, since thev have no democratic
by
tradltlons, is larqely
exploited
old-fashioned rhezkhs orbydemagogueswhouse
the power of their
cwntrles wealth and the fanat~cism
of thclr
people
t o blackmad
the
Westernpowers.Theessence
of t h e
Iddle Easts
wealth,
In a world
strll
desperately
clmging
to
nmeteenth - centurv polltical - economic
forms,isnot
011, butgeographical
positmn
3 The
expanding
pressures
of
Communist Russia,heir of its Czarist past,seek a place in thispower

The NATION