HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS UPRISING- 1956- HONOR PAL MALETER

COMMENTARY

HONOR THE 5OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AGAINST STALINISM AND FOR SOCIALISM-HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE HEROIC PAL MALETER-MILITANT FIGHTER FOR SOCIALISM

In June of 2006 I wrote a blog concerning the meaning of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 after United States President George W. Bush on a tour of Eastern Europe falsely claimed the valiant efforts of the Hungarian workers in 1956 to create a workers democracy there on behalf of Western imperialism. (See June 2006 archive, dated June 22). Now, as we approach the 50th anniversary of that uprising I am paying honor to that event at its proper time. I stand by the ideas expressed in the above-mentioned blog. Especially so, as I have read more about the extraordinary Pal Maleter. Forget Imre Nagy, who has received far more notice and acclaim- Defense Minister Maleter was the real, if flawed, thing in a world of stodgy Stalinist bureaucrats. The world Stalinist movement produced few such leaders. It produced many more rank and file subjective revolutionary militants. We could have used them then and we sure as hell could use more subjective revolutionaries now.

The world Communist movement would be in a very different place if there had been more militants like Maleter (and “Che” Guevara as well, to name another, for lack of a better term, Left Stalinist ). These were not our people- but they were our people. I would also include an additional point to that June posting mentioned above.

The official Stalinist Hungarian Communist Party in 1956 splintered under the impact of working class pressure from below. In that case, the mass of lower and middle (and in a few cases, such as Maleter's, leadership) cadre went over to the side of the working class revolutionaries. That fracture of the official party and state bureaucracies was observed more fully in the demise of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union in the 1989-1992 period. The difference between the two periods, however, was in the latter case the Stalinist bureaucracy was by then a house of cards easily blown away in the wind. The Stalinist bureaucrats were no longer interested in saving socialism (as they perceived it) but in saving their hides. Such is the contrary nature of Stalinism. Why the use of the word is instead of was in the last sentence? Events within the Stalinist Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state bureaucracy are heading slowly toward such a crisis as occurred during both the above-mentioned events . One would have to assume that the same fracture in the Stalinist bureaucracy of the party and the state will occur there as well. Which way will the bureaucracies go? Hungary-1956 or the Soviet Union/ Eastern Europe 1989-1992? More later.