Fighting In a demonstration of 350.000 workers.
w35 DUCE cown ang THE VISIT OF BORIS PONOMAREV to Britain certainly gave no grounds for the local capitalists to shudder in their boots. For his visit coincided with the 20th anniversary of one of the most heroic events of the 20th Century: the uprising of Hungarian workers, peasants and students against the tyrannical Stalinist dietatorship. Ponomarev has cause to wince because he played a role in these events — that of one of the gravediggers of the Hungarian Revolution. This was the first revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy -and for that reason as well as the recent Polish workers' uprising (1970-76] it demands study by all socialists.. Bill Lomax's book fill a yawning gap in Marxist studies of the subject and deserves wide circulation despite its syndicalist twist in the last chapter.
What was to happen now was one of the most unprecedented events seen since October 1917. Throughout the country workers and peasants were to organise themselves into a network councils in opposition to This was a similar process to that which occurred in Kussia in l9li and in all revolutionary situations — the emergence of organs of dual power. But there was one important difference. The Hungar ians, unlike the Russians in 1917, were not of world events had forced Stalin to do this - but they were overthrowing the parasitic rule of a bureaucratic caste that siphoned off the spoils from them. of workers the official Practice standing in practice what Trotsky had stated in theory twenty years before in his the pressure * Hungary 1956, by Bill Lomax (Allison & Busby, £2.95.)
Stalinist bureaucracy.
democracy.
The Hungarian workers were underdegenerated workers state where capitalism had been abolished, the workers, in movins towarus socialish woud nave te organise a political revolution against the These councils were soviets, not the deformed abortions of Stalin but the advanced form - They incorporated similar principles to those for which revolutionaries argue in the labour movement here: the election and instant recall of delegates al mass meetings of workers: direct democracy under which no careerists can impose their will over ine masses. The free play of political ideas and tendencies was encourasee so mar a strong democrat unity of action could be attained. This is central to socialist democracy — the only insurance policy against being sold out On 4 November, one thousand Russian tanks attacked Budapest trom all sides Heavy fighting raged for a week. But the Budapest workers were fired with a spirit similar to that of Lenin and the Bolshe viks when combatting the Kornilov reaction: "We may not be able to hold out for — so let us do such things during our brief tenure of power that the working classes of the world will remember them forever' (Lenin, October 1917).
But the counter-revolution of Khrus chev was much stronger than Kornilov. and eventually overcame all opposition.
How could one socialist country attach another with such ferocity? This was a question Communist Party members ask ed themselves during 1956 and hones ones do today.
The official CPs, including the Com munist Party of Great Britsin, supported Rakosi, Khruschev and Kadar against the vast majority of socialist workers. During the revolution the Daily Worker (fore runner of the Morning Star) peddled al the old nonsense — that the uprising ha been initiated by the Trotskyist-Fascists and CIA agents etc. When this was contradicica by ine repons or toe correspondent in Hungary, Peter Fryer they simply suppressed them
RED WEEKLY 11:
On 2 November white launched an invasion of Mozambique territory. Seven guerilla camps were destroyed and several hundred Zimbabweans massacred.
The attacks centred on the camps at Nura, Chicoa, Chicombizi Gentu in the north-east, and Chiqualaquala, Chitanga and Mapai in the ber 1976 Rhodesian support Geneva conference as successful.
and This is using Smith's withdrawal from the La smokescreen. This plan was at least partly The comments of the framed entirely in terms of Smith disrupting the constitutional talks.
compiere nonsense.
the same framework as the Geneva nationalist leaders brought to the conference table. The next step is to break the armed resistance.
Of course, a defeat for ZIPA would ease many of the problems of certain of the nationalist leaders ularly Joshua Nkomo son, would then be able to discard the been eals their implicit support for the Kissinger-Callaghan plan for a neocolonial solution in Zimbabwe. main dispute remains timing for 'majority rule'. Despite the pre-conference rhetoric, none of the nationalist leaders have of ZAPU, with the clear demand for majority rule now. who come ou