The Strange Case of Kadar

Budapest-born Arthur Koestler was the first to dramatize the theory that a strong shot of ideological doubletalk, administered with a minimum of sleep, was enough to persuade an old Communist to confess to, and even agree to be shot for, errors he had not committed. Though a brilliant anti-Communist novel, Koestler's Darkness at Noon left the lingering impression that the Communist inquisitors won by superior cunning.

The facts seemed to be a good deal simpler and more sinister than what Koestler imagined. The 1949 show trial of Hungary's Communist Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk read as if it had been taken from Koestler's pages. Apparently for reasons of party unity, Rajk, like Koestler's Rubashov, confessed in court to treasonable deviation. But no relentless interrogator was needed to persuade Rajk to confess. The job was done by Rajk's friend Janos Kadar, now the puppet Premier of Hungary.

The Betrayal. According to the story vouched for in Britain's Time & Tide by reputable Hungarians now in exile, Kadar conveyed to Rajk the promise of Party Boss Matyas Rakosi that, if he made a confession of Titoist tendencies in court, his life would be spared. Rajk confessed--only to be shot anyway. When Kadar protested the betrayal, Rakosi, who is credited with a macabre sense of humor, reportedly played back a tape recording of the conversations between Kadar and his executed friend, to show that it incriminated both. Some time later Kadar himself was arrested by Rakosi (in the grounds of whose luxurious villa, rebels recently uncovered a set of torture cells and a small crematory). The AVH pulled out Kadar's fingernails and castrated him.

He has been a castrated servant of Communism ever since. Kadar, a onetime streetcar conductor, could have beaten it out of Hungary during the revolution, like thousands of lesser AVH victims; instead he reported to the Russian headquarters at Szolnok. The Russians (on Rakosi's advice, some reports say) promptly sent him back as Premier and Party Boss in place of the deposed Imre Nagy. They calculated that as an AVH martyr Kadar would command public sympathy and support, and being clay in their hands, his regime could be molded to any shape desired. The 60-odd days of Janos Kadar's reign have shown the Russians to be wrong on both counts.

Hated Man. Kadar's eager mouthing of Soviet military commands and his shameless stand on deportations have made him the most hated of Hungarians. Despite frantic appeals, he has been unable to enlist the support of those non-Communist elements which backed Nagy, and though reports of new coalitions are issued from his office weekly, the voice of the Peasant leaders, the Smallholders party and the Social Democrats are silent.

Kadar's very pliability has made him a failure as a puppet. Where a strong, though hated, leader might have pulled the remnants of the party and police state apparatus together and reimposed it on a defeated and distraught people, Kadar's weak half-measures (e.g., his arrest and then release of workers' council representatives) have merely served to strengthen the people's stand against him. The result is that half the collective farms remain in the hands of the peasants, coal miners still refuse to work, and much of the country's industry is at a standstill. Last week Kadar's government estimated that 200,000 workers were idle as a result of the coal shortage. Meanwhile, a new wave of slowdown strikes was rising ahead.

Everything Solved. Last week a four-man U.N. team at last got into Hungary, apparently so that it could report on the need of economic aid, which Kadar eagerly needs, "even if it comes from capitalist countries." But by week's end the U.N. team had not seen Kadar. That privilege was reserved for the two visitors from Moscow, Khrushchev and Malenkov. In Budapest's Parliament House Khrushchev, in effect, told the Hungarians that they could not expect the same measure of independence as the Poles were now enjoying. Whereas stiff-backed Wladyslaw Gomulka had been able to stand off the bullying Russians, in Hungary the Russians were dealing, not with a man, but with a creature of their torture cells.

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