Of MUK & Mud

Three months have passed since Soviet tanks smashed the barricades of Budapest --but the unfinished revolution burns on in Hungarian hearts. Inside Hungary a new rebel watchword is spreading from factory to hamlet: "MUK," from the first letters of the words for "In March we shall rise again."

While Puppet Premier Janos Kadar went on the air last week to condemn the "whispering campaign" for a new rebellion, the embers of the October revolution flared momentarily across the border. At a Hungarian refugee camp outside Vienna, two members of the Hungarian Repatriation Delegation arrived in search of the "thousands and thousands" of refugees that Radio Budapest was saying now wanted to return home. Near the camp gate 50 refugees spotted the Kadar men in the convoy's third car, and leaped to grab them. A special police detail assigned to the delegation by apprehensive Austrians wrested the refugees off the car.

By that time most of the camp's 750 Hungarians were crowding close, shaking fists and screaming obscenities at the two cowering Communists inside the sedan. Hands thrust up a crude red banner. In German it proclaimed: "Pfui to Communist Bloodhounds." Below was a roughly inked figure dangling from gallows: "Kadar." "How much did you get from the Russians?" roared one young man. "You come here to smile but at home you are killing the people," spat an old woman. "We don't want to see our children's hangmen," yelled another.

The convoy pressed on through the curtain of hate. Inside the main building, authorities produced two refugees who had asked for repatriation interviews. As the crowd shrieked from the courtyard, one backed out. The visitors' only prize was a woman whose husband had failed to make good his escape: she wanted to go back to join him, Kadar or no Kadar. While the delegates talked to her, the crowd outside burned the banner with its Kadar effigy, stamped on it, spat on it. The cry rang out: "Menjetek a pokolba" (Go to hell!). Only fast work by their driver saved the Communists on their getaway. Again, screaming refugees leaped on the car and pelted it with mud as it sped off. Two days later, pleading "so few" applicants, the repatriation delegation called off all further camp visits.

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