Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority

1948: END OF THE NIGHTMARE

The political change was swift and immediate. The change in the status of the Hungarian minority was gradual. The nightmare that began with Czechoslovakia's liberation in 1945 did not end abruptly with the Communist takeover in 1948. There were a few straws in the wind suggesting the approaching democratization of Czechoslovak policy toward the Hungarian minority. Sporadically, new ways of thinking made their appearance in the Communist press, new attitudes were in the making, mainly in the Czech lands. Slovakia, however, remained in the grips of a policy of intransigent hostility toward the Hungarian minority. In fact, before the February takeover, there was no indication in Czechoslovak ruling circles of any real willingness to reassess the policy of total liquidation, there was no sign of a search for new ways of peacefully coexisting with hundreds of thousands of Hungarians in Slovakia.

Preparations for the May general elections went on in January 1948, according to the discriminatory measures adopted since 1945 against the national minorities. Only persons of Slav nationality could register. Hungarians and Germans were denied the right to vote, even if they were granted Czechoslovak citizenship on the grounds of their anti-Fascist record, The only exception were the so-called "re-Slovakized" Hungarians, provided they received already their certificates of Slovak nationality.¹

Dr. Jozef Lettrich, President of the Slovak National Council and head of the Democratic Party, stubbornly defended the Slovak nationalist policy, declaring that "expulsion, resettlement, re-Slovakization is the new way of solving the Hungarian problem in Slovakia,"² The Slovak press too continued its anti-Hungarian propaganda in the same vein, giving vent, however, to disappointments with the progress of the policy of Slovakization. Concern and anger was expressed in particular over the suspension of the population exchange between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Also, a new type of complaint was spreading which ever since became a favorite propaganda slogan of postwar Slovak chauvinism. Instead of Slovakization of Southern Slovakia, so ran the complaint, a "Magyarization" of the resettled Slovaks is taking place because of the still predominantly Hungarian environment. The case of Gúta (Kolárovo, as the Slovaks renamed it) in the Csallókóz (_itny Ostrov) was given wide publicity. There 2000 Hungarians had been expelled and 2100 Slovaks from Hungary settled in their place, The Slovak settlers made no dent in the Hungarian character of the community, while resettled Slovaks from Hungary, who did not even speak Hungarian before, now supposedly were well on their way to becoming "Magyarized" in Gúta.

Commenting on the suspension of population exchange since November, the Slovak press during the winter of 1947-1948 began to report rumors to the effect that the minority rights of the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia might be restored. The source of these rumors was the supposedly changing attitude of the Communist Party in matters of minority rights and, also, the pending alignment of Czechoslovakia's policy with that of the people's democracies in Eastern Europe. Such rumors in the midst of intensifying crisis in the coalition regime, besieged by the Communists, could not be taken lightly. It became increasingly evident that the extreme nationalist stand against the Hungarian minority was not in line anymore with Communist policy.

The ultra-nationalist Slovak Democratic Party, the principal antagonist of the Communists in Slovakia, was forced to take notice of the changing political climate when at its Congress on January 25 included the following ambiguous but conciliatory sentence in its resolution: "We hope that every problem of the remaining Germans and Hungarians will be solved on the basis of humanity, law and democracy."³

Meanwhile the press of the Democratic Party was following the new political course with anguish. Nové Prúdy was irritated that the Hungarians expelled from Czechoslovakia were allowed to organize themselves in Hungary "on the model of the [expelled] Sudeten Germans" in West Germany. The periodical was also indignant about other matters:

Hungary consistently disregards the population exchange agreement. We must ask, who is responsible for the systematic violations of the agreement, and who is responsible for the continued [Hungarian] revisionist propaganda against Czechoslovakia. He is none other than [Mátyás Rákosi] the First Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party . . . Since June 1947, when Rákosi became the power behind the regime in Hungary, there was no change [in Hungary's attitude toward Czechoslovakia]. As far as the revisionist propaganda is concerned it was in fact Rákosi himself who during a conversation in Prague, in the presence of Gottwald and Slánsky, declared that the simplest way to reach reconciliation between Czechoslovakia and Hungary would be to transfer South Slovakia to Hungary . . . It should be also noted that st [efan]. Bast'ovansky [a Communist] from Slovakia who, in Warsaw took part in September 1947 at the [founding] conference of the Cominform does not differ at all from the Hungarian Rákosi.⁴

Thus was the Slovak anti-Communist charge of "treason" born in 1948 out of nationalist anger over the Communist Party's change of policy toward the Hungarian minority.

With the deepening of political crisis in February 1948 the hope was rapidly vanishing that the Coalition Government between the bourgeois parties and the Communists could be maintained. The Slovak Democratic Party, the chief antagonist of the Communists in Slovakia, as well as the principal exponent of the anti-Hungarian policy, adjusted in ambiguous terms its platform in late January, by pledging "democratic" solutions. The Party press, however, kept its chauvinist anti-Hungarian tone to the very end. The last issue of the Democratic Party Nové Prúdy appeared on February 22 in the midst of the showdown between the bourgeois parties and the Communists. It was the paper's swan song in praise of the intolerant Slav nation-state policy which was about to come to an end with the Communist takeover. The paper's editorial reaffirmed its faith in aggressive Slovakization as the only guarantee of solving the Hungarian question.⁵

The Slovak Democratic Party press was not alone in finding it hard to give up the policy of liquidating the Hungarian minority. Sloboda, the paper of the Liberty Party (Strana Stobody), warned in late January that "the Hungarian danger is still present . . . and advocated a resolute continuation of the Slovakization policy. Characteristics of the chauvinistic Slovak temper was the notorious "Hungarian calendar affair" in early February. Èas indignantly attacked the Slovak Communist Party for publishing a Hungarian calendar in the Hungarian town of Komárom (Komárno)" "Where are you, old Slovak fighters of Komárno? Can't you discipline your Hungarians and their profit hunter Slovak accomplices? Today a calendar, tomorrow a textbook, and the day after tomorrow: Everything back! [A reference to the Hungarian revisionist slogan of the post-Munich times]".⁶

Obzory expressed similar ill forebodings by quoting at great length from a New York Times report on the Slovak-Hungarian conflict. "It was hardly possible that after the expulsion of three million Germans the Slovaks should not attempt to get rid of the Hungarian minority," said the quote from The New York Times. But the newspaper also spoke of an impending "normalization" of relations between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which would mean the granting of minority rights to the Hungarians on the model of People's Democratic Yugoslavia and Rumania.⁷ Then less than a week before the Communist takeover on February 22, the Czechoslovak press carried a statement of the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gyöngyösi, expressing his hopes that "the accords concluded with Rumania and Yugoslavia will also have favorable impact on the northern neighbor [Czechoslovakia], and that the sorry situation of the Hungarians living there will be resolved in the spirit of democracy and equality."⁸

Only the Communist press in the Czech lands struck occasionally a new revolutionary tone disrespectful of nationalist shibboleths on the eve of the Communist takeover. In early February, Tvorba published a re-examination of the Munich crisis omitting entirely the until then compulsory argument blaming the German and Hungarian minorities for Czechoslovakia's disintegration. Tvorba's analysis stressed the class aspect: "Munich was no bolt from the blue! It was a direct and logical consequence of this [class interest] policy. But times are changing . . . Now the working people are at the helm of the Republic. They have removed from leadership the big industrialists and large landowners, the principal accomplices of the Munich tragedy."⁹

The takeover by the working class in February 1948 brought about a new situation regarding the prospects of solving Czechoslovakia's nationalities problem. The view of official historiography, however, as if the Communist takeover of February 1948 would have solved everything at once, is wrong. As far as the Hungarian question was concerned, the search for new ways did not come until the Berlin crisis and the Stalin-Tito break. Only the seriousness of the international situation resulting from these crises in the summer of 1948 started to fulfill the February promise of change.

In the spring of 1948, the policy of discrimination against the Hungarian minority still continued unabated. In April, I myself saw an announcement of the Slovak National Committee in Revúca warning the population that anyone who would hear Hungarian spoken should report it immediately to the security organs. Many Slovaks felt in fact that with the February Communist takeover, the hour had struck for tougher measures. They thought that everything that could not be carried out against the Hungarians under the coalition regime would be carried out now.

In early March, the Slovak Communist Party daily Pravda published a statement by the Slovenská Liga, reflecting the ultra-nationalist Slovak expectations following the February events:

The Slovenská Liga salutes the victory of the people's democracy in Czechoslovakia because it sees in this victory the final triumph of those national ideals for which the Slovenská Liga is fighting. On this occasion the Slovenská Liga proposes to achieve the following goals:

1. South Slovakia has to be cleared of all elements hostile to the Slovak, Czech, and all other Slav nations, especially of the reactionary Hungarian intelligentsia.

2. The Slovak language has to be introduced consistently and uncompromisingly into private and public life, its use has to be guaranteed in the official life, in business, and in the churches.¹⁰

The anti-Hungarian tone of the Slovak press did not change after the February change of the Prague regime. Also the forcible transfer of the Hungarians was resumed according to the Czechoslovak-Hungarian population exchange agreement. In general, the Slovakization of the Hungarian populated regions of Southern Slovakia went on as before. And the new constitution of the Republic made public in May made no mention of national minority rights. The new constitution followed the ideology of the 1945 Kosice program of the homogeneous Slav nation-state, stressing that Czechoslovakia is exclusively the state of the Czechs and Slovaks:

Now we have decided that our liberated count will become a nation-state, which will rid itself of all alien elements, and will live in friendship with the fraternal community of Slav states and with all peace-loving nations."

The new constitution was duly described abroad as nationalist, and criticized (by one French paper at least) for not including protection for the Hungarian and German minorities. it The elections that followed on May 30 deserved the same criticism: only Czechs and Slovaks were allowed to go to the urns.

In June, President Benes resigned and thus one of the principal architects of the anti-Hungarian policy disappeared from the political scene. His departure was expected to have a favorable effect on the evolution of the nationalities policy under the new regime. Hungarian public opinion in fact always considered the policy of discrimination as the personal work of President Benes. The lifting of discriminatory measures, however, had to wait still a little longer.

Only the forcible population exchange between Czechoslovakia and Hungary was stopped in the summer of 1948, while discrimination in general against the Hungarians in Slovakia did not relent. Administrative actions and judicial decisions against the Hungarians continued to be executed according to Benes's dreaded Presidential decrees issued in 1945.

Real change in Czechoslovak policy toward the Hungarian minority did not come until after the double crisis precipitated by the Berlin blockade and by the Stalin-Tito break. Need for closing of ranks among the people's democracies under Soviet guidance in this crisis situation resulted in a radical revision of Czechoslovakia's minority policy.

Discrimination against the Hungarian minority legally ended in the fall when on October 12, 1948, the Czechoslovak Government restored citizenship to the Hungarians by virtue of Law 245/1948. Commenting on the Law, Antonín Zápotocky, the new Prime Minister, (succeeding Gottwald who, in turn, succeeded Benes in the presidency of the Republic) said: "It will strengthen the good-neighborly and friendly relations with the Hungarian People's Democracy, it will serve the interests of the Czechoslovak Republic and peace in general."'²

Law 245 itself, it should be pointed out, did not guarantee specifically minority rights, it restored citizenship to the minorities, nothing else. Only the gradual development of Socialist cultural institutions and participation in revolutionary popular self-government did in due course open the road to regaining minority rights.

In the late fall of 1948, the authorities were flooded by Hungarian minority problems, including the two most painful ones: 1. The national illiteracy of the Hungarian minority resulting from almost four years of closed schools and from the almost total expulsion of the intelligentsia capable of cultural leadership. 2. The future of the Hungarians deported to the Czech lands.

A new Hungarian school system did finally open in the fall of 1948, but in most cases only on paper, There were no Hungarian teachers available-and not enough Hungarian pupils either, since many frightened parents did not dare to enroll their children. As for the deported persons, their return created chaotic conditions that lasted for years. In general, the blows of four years of persecution left wounds among the Hungarians which decades could not heal.

The complex problem of the Hungarian deportees was tackled by the Ministry of Agriculture and by the Ministry of Welfare, which jointly issued an appeal in November 1948, saying:

Many among you have already gotten accustomed to the new environment and prefer to stay. The Ministry of Agriculture wants to meet your wishes, and will allocate land and lodgings in the Czech provinces. Those who want to remain in the Czech provinces may immediately present their application to the office of the National Agricultural Foundation. Those agricultural workers who do not intend to settle permanently either as farmers or as industrial workers in the Czech provinces may return to Slovakia between January 1, 1949 and April 30, 1949. The return of the Hungarian workers will take place in large groups, and the State will defray the cost of travel. Those who, for serious reasons, cannot return to their former holdings may settle elsewhere in groups, where they will receive the equivalent of their former holdings] or even more land . . . The success of repatriation procedures requires that nobody should return to Slovakia before the appointed time, without the approval or instruction of the competent authorities . . . Any hasty return may result in unpleasant consequences, because it would violate the laws regulating the execution of the economic plans, also the laws regulating labor service, and thus entail strict punishment."¹³

Endless legal battles and bitter conflicts regarding property rights followed the return of the Hungarians from Bohemia. The return of belongings confiscated from some ten thousand families and compensation for damages did not go as smoothly as the official repatriation proceedings envisaged with feigned benevolence. The planned organized transports could not accomplish much. The Hungarian deportees did not wait as ordered, despite the threat of punishment. They left on their own within weeks and demanded the return of their former properties from the Slovak settlers. Practically nobody was willing to accept different lands as a compensation. The resulting chaos was mitigated only by the decision of some twenty-five percent of the deportees who chose not to return but preferred to take advantage of economic opportunities in the Czech lands, depopulated by the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. ¹⁴

One of the problems aggravating the repatriation process was the Slovak refusal to admit any wrongdoing to the Hungarians. The deportations, it was claimed, had nothing to do with anti-Hungarian policy. In Slovak Marxist view, the deportations served social justice According to that interpretation-also expounded by the Slovak-controlled Hungarian-language press this is what happened:

The Government took up the cause of the little man. It was primarily a social measure not a Hungarian-Slovak issue It is our firm conviction, that the Czechoslovak people's democracy will overcome the difficulties and will lend a helping hand to the Hungarians returning from Bohemia. We cannot do this, however, at the expense of the little Slovak, the Slovak small-holder, the Slovak worker . . . The problem cannot be solved by sharpening nationalist antagonism but only on the basis of class solidarity . . . Those who were unable to recover their former homes, [often] refuse to be housed in large apartments . . . and prefer to lodge with their poor relatives who are short of space . . . Some hesitate to accept eight or ten acres, and insist on their own [former] two and a half acres . . . If someone wants to be a farmer he should accept the land offered to him and get to work, even if he cannot return to his former home-let him not sink into sentimental nostalgia and long for his own little hut. We cannot make any progress this way, even if we do understand such conservative sentimentalism."¹⁵

Such hypocritical interpretations improved neither the lot of the repatriated Hungarian agrarian proletariat nor the Slovak-Hungarian proletarian brotherhood. The repatriated Hungarian peasants ultimately found their way to economic recovery in the agrarian cooperatives set up by the Government under the Communist policy of collectivization.

The cultural recovery of the Hungarian minority posed even greater problems than the economic rehabilitation. What was left of the Hungarian intelligentsia was weak both in numbers and in levels of education. Under such poor leadership the reconstruction of culture from scratch was a slow and arduous process. The four-year ban on Hungarian culture, the illiteracy forced upon the school-age children had left its marks even after thirty years-not to speak of the psychological effects of intimidation which had affected generations.

The inferiority complex feeding on the memories of persecution, its debilitating moral and spiritual consequences are still a threat to the survival of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia. The failure of four years of Czechoslovak policy to liquidate the Hungarian minority by expulsion and dispersal did not necessarily end the perils of extinction.

Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority