Hungary and the Invasion of Czechoslovakia: On the Moral Responsibility of the Intellectuals

Our meeting today is not just a matter of happenstance. The dissatisfaction growing throughout society has finally succeeded in mobilizing the Party membership, in stirring the apparatus out of its quiescence, and in reaching the summit of power. Within the week, new elections to the top leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party will be held. Today there exists no mechanism in this country for the people to elect or recall its leaders. The people won't be voting next week, yet it is the people who have forced next week's special election. They have voted no confidence in government by a leadership which has not been elected. We must not expect rapid far-reaching change. Democracy will not simply drop into our laps; we will have to struggle long and hard to achieve it, step by step. For this reason I consider it of the utmost importance to look objectively at the situation and at ourselves before the struggle begins. Frankly, I find such past efforts to be woefully inadequate. Denes Csengey has just said, "Serious public self-examination of the Hungarian intelligentsia appears unavoidable." As far as I know, this is the first serious demand for such public selfassessment by the intelligentsia, and I wish now to enlarge upon this demand.