Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-11-05
Hunqory's Ordeal


Not the least anguishing aspect Of
Hungary's torment is that the United
States and the free world at large have
been unable to prevent it. President
Eisenhower has sent an urgent appeal
to Premier Bulganin asking that Russian
troops be withdrawn and that the people
of the country be allowed to choose their
own government. And the United Nations
General Assembly, by vote Of so to 8
(the Soviet bloc alone disSenting), has
adopted condemnatory resolution de-
manding substantially the same thing.
But theseN are little more than words.
They have no force behind them except
the force Of morality, and the Kremlin
has never been known to be deferred by
that.
So the Hungarian people, despite their
heartbreaking cries for help from us,
have been crushed. Overwhelming brute
force has smashed their unbelievably val
liant effort to rid themselves Of Commu-
mist tyranny and live in freedom again.
AS for us, we have just stood idly by,
almost numbed by the horror of the
thing, watching them go down. Nor could
we have done much else, and we must
hope that they will try to understand
why. We must hope that they will see
how in the circumstances prevailing any
Western resort to military action on their
side would have made their lot even
worse and might well have set of an all
destroying nuclear world war.
If there is any small consolation to
be derived from this supremely tragic
situation, it may perhaps be found in the
fact that the whole world now has seen
with its own eyes the vileness of Soviet
policy toward its satellites. It has seen
the men of the Kremlin, with cyniciSm,
duplicity and savagery of the most sick
ening kind, openly commit terrible
crime against humanity. Hungary's re-
volt for freedom went too far and too
fast for them. They are afraid of free
dom. They cannot tolerate freedom in
their own country or any of the captive
lands. They would be finished, the en-
tire Communist system would be finished,
If freedom were allowed to spread and
take hold behind the Iron Curtain. So
they have smashed at the Hungarians
with brutality that seems deliberately
designed to terrorize otherS-the Poles,
the Czechs, the Romanians, the East Ger
manS-into submission, to warn them
against attempting similar uprisings.
But this is no sign of real strength.
This is sign of weakness: This is an act
Of frightened men who know that their
satellite empire Smolders with the fire of
rebellion, Seethess with an ineradicable
yearning for freedom, rumbles toward an
explosion Clet us hope it does not go of
too soon, as it did in Hungary that would
almost surely blow both them and their
system sky high. There are perilS for all
the world in such situation, but the
perils are greatest for them. And that is
probably the chief reason why they have
struck as they have, completely negating
all their past propaganda about ending
StaliniSm, about the independence Of the
peoples democracieS," and about Soviet
championship of -colonialiSm" and
liberty for peoples everywhere.
Today all that line is dead, and the
Kremlin's brand of Imperialism stands
exposed as one of the worst in history.
The Hungarian people have brought this
about. They have not fought and died in
vain. The terror is upon them again, but
they still live, and what is in their hearts
cannot and will not be stamped out. That
Is thing that will endure long after the
Communist system, which carries the
seeds of self-destruction, has passed
away. This is faith that free men
everywhere must cling to: An theology
that sins mortally against the God-given
nature Of man must in the end die of its
own evil.