Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-10-12
Symptom in Hungary
Some 100000 Hungarians

some 2UU,OOO HungarianS, in an ap-
parently spontaneous demonstration. re-
Gently staged parade in Budapest to do
honor to the exhumed remains of four
men who were once numbered among
their highest leaders.
These leaders-former Foreign Min
lister Laszlo Rajk and three other ton
ranking Communists-had been hanged
In l949 as traitors" Victims of Stain
ism in its most virulent form, they had
been diSgraced and railroaded to their
graves In a show trial rugged in advance
by Moscow to find them guilty of having
reasonably conSpired with Marshal Tito
OF Yugoslavia and with American ''intelli-
gence agents." Their real crime" of
course, had been that they had tried.
like Tito, to be MarxistS at least patriotic
enough to make their country independ-
ent of the Kremlin.
But today, with Stain dead and
deglorif1ed by his erStwhile disciples in
Moscow, the story is entirely different.
Although they unfortunately have been
unable to witness the event in the flesh.
the late Mr.. Rajk and his executed col
leagues have gone through what has
come to be known behind the Iron Cur
tain as the process of rehabilitation"
That is to say, their collins, together with
what is left OF the men themselves, have
Deen removed from sort of potter's
field of diShonor for reburial in a place
OF glory-a new national pantheon that
the post-Stalin Budapest Red regime
plans to build for its heroes.
There is a certain touch OF the
macabre in all of this, particularly in
the picture Of 100000 Hungarians (most
OF them with funeral flowers in handy
marching past the collins to pay tribute
to the disinterred remains. More inn
portant still, however, is the fact that
the whole remarkable story is sympto-
matte of the change that has been going
on behind the Iron Curtain ever since
Stains death. One measure of that
change can be found in what Hungary's
deputy premier declared during Sat-
urday'S spectacular parade in Budapest:
There never was a more tragic duty
than rehabilitating our dead COM
radeS whom we cannot reSurrect. We
deeply regret that we believed in mali
cious slandering that led to their martyr
dom. Never again shall such mon
Strous things happen"
BY implication at least, these are
words that seem to reflect two things
above all: (l) A kind of nervous desire
to placate Hungarian public opinion, and
CD an effort to associate the present
Communist government in Budapest
from the Soviet-directed terrorism of
the past. Further than that, they con-
stitute additional evidence of churned-
up situation behind the Iron Curtain-a
ferment that affects not merely Hungary,
but also, and apparently to an even
greater extent, countries like Poland as
well, especially Poland, where all reports
indicate that the Red regime is sitting
on volcano Of popular resentment and
unrest
All OF which makes one wonder about
the durability Of the Kremlin's grip on
its satellite empire. The West, bedeviled
as it is with such highly publicized things
as the Suez crisis, may be in trouble.
But none Of us ought to overlook the
possibility that the Soviet Union-even
though 1t can suppress news about the
WATERWAY in fact be facing potentially
much worse trouble in the lands 1t is
still trying to hold captive.