On Good Behavior

Hungary was a vestigially feudal country when the Communists took it over in 1944 in their sweep toward Vienna. The conquerors' remedy was the one Lenin had prescribed for Russia: speedy industrialization. With the same ruthless disregard for human life which characterized Stalin's carrying out of the Leninist injunction, they pursued this end: farmlands were collectivized, workers brutally regimented, living standards depressed. Last week, in a swift move that had overtones of the great Moscow turnabout of the '20s, the Hungarian Communists reversed their program.

Premier Matyas Rakosi, a bullet-headed Bolshevik with a 35-year record of service to the party (including 15 years in jail) and a longtime intimate of Stalin, was demoted to membership of an eleven-man politburo and a three-man secretariat, modeled after the new Russian-type organization. Into his place as Premier stepped Imre Nagy, 57, a Moscow-trained Hungarian Communist of only slightly less experience. But the significant change was in policy, not in personnel. With a smiling Rakosi taking a back seat behind the rostrum, new Premier Nagy told a stunned Parliament of the changes that would be effected.

INDUSTRY: "Nothing justifies exaggerated industrialization . . . The tempo of building heavy industry must be slowed down. The emphasis should be on commodities and the food industry."

AGRICULTURE: "The government wants to liquidate the mistakes of the past . . . The country's economy is based on the individual farms. The government wants to guarantee the peasant's crop and his property. The list of kulaks has to be abolished. The movement into cooperatives has to be slowed down. Those members who desire to become individual farmers again can do so ... Fines amounting to 600 million forints [approx. $50 million] were imposed on peasants [for delivery failure]. This we cancel."

LABOR: "There were serious mistakes. We have to create an abundance of food and other commodities to raise the standard of living of workers. High prices must be decreased and real wages raised. Disciplinary measures against workers must be abolished."

BUSINESS: "Cooperatives cannot replace individual retail merchants and craftsmen. Licenses must be issued to enable them to start their shops again."

PROFESSIONAL CLASSES: "The intelligentsia is not respected in the proper way, especially those who belonged to this class before the war. We insisted on university or high-school education in an exaggerated way. We have to be more modest in this respect and not build castles in the air."

BUREAUCRATS: "The rude and heartless behavior of bureaucrats must cease."

AMNESTY: "There are people who suffered injustice. Internment as an institution is one of the abuses. Those who do not endanger the security of the state shall be released in a spirit of forgiveness . . . Interned people may choose freely where to work. Deported people can choose freely where they want to settle down."

RELIGION: "We must be patient in this matter, and I will not tolerate forcible measures." (Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty is in the fifth year of his lifelong prison term on charges of treason.)

Premier Nagy ended his opening speech with a frank admission of the reason for the reforms he ordered. "The disturbances in Berlin were a sign for us," he said, adding, "the other people's democracies must follow our example."

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