joint preparation of the soil without collectivizing the means of production, can be more or less viable. Such cooperatives, given the provision of the necessary help to them, can become an attractive example to the peasantry; b) to strengthen the existing machine-leasing stations as the main lever of influence on the countryside and as the fundamental means of helping the working peasant in the business of raising agricultural productivity.

Besides helping cooperatives for jointly working the soil, machine-hiring stations must also serve individual peasant cultivation on a leasing basis;

c) to renounce the policy of limiting and squeezing middle and small private capital as a premature measure. In the interests of stimulating the economic life of the Republic, to recognize the expediency of the broad attraction of private capital in different branches of small and domestic industry, in agriculture, and also in the area of trade, not including in this its large-scale concentration. In distributing material resources, to see to the apportionment of raw materials, fuel, and electrical energy, as well as to the provision of credits to private enterprises. To re-examine the existing system of taxing private enterprises, which has practically eliminated in them the stimulus to participate in economic life, with a view to alleviating the pressure of taxation. To restore food ration cards to private entrepreneurs and also to persons of the free professions.

d) to re-examine the five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the GDR with a view to curtailing the extraordinarily intense pace of development of heavy industry and sharply increasing the production of mass consumption goods, as well as fully guaranteeing food for the population in order to liquidate the ration card system of providing foodstuffs in the near future;

e) to implement the necessary measures on restoring the health of the financial system and curtailing administrative and special expenses, as well as strengthening and raising the exchange rate of the GDR mark.

f) to take measures to strengthen legality and guarantee the rights of democratic citizens; to abstain from the use of severe punitive measures which are not strictly necessary; to re-examine the files of repressed citizens with the intent of freeing persons who were put on trial on insufficient grounds; to introduce, from this point of view, the appropriate changes in the existing criminal code;

g) to consider the wide development of political work among all the strata of the population to be one of the most important tasks of the SED; to eradicate decisively the elements of naked administrative methods; to attain a position whereby the measures taken by the government are understood by the people and meet with support from the population itself.

To assign special attention to political work among the intelligentsia in order to secure a turnabout by the core mass of the intelligentsia in the direction of active participation in the implementation of measures to strengthen the existing order.

At the present and in the near future it is necessary to put the tasks of the political struggle to reestablish the national unity of Germany and to conclude a peace treaty at the center of attention of the broad mass of the German people both in the GDR and in West Germany. At the same time it is crucial to correct and strengthen the political and economic situation in the GDR and to strengthen significantly the influence of the SED in the broad masses of workers and in other democratic strata of the city and the country.

To consider the propaganda carried out lately about the necessity of the GDR's transition to socialism, which is pushing the party organizations of the SED to unacceptably simplified and hasty steps both in the political and in the economic arenas, to be incorrect.

At the same time to consider it necessary to elevate significantly the role of the bloc of democratic parties and organizations, as well as of the National Front for a Democratic Germany, in the political and social life of the GDR. 22

h) To put a decisive end to [the use of] naked administrative methods in relation to the clergy, to end the harmful practice of crude interference in the affairs of the church. To cancel all measures doing harm to the immediate interests of the church and the clergy, that is: the confiscation of the church's charitable establishments (almshouses and shelters), the confiscation by local authorities of neglected church lands, the removal of state subsidies from the church, and so on. To end the oppression of rank-andfile participants in the religious youth organization “Junge Gemeinde,” moving the center of gravity to political work among them. Keeping in mind that repressive measures toward the Church and the clergy can only serve to strengthen the religious fanaticism of the regressive strata of the population and their dissatisfaction, the main means of combatting the reactionary influence of the Church and the clergy must be carefully sought through explanatory and cultural-enlightenment work. The broad diffusion of scientific and political knowledge among the populace should be recognized as the basic form of anti-religious propaganda.

3. To recognize that the provision of economic aid to the GDR by the Soviet Union is necessary, especially in the area of supplying food.

4. To oblige the High Commissioner of the USSR in Germany, com. Semenov,23 and the Supreme Commander of the Soviet occupation troops, com. Grechko,24 to eliminate the present shortcomings in the way the occupation regime is being carried out by Soviet troops. To take measures in order [to ensure] that the presence of the Soviet occupation troops infringes upon the immediate interests of the civilian population as little as possible, [and] in particular, to free up all of the educational premises, hospitals, and cultural establishments, which have been occupied by Soviet troops.

5. Based on the fact that the political and economic condition of the GDR is one of the most crucial factors not

only in the resolution of the general issue of Germany but also in the peaceful settlement of fundamental international problems, it is necessary to take strict account of the real conditions inside the GDR, both the situation in Germany and the international circumstances as a whole, when specifying a general political line on this or that period and when realizing each concrete measure to strengthen the German Democratic Republic in the future. 6. Taking into account the fact that at present the main task is the struggle for the unification of Germany on a democratic and peace-loving basis, the SED and KPD, as the standard-bearers of the struggle for the aspirations and interests of the entire German nation, should ensure the use of flexible tactics directed at the maximum division of their opponents' forces and the use of any oppositional tendencies against Adenauer's venal clique. For this reason, inasmuch as the Social Democratic Party [SPD] of West Germany, which a significant mass of workers continues to follow, speaks out, albeit with insufficient consistency, against the Bonn agreements, a wholly adversarial position in relation to this party should be rejected in the present period. Instead, it should be attempted, where possible, to organize joint statements against Adenauer's policy of the division and imperialist enslavement of Germany.

[Stamped by the General Office of the Administration for the Affairs of the Council of Ministers of the USSR].

Com. Malenkov: They had a discussion recently with Comrade Rakosi34 about the Hungarian situation. After that conversation, it seemed necessary to discuss certain questions in a wider range. He recommends as the procedure for discussion that the Hungarian comrades unfold their views primarily regarding three questions that relate to fields where not everything is in order in Hungary:

1. certain questions of economic development. 2. the selection of cadres

3. certain questions of the state administration (abuses of power).

After discussing these questions, the ways to correct the mistakes must be discussed.

Com. Malenkov: We view Hungary's situation with a critical attitude. We would like the comrades to be critical as well, and to tell us their opinions about the problems. Our impression is that the Hungarian comrades underestimate the problems. Without a thorough debate of the questions, it is impossible to find proper solutions. The facts that we are familiar with indicate that the situation in the field of agriculture is not good. The quality of animal husbandry is not improving; on the contrary, it is declining. Regarding the [agricultural] collectives, the situation.

is not too good there either. As far as we know, 8-10,000 families left the collectives last year. They say the harvest was bad. That cannot explain everything. There were excessive orders during the collection of the [agricultural] levy. It was not proper to collect the entire sunflower and rice harvest. Many peasants are sentenced by the courts, because they do not fulfill their obligations to the State. There are problems in the area of trade as well. They provide few commodities for the population.

Persecutions were initiated against 250,000 people in the second half of 1952. It is true that 75% of the persecutions were stopped; yet, the number is still rather high. In 1952, they brought sentences in about 540,000 cases of transgressions within 9 months. All these provoked dissatisfaction among the population.

To return to the [question of] collectives, there is evidence according to which the income of the collectives' employees is less than that of individually working farmers. It is also a mistake that they appropriate [only] a small sum for investments in the field of agriculture. Regarding the cadres. It is appropriate that many [of them] study. But if the leaders are always studying, they are not working. They virtually turn the leaders into students.

Com. Beriia: He agrees with what comrade Molotov said. When comrade Rakosi was here last time, it was brought up that certain questions should be discussed with more comrades. Not that they do not trust comrade Rakosi or that comrade Rakosi does not represent Hungary, but just so that they would get to know more comrades.

Comrade Rakosi himself suggested this on several occasions.

It can not be said that there is no improvement in Hungary. The positions of the people's democracy are continuously becoming stronger. The point is that the situation should become even better. The international and internal conditions will not always be this favorable. This is exactly why now the internal situation must be strengthened. We must be stronger than we are now.

Let us look at agriculture from this point of view. The collective sector in Hungary could work much more effectively if the Central Leadership and the Government paid more attention to agriculture. In that case, there would not be 750,000 ha. fallow land. The situation wouldn't be such that the peasants leave agriculture and move into industry. The situation wouldn't be such that the peasants are significant debtors to the State. This debt constitutes 400 million forints according to our information. The situation wouldn't be such that the peasants do not know how much levy they would have to surrender to the State the following year. Comrade Imre Nagy35 excluded from the PB [Political Bureau] because he recommended that the collective movement should be developed more slowly. This was not correct. The Comrades who lead the KV [Central Leadership] and the Ministerial Council do not know the countryside well, and they do not want to get to know the countryside.

The large number of major investments contribute to the bad situation in the villages. The Hungarian industry is not small. If the Hungarian industry was rectified and broadened a bit, it would be possible to develop metallurgy and certain other industrial branches more slowly. This would allow them to pay more attention to light industry, to the industry that serves the citizens.

Regarding legality and law enforcement, comrade Malenkov is right. Comrade Rakosi once again misunderstands us in this question. The issue is not that comrade Rakosi mentioned 30-40,000 arrested, and their number is somewhat higher.

Could it be acceptable that in Hungary-a country with 9,500,000 inhabitants-persecutions were initiated against 1,500,000 people? Administrative regulations were applied against 1,500,000 people within two and a half years. These numbers show that the interior and judiciary organs and the AVH36 work very badly, and the Ministry of the Interior and the AVH must merge precisely because of this. A respectful comrade must be placed in the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior; someone who will be able to change the situation that developed there. Several leaders replaced each other at the AVH and the M. of Interior; it is not even possible to know exactly what the situation is now. And Hungary will be the object of the attention of many capitalist countries, of the USA, and of England for a long time. There is a big and well-qualified Hungarian delegation in the West that keeps in touch with the leading foreign imperialist circles. It is to be expected that certain capitalist countries will try to curry their favor; others will send diversionists to Hungary. They have one goal: to overthrow the existing authorities and to restore the power of the capitalists. There are many elements in Hungary who could be exploited by the enemy. And there are many who are dissatisfied with the policies of the Party. Why does he treat this question so extensively? Because it has great significance in the relations of the peoples' democracies, but also in the Soviet Union.

There is another way to improve the situation. The personal intervention of the President of the Ministerial Council or of the Party's First Secretary in the questions of the Ministry of the Interior. Comrade Rakosi does that. This intervention is not always appropriate. Even comrade Stalin made a mistake in this question. He directly gave instructions for the questioning of those arrested, etc. Comrade Rakosi would be even more likely to make mistakes.

It is not right that comrade Rakosi gives directions regarding who must be arrested; he says who should be beaten. A person who is beaten will give the kind of confession that the interrogating agents want, will admit that s/he is an English or American spy or whatever we [Hungarians] want. But it will never be possible to know the truth this way. This way, innocent people might be sentenced. There is law, and everyone has to respect it. How investigations should be conducted, who should be arrested, and how they should be interrogated must be left

to the police organs.

Thus, there are two ways to improve the situation. One of the methods: a responsible person is placed at the top of the Ministry of the Interior who becomes the supervisor of the area and corrects the mistakes. The other method: comrade Rakosi directly directs the work of the Interior and AVH organs. This latter method is not correct. Comrade Rakosi tells who is to be arrested, etc. This is how we reach the point that comrade Rakosi is never wrong; all the other comrades are wrong. This situation leads to a point where comrade Rakosi will not be respected, but feared. [He] is the Party's [First] Secretary, the Ministerial Council's President, and the director of the AVH in one person.

Com. Malenkov: Here we are correcting the mistakes that we made in this area.

Com. Beriia: The issue of Peter's37 arrest. Bielkin, a person arrested by the Soviet State-security, confessed that he spied together with Gabor Peter. Later he withdrew his confession.

Comrade Rakosi said that Peter could not be released because he had other sins.

Two people were beaten at the AVH until they died. This [was] a serious mistake. Comrade Rakosi is an important person. It is not right that he does everything. It was not even right for comrade Stalin to be everyone in one person. One person is only one person. When comrade Rakosi says the people would not understand if he were released from his position as First Secretary, he overestimates himself. Those comrades who are here and the other comrades at home are not accidental [sic] people either. It would be better if the President of the Ministerial

Council were Hungarian.38 Comrade Stalin told comrade Rakosi several times that the Hungarians should be promoted more. They say that they (Jews in Hungary) served Horthy. 39 If they are honest people and now they serve us, they must be supported. Today the Red Army is still in Hungary, but it will not be there forever. Therefore, we must prepare and become stronger so that nobody can do any harm to us.

If comrade Nagy becomes the President of the Ministerial Council, comrade Rakosi should remain at the head of the Party as a comrade rich in experience who is faithful to the cause of the Party. Comrade Nagy would be satisfactory as the President of the Ministerial Council (faithful to the Party, Hungarian, knows the agricultural sector).

Comrade Rakosi in his telegram misinterpreted the suggestion that comrade Gerö should be the Minister of the Interior.

Comrade Molotov: The comrades had a chance to become convinced that even though we are talking about Hungary, the issue is not only Hungary, but all the peoples' democracies.

The criticism is severe, but the comrades have to get used to severe criticism. He [Molotov] agrees with com. Malenkov's and com. Beriia's speeches. He also agrees

with what has been said about comrade Rakosi. The tendency for bossiness that plagued comrade Rakosi as well originated in the Soviet Union. This mistake must be corrected as soon as possible.

Is the MDP's40 political line correct? In my opinion, it is not correct. There have been many mistakes made in the economic field that must urgently be corrected. The speed of industrialization is exaggerated; it is beyond our capabilities. There is a disease in almost all peoples' democracies that leads them to want to establish autarky. This is a children's disease. They do not take into account the Soviet Union's existence. What happened in Hungary? The number of people working in industry grew by 500.000 people within 3 years. This is dangerous and detrimental for Hungary.

They want to invest 19 billion [forints?] this year. There is a virtual wave of oppression against the population. They initiated persecution against 1,500,000 people in a population with 4.5 million adults in three and a half years. There were 1,500,000 violations during this time. They punish for everything, and punish insignificant acts for selfish reasons. The constitution was established in 1949 according to which a Bureau of State Affairs should be set up. It still has not been set up. This state of affairs is intolerable.

They resort to all kinds of manipulations to ensure a forced industrial development. For instance, there was [only] 57% wool in a particular fabric. They left the name and price of the material, but they took the wool out of it. They significantly worsened the quality of milk. Everything resembles counterfeit. They have lost contact with the population; they do not express the interest of the population in many questions. Is this why we chased the bourgeoisie away, so that afterwards the situation would be like this? Comrade Rakosi's bossiness played a role in this. He knows everything, sees everything and is capable of doing anything.

We talk with our Comrades in a totally frank and honest way. The necessary conclusions must be drawn.

Com. Bulganin: We had not discussed anything in advance; we have no such habits. There are many facts that I only heard for the first time from comrade Beriia's presentation. All that was said by the comrades permits me to observe that a catastrophe will occur if we do not improve the situation. The whole situation might be entirely different if the Red Army were not there. It is a fact that the elements of power abuse exist; the population's quality of life has declined. This is not the road to socialism, but the road to a catastrophe.

The question of the army. It is intolerable and not permissable that the army is constantly being purged. Of course, there should be no dubious elements in the army. But it is not possible to keep purging the army for 8 years. Continuously purging the army and keeping it in a feverish state means disarming the army morally and counterpoising it with themselves [with the Party]. In 1952 and in the first quarter of 1953, 460 officers and generals were

discharged for political reasons. The army was not established in 1952. Why was it necessary to discharge this many people for political reasons? If Comrade Rakosi and the KV looked at these 460 people, it would become clear that some of them are our friends, our people. Thus they turned honest people into traitors. There were 370 desertions in 1952. There were 177,000 disciplinary punishments in the army in one year and 3 months. There was almost one punishment for each person.

There are many signals coming in that comrade Farkas41 likes glamour too much and strives to present himself as a great commander. Rather thorough steps must be taken urgently to improve the situation.

Com. Mikoian: Comrade Malenkov and comrade Beriia brought up these questions as openly as they would have [just] between themselves. This is a sign of great trust and friendship.

I have known comrade Rakosi for a long time. The comrades analyzed comrade Rakosi's mistakes correctly. Comrade Rakosi has become very full of himself. There is a certain kind of adventurism in the question of economic planning. For instance, the forced development of their own metallurgy. Hungary does not have its own iron ore, nor its own coke. All this must be imported from abroad. Nobody has calculated yet how much one ton of raw iron and steel costs Hungary. They are building ironworks in Hungary for which nobody has promised the iron ore. In 1952, they had a shortage of 700,000 tons of coke. They [Russians] helped, based on the instruction from comrade Stalin, so that the ironworks would not stop. The coke is not secured for next year either. There are great excesses in the field of major investments. The construction of the metro [subway] could have waited 5-6 years. The amount of money invested in heavy industry has quadrupled since 1950. They are implementing [agricultural] collectivization without the appropriate economic basis, and, as a consequence, the collectives had a lower productivity rate than the individual producers.

This is a serious mistake.

The party newspaper reported [cases of] sentences in which [a] peasant was imprisoned and fined for 3,000 forints because he fed 1.5 q sugar canes [to his animals]. The peasantry can not respect a system like this.

They ask for a quarter million rubles of equipment for the army when Hungary has problems with food supply. Hungary has a debt of 360 million rubles to the people's democracies.

They draw up strenuous plans that they can not fulfill. The goods available to the populace in Hungary are of bad quality and expensive. There are no goods of good quality, because they export those to try somehow to achieve balanced trade. The situation is not improving but getting worse. Everything is growing in Hungary, but the amount of goods provided for the population is decreasing. (Examples for decreasing quantity: textiles, soap, etc.) Hungary has all the potential to bloom. It was generally developing well until 1951, until success blinded

the leaders and they started to make audacious plans. The mistakes must be corrected instantly. Com. Khrushchev: He agrees with the criticism that the comrades developed. Comrade Beriia's passionate criticism was aimed at helping to correct the mistakes. Certain comrades think that the Russian comrades did not form an entirely correct opinion when they criticized comrade Rakosi. Comrade Rakosi is primarily responsible for the mistakes. Comrade Rakosi observed that coal production grew by 25%, and in spite of this there were no protests in certain schools or hospitals. Even though Comrade Rakosi commented on this in the form of selfcriticism, he is still responsible for it. It is possible that comrade Rakosi practiced self-criticism because he saw that things were going badly and this way he could avoid criticism.

Hungary used to be famous for her well-developed agriculture and for being a rich country. Now, even the middle peasantry is in uncertainty because of the extremely rapid pace of collectivization. The peasantry needs sires [stud stock], power for the ploughs, etc. If the peasantry sees that sooner or later they will have to join the collectives, they will not develop their farms. This is how individual farming declines. We should not even be surprised if all of a sudden they started to do away with the vineyards.

My impression is that there is no real collective leadership, [that] a true collective leadership has not developed. Comrade Nagy criticized the leadership; therefore, they excluded him from the Politburo. What kind of respect for [critical] opinions is this? Deeply effective consequences must be drawn from the criticism toward Comrade Rakosi. Is it not possible to produce a collective leadership made up of Hungarians? It is impossible that a population of 9.5 million can not produce people that are suitable leaders. This situation in which one has not finished studying yet, the other one just started, must be changed; thus, there are no leaders with sufficient values.

Comrade Rakosi can not work collectively. There are capable people; they must be promoted and the relationship [of the party] with the Hungarian people must be improved.

They are building the metro in Budapest. In the USSR they only started to build it in 1932. Moscow is the capital of a country with 200 million people. The Hungarian comrades are mistaken to start with the assumption that since it exists in Moscow; therefore, it must be quickly built in Budapest as well.

Com. Malenkov: Certain question must have surprised the comrades. They would need to stay for another 2-3 days to develop and discuss the main regulations. We should meet once again. We could meet on Tuesday afternoon.

The [Hungarian] comrades who spoke said themselves that things were not going very well in Hungary. It is not an issue of minor details, but the correction of the political