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 was 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

line has become necessary, because there are problems with fundamental questions, and it also has to do with the question of leadership. Last time, when comrade Rakosi was here, we talked with him in more immediate circles. Comrade Rakosi could not name anyone among the Hungarians as his primary deputy. This was an unpleasant surprise for us. Whenever someone's name came up, comrade Rakosi always immediately had some kind of objection, thus finally he could not name any Hungarian as his primary deputy. In connection with this came the idea that the comrades should be invited and we should discuss certain questions together. No matter what kind of candidate's name came up, there were always immediate objections. This was what worried us, and made it necessary to talk with more comrades, this way. Comrade Rakosi's telegram also had this kind of effect. And then we saw that we needed to help the comrades and we would have to talk about this question openly. It is not a coincidence that the question of bossiness came up. It is one thing to paint things very beautifully in the movies, but reality is another thing.

Why do we bring these questions up so harshly? We, as Communists, are all responsible for the state of things in Hungary. The Soviet Union is also responsible for what kind of rule exists in Hungary. If they say that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union advised certain incorrect things, we admit to that, and we correct the mistakes, too. We admit to the extreme military demands, but the comrades executed these demands even beyond what was expected. Why should an army be maintained with such a size that it bankrupts the state[?] The point is, we have to develop regulations together that are suitable to correct the mistakes, and these regulations must be put into writing. It must be determined how power can be allocated to the right places and distributed properly. We have to come to the conclusion that the Ministerial Council's President should be Hungarian. Comrade Rakosi will find his own important position as the [First] Secretary of the Party. A respectful person must be recommended as the Minister of the Interior; comrade Gerö should take over the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior. The Politburo must take its own place; the Secretariat and the Ministerial Council should also take their own places. It is an impossible state of affairs that persons in the Ministerial Council keep silent regarding the question of [agricultural] levy in kind [only] because it had been previously decided on by the Secretariat.

Recommendations must be made as to who should be placed where. There should be no favor for anyone with regards to who should be placed in what field. It is our sacred responsibility to place everyone in the proper position. Whoever is placed in a responsible position must be respected and full rights must be insured for him. There is no reason for people in responsible positions to work as employees next to the master. Nothing good could come of it, besides all the harm. That is a civic habit.

These questions must be considered thoroughly, and the

recommendations must be prepared. We will meet on Tuesday, and then we will discuss the recommendations.

Com. Rakosi: Regarding hubris, that's an illness that one can not detect, just like one can not smell one's own odor. If the comrades say this is the case, I accept it. (Beriia: Comrade, what do you think?)

It must be said that I never wanted to be the President of the Ministerial Council. (Comrade Molotov: But you wanted a President for the Ministerial Council that would have had no say in decisions.)

Comrade Beriia: We like you and respect you, that's why we criticize you. You had told comrade Stalin even before being elected as the President of the Ministerial Council that the power was already in your hands. Comrade Stalin reported this.

Com. Rakosi: The comrades said that we needed a big army and military industry.

Com. Malenkov: We wanted you to develop the army. We [will] correct this mistake. There are 600,000 people in the army. (Comrade Rakosi: Including the reserves. So you carried the Soviet Union's wishes to the extreme. Com. Beriia: The development of the army was discussed with comrade Stalin. Comrade Stalin gave incorrect instructions.

Com. Rakosi: We tried to execute the instructions. My heart was aching about the fact that we had to maintain such a big army.

Com. Malenkov: When you asked us to decrease our demands to build barracks, we withdrew our requests immediately.

Com. Rakosi: Twenty-six percent of the farm land is in the hands of collectives. We achieved this in 5 years. The peasantry knows that collectivization will happen sooner or later.

Com. Beriia.: The policy toward the middle peasantry must be changed.

Com. Malenkov: One or two things can be explained, but not everything. The issue of comrade Rakosi's telegram. Comrade Rakosi started to expand in the telegram on something other than what they had talked about and agreed on. The issue is that there should not be three Jews in the leadership.42 However, comrade Rakosi in the telegram made it sound like we had given such an advice, and answered that he did not really understand it, but he accepted it.

Com. Beriia: If the great Stalin made mistakes, comrade Rakosi can admit that he made mistakes too. It must not be prescribed who should be beaten by the AVH. Everyone will be afraid. Comrade Hidasi is afraid, too; that's what his speech reflects. Provocation can reach everything [sic!], if the methods are like these. People must not be beaten.

The Ministerial Council must make the decisions about important questions regarding production. The Party's Central Leadership must be preoccupied with education and the question of cadres.

Why is it necessary to invest one billion forints in

crude oil production? Romania has got enough oil. In Hungary, the aluminum industry should be developed

more.

Com. Gerö: The criticism is justified and correct not just in general, but also regarding the question of bossiness. The leadership is not collective, and we did not raise Hungarian cadres. He often wanted to raise the question but never got to it. The situation really got to the point that whenever comrade Rakosi gave a speech, the newspapers really exulted it, and the KV's staff made sure that it would appear before the people as some extraordinary achievement. Such bossiness undoubtedly exists, and I am primarily responsible for it, second to comrade Rakosi. I did not have the courage to bring up the question. By expressing our mistakes this openly, the comrades helped us tremendously. It is a shame that we could not do this ourselves. It must be admitted that such bossiness happened in my case too, but I discontinued it during the last few years. The enemy tries to take advantage of these things. Bossiness is also practiced by comrade Farkas. In fact, there is bossiness even at the lower levels, at the smaller organs. The county and village secretary, the president of the collective, everyone is a leader in their realm. This kind of bossiness exists, and it must be uprooted thoroughly. In our case, bossiness is intertwined with civic phenomena; he [Gerö] also agrees with the comrades on that. We just had parliamentary elections. After the elections, a picture was published in the Szabad Nep, depicting Comrade Rakosi voting together with his wife. Comrade Rakosi did not arrange for this himself, but he did not protest it either.

Regarding mistakes in the economy. We noticed in a number of questions that there were mistakes, but we did not bring up these questions so explicitly. For instance, the issue of the metro. It is actually fortunate that they did not listen to the military advisers who recommended that the metro should be built such that tanks and military trains could commute on the metro line. There was great excess in the case of the metro.

Com. Malenkov: It seems like we all agree on recommending comrade Imre Nagy. He explicitly asked for comrade Rakosi's and comrade Dobi's opinions. Comrade Rakosi and comrade Dobi agreed with the proposal, too. 43

[Source: Hungarian Central Archives, Budapest, 276. f. 102/65. oe. e. -Typed revision. - Published by Gyorgy T. Varga in Multunk, 2-3(1992), pp. 234-269. Translated by Monika Borbely (Woodrow Wilson Center/Princeton University).]

Report from V. Semenov and A. Grechko (BerlinKarlshorst) to V. Molotov and N. Bulganin, 17 June 1953, 7:26 a.m. (Moscow time)

OPERATIONS DIVISION,

MAIN OPERATIONS ADMINISTRATION, GENERAL STAFF OF THE SOVIET ARMY

Top Secret (Declassified)

To Comrade V.M. MOLOTOV To Comrade N.A. BULGANIN

We are reporting on the situation in Berlin towards the close of 16 June.

As reported before, there had been a demonstration by construction workers on strike in the downtown of the Soviet Sector of Berlin during the first half of 16 June, protesting against the raising of the output quotas in the Berlin construction industry. Some people from West Berlin took part in the rally. The majority of construction workers started breaking up after it was announced that SED CC had cancelled the rise in output quotas. The participation of the persons sent from West Berlin kept increasing in the subsequent gatherings.

The situation in the city worsened towards the evening of 16 June. While the activists of the SED were meeting in Friedrichsstadtpalast, big crowds started arriving from West [Berlin] into East Berlin, moving towards the abovementioned building. At the same time, a band of up to 2,000 people, mainly West Berliners, were throwing stones at the I.V. Stalin monument at Stalinallee at 9.30 p.m. and moved towards Friedrichsstadtpalast, ransacking a shop on the way. Four hundred German (Eastern German) policemen dispersed this band. At the same time, large groups of West Berliners were attempting to promote chaos, blocking streets, holding up tram traffic, turning over cars, breaking shop windows. About 500 bandits tried to burst into the gas plant and block its operations. Some groups gathered at the Berlin City Railway Office, as well as near the SED CC building. Some hooligans tried breaking into the residential flats of SED activists at Berzarin Platz. All those groups were dispersed by German police. 25 people were arrested, according to incomplete information.

The organizers of the riots announced that there would be a meeting at Strausberger Platz in central Berlin at 6.00 a.m. on 17 June. At the same time, there was strong agitation for a general strike in East Berlin. The workers at "Fortschritt One" and "Fortschritt Two" clothing factories, as well as the night shift of 120 people at one of the Berlin plants, went on strike in the evening of 16 June. The issue of Der Abend published in Western Berlin on the evening of 16 June [which] called for a general strike in East Berlin on 17 June. It is clear from the reports of West German press and radio that the above-mentioned hostile actions have been organized from West Berlin as a response to the recently declared measures on normaliza