Comrades:
Working People of Budapest:
Before reviewing the aims, the realisation of which will be a task for the new National Assembly, permit me to review the period which has elapsed since 1949. Four years ago the patriotic, democratic forces united in the Hungarian People's Independence Front entered the elections for the first time with a united slate. At these elections only sons of the working people stood as candidates. Counts, big landlords, bankers and other enemies of the people were not included. On looking back over the past four years, we can safely state that the unity of the democratic forces has stood the test and that the People's Independence Front has fulfilled all its promises.
Four years ago the chief election slogan of the People's Front was: "Under the leadership of the working class in alliance with the working peasantry, forward on the path of People's Democracy for a Socialist Hungary!" The Hungarian People's Independence Front urged the necessity of the defence of peace and emphatically underscored its loyalty to our liberator, the mighty Soviet Union.
During the past four years the relations of the Hungarian People's Republic with the Soviet Union have become deeper and more cordial. The bonds of friendship binding us to the People's Democracies and the People's Republic of China, established through victorious battles, have strengthened also. Our people took a resolute and united stand for peace. We loyally adhered to the slogan "Our country constitutes not a gap, but a strong bulwark of the front of peace!"
What were our most important economic problems four years ago? The completion of our Three-Year Plan and the preparation of our first Five-Year Plan were in the focus of our attention at that time.
Our Three-Year Plan had as its objective the investment of 6,000 million forints. At that time this objective appeared to be so daring that the enemy contemptuously termed it "communist propaganda bluff". Yet, the Hungarian working people, by their enthusiasm and assiduity fulfilled this plan in two years and five months. On the basis of the experiences of the Three-Year Plan, we headed forward more boldly. We appropriated 35,000 million forints for the investments of our Five-Year Plan. This figure, too, looked so enormous that it was necessary to prove to the doubters and sceptics that our Plan was well-founded and realistic. Since then we have had to increase this amount repeatedly, because our possibilities and reserves turned out to be far larger than we had contemplated. During the past three years, we invested 40,000 million forints in our national economy – more than the original sum of the Five-Year Plan.
During the Five-Year Plan we wished to double our output of steel, coal and electric power. We have realised these objectives not in five, but in three years. We have also realised our goal of transforming our country from an agrarian country with a developing industry, into an industrial country with an advanced agriculture. By the end of last year the output of our manufacturing industry was triple that of the last pre-war year. In giving a proper evaluation of this economic advancement, inconceivable under capitalist conditions, it must be borne in mind that in the past four years there was a below-the-average crop in 1950, and that last year, as a result of the frost, the drought and the untimely and unusually heavy autumn rains, our crop was poorer than in any year over the past decades.
Our objective to increase the number of industrial workers by 300,000 in five years was attained in three years. Thereby, unemployment, the gravest threat to the working people, has been done away with. At present, the growth in the labour force in each plan year is well over 200,000. During the past four years the number of social insurance beneficiaries has risen by 1,650,000 and, at present, nearly 60 per cent of our population are covered by social insurance. We enacted a law on mother and child care. Family allowances for large families have trebled in three years. We have abolished the rationing system, a survival of war-time economy. In the first three years of the Five-Year Plan we built thousands of cultural centres, cinemas and public libraries in the villages and in the factories. Last but not least, we have built up our People's Army, the guardian of our peace and socialist future.
I believe, Comrades, that the Hungarian working people have a right to be proud of these achievements.
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Four years are not a long time in the history of a nation. Still, in the space of these few years our country has made greater progress and undergone greater changes than it had previously in many decades. This change is not only of importance in the economic and cultural spheres. It has also altered the composition of our people. The main body of our army of socialist construction, our magnificent working class, has changed. This change is apparent, primarily, in a numerical increase. Gone forever is the spectre of unemployment; the three million beggars of the Horthy era, the hiring halls and the slave markets have disappeared for good. While in the capitalist countries permanent unemployment continues to harass the working people, in our country – and, I can add in the other People's Democracies also – one of the gravest problems is where to find new labour.
The industrial working class has not only increased numerically during the past four years, but it has grown in consciousness, skill and culture as well. Suffice it to point out that at present we have 70,000 Stakhanovites, which is a proof that an ever-growing section of our working class is approaching the level of the technical intelligentsia in skill and technical knowledge. We have now reached a point where almost invariably only young people who have completed the eight classes of the general school are accepted for apprenticeship. Workers who are now leaving our training shops, both in skill and general education, tower above the journeymen of the capitalist times. Today, the working class is no longer what it was four years ago: it is now more educated, more skilled, more self-confident and more conscious.
During the elections four years ago we found it necessary to emphasise that not only was the Hungarian working class destined to lead our working people, but that it was capable of fulfilling this mission. The past four years are one-half of the period which has elapsed since Liberation. These four years have proved in all problems which have arisen that our working class is able to cope with its historical tasks, and is capable of firmly leading our entire people towards a better, socialist future. Its role as leader of the nation needs no longer to be proven because, on the strength of the sacrifices and the achievements made during the period since Liberation, the Hungarian people regard the working class and the Hungarian Working People's Party as their leader. Gratitude and glory to the Hungarian working class, the mainstay of our democracy!
The Hungarian peasantry has also changed during the past four years. An ever larger section of the working peasantry is going over to socialist large-scale farming. Four years ago there were only 15,000 families in the producer co-operatives. This spring nearly 340,000 families worked in the producer co-operatives, and the number of co-operative members is almost 500,000. At present, 40 per cent of the arable land is owned by members of producer co-operatives or by the state farms. The producer co-operatives held their own last year as well when the crop was poor, and continued their vigorous development with the effective assistance of our People's Democracy.
During the spring and autumn agricultural work the superiority of socialist large-scale farming became clear. The land of the co-operatives and State Farms is better cultivated, the new methods of agrotechnics are more widely used. The policy of our Government of not tolerating any kind of compulsion or pressure in forming the co-operatives, but strictly adhering to the principle of voluntariness, has been vindicated. While our enemies clamoured that in our country peasants were compelled to join the co-operatives, we slowed down the growth of the co-operatives. We concentrated on first training the cadres able to efficiently manage the co-operatives. This policy was correct, and today it can be said that the new experts and agronomists employed in ever greater numbers have played an important role in strengthening the producer co-operatives. The vigorous development of the co-operatives is now ensured, because ever larger sections of the peasantry have been convinced of the superiority of socialist large-scale farming.
The going over to socialist large-scale farming is synonymous with the strengthening and continued consolidation of the alliance of the working class and peasantry. It needs no explanation that the producer co-operative member, or the worker of a state farm or machine station grasps more consciously and more profoundly the national importance of the alliance of the workers and peasants and more clearly realises the importance of this alliance from the point of view of the future and vital interest of the entire Hungarian people.
But that part of the peasantry which has not yet decided to take the road of socialist large-scale farming, is also completely different from what it was prior to Liberation, or four years ago. The working peasantry has undergone a great change as a result of the political gains of our People's Democracy, and the economic and cultural progress of our nation. Electricity, the radio, the telephone, the network of cultural centres, the libraries, the steady mechanisation of agriculture and improved transport are having an effect upon them also. They are also adopting the more advanced farming methods of the state farms and producer co-operatives. The mechanisation of agriculture and the decentralisation of industry are forming closer ties between town and village. Concomitant with this, our entire peasantry has become more politically-minded, more cultured and more refined. Their perspective has expanded – and I may add – their civic discipline and loyalty have grown. The fact that in spite of last year's poor crop our peasantry has on the whole met its delivery obligations, ensuring the public food supply till the next harvest, is testimony of a high degree of civic discipline and loyalty. Today, the alliance of the working class and peasantry is firmer than at any time!
In the spirit of this alliance during the past four years almost 100,000 industrial workers and working peasants have occupied leading posts in the factories and enterprises, the state administration and the officers' corps of the People's Army. A growing majority of university and college students come from the working class and the peasantry. It is up to us to step up this process in the future, thereby strengthening the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, the basis of our People's Democracy!
Our intelligentsia has also changed during the last four years. Four years ago there were still many members of the old intelligentsia who hesitated and viewed our great plans of transforming the country with misgivings. A considerable number of them were not certain whether they would find their place in the People's Democracy. During the last four years the majority of the intelligentsia has been convinced that these misgivings lacked foundation. They have become convinced that the People's Democracy is capable of putting the nation on its feet, that it honours and highly appreciates the work of the patriotic intelligentsia, and offers opportunities for the development of their abilities the like of which were unconceivable under capitalism. Hundreds of scientists, artists, physicians, engineers and teachers have been awarded the Kossuth Prize, the highest recognition for good work. Our People's Democracy by awarding these decorations has emphasised that it highly appreciates and respects the creative work of talented people.
The composition of the intelligentsia has also changed during the past four years. An ever growing number of the offspring of the People's Democracy, for the major part workers and peasants, are leaving the colleges and universities. At present, the number of students in our universities and colleges is three times as large as under Horthy, and we can proudly point out that in this respect we have left far behind developed capitalist countries like Britain, France and Holland.
Behind the rapid increase in the number of the intelligentsia lies a real cultural conquest of the country. Today, the majority of university students come from those strata which, though representing the overwhelming majority of the nation, were as good as excluded from higher education ten years ago. We know that at a certain stage quantity is transformed into quality. The numerical increase in the intelligentsia coming from the ranks Of the working people will not fail to bring about qualitative changes. The bulk of the new intelligentsia is blood of the blood, flesh of the flesh of the working people. This intelligentsia owes its existence and education to the People's Democracy. This new stratum of the intelligentsia which is rapidly growing in numbers, will, in close unity with the old-time intelligentsia loyal to the people, have incomparably greater weight and influence in every aspect of the life of the nation than at any other time. We wish to do our best to increase steadily its importance and role in the leadership of our people and in paving the way of the future of our nation. The old order wanted to turn the intelligentsia and the working people against one another; we are uniting them. We are not yet fully aware ourselves of the new opportunities, of the vast perspectives opened up to the intelligentsia by the cultural revolution of the past few years, the like of which are unprecedented in the lives of our people.
To sum up, we can say that our working people are now more united than at any other time. They are more united in their political objectives, their loyalty to the camp of peace and in their determination to, defend and vigorously develop the achievements of our People's Democracy.
The Unity of the Democratic, Socialist Forces of the Nation
The fact that our people are more united than ever before, that the rivalry between parties, which in the first few years after Liberation divided the forces of the nation and caused so much damage, is now definitely a thing of the past, does not lessen the importance of the Hungarian People's Independence Front. The spirit of the unity of the democratic, socialist forces of the nation, which gave rise to the Hungarian People's Independence Front four years ago, continues to live and constitutes the motive force of our future development. This grouping of forces, which unites every Hungarian patriot in one camp, is the guarantee of our future successes. Therefore, we are determined to continue to uphold with might and main the banner of the People's Front, under which we have fought so many victorious battles. Amidst the great changes taking place in every sphere of our life, the avowed principles of the Hungarian People's Independence Front constitute the solid foundation, upon which we can safely build our future.
Indicative of the practical significance of the unity of the democratic forces of the people is the social composition of the candidates of the People's Front. According to occupation of the 453 candidates, 188 are workers, 143 peasants and agricultural labourers, 96 are members of the intelligentsia and 26 are office workers and others. One hundred and seventeen, or more than one fourth of the candidates, are university or college graduates. There are 87 women candidates. There are 36 Kossuth Prize laureates among the candidates. Furthermore, 230 candidates are Stakhanovites or workers who have been awarded government decorations as a reward of their good work.
It can be forecast that these figures will shift further in favour of the college and university graduates, because a number of the worker and peasant candidates are attending colleges. In connection with the nomination of candidates, it should be mentioned that democratic progress is evident here also. Four years ago candidates were nominated by the parties of the People's Front, whereas now the candidates have been chosen directly by hundreds of thousands of workers in the factories, the producer co-operatives and machine stations, in the universities and other institutions from among their own best workers.
Last but not least, I must mention that at the coming elections new age groups of youth will vote for the first time. The People's Democracy, which has cleared the way for our enthusiastic youth in every field, has thrown wide the gates of the Constitution for them. We welcome the young voters and wish them the best of success in their work of national construction. The fact that the class struggle is sharpening in connection with the successes attained by our People's Democracy and the development of our socialist construction overshadows, to a certain extent, the consolidation of the unity of our people. The remnants of the capitalist system both in the towns and the country are restricted to a constantly shrinking sphere. At the same time, they defend the shrinking field still remaining to them with greater desperation. They are supported in this by the imperialist camp of warmongers, which is attempting to replenish the thinning ranks of its allies within the country, its fifth column with spies and saboteurs smuggled from abroad and which tries to bolster up the spirit of its down-hearted followers by means of the radio and press.
It is obvious that these enemies of our people frequently cause harm, thereby impeding our progress. No less harm is caused by our own mistakes which can be found not only in production, but often enough as well in the state apparatus. We all know that there is still much to be desired in the sphere of labour discipline. Productivity could be raised considerably, too. In many places the number of rejects is still impermissibly high. We are able to fulfil our plans for reducing production costs only in part. Economy with material, time and state property is still rather poor. The fulfilment of the Plan is uneven. We are still far from fulfilling the daily, weekly, monthly plan. The practice is still widespread of slackening the tempo of production at the beginning of the month or the quarter of the year, and attempting to make up for the lag through rush-work and overtime at the end. The protection of socialist property is still inadequate both in the towns and the country. Frequently, there is a lack of proper vigilance with regard to the enemy. In contrast, there is frequently complacency, the over-looking or covering up of mistakes and the suppression of criticism. All of these are factors hindering our progress.
One of the conditions for the further successes of our socialist construction is efficient work on the part of our state authorities and the local councils. It still frequently happens, however, that hostile elements worm themselves into these bodies and do their utmost to discredit the authority of our officials and Councils, to turn the working people against the State of the People's Democracy. We have observed frequently that our officials deal with the people in a forbidding, bureaucratic manner, abuse their power, act arbitrarily and do not observe the law. The State of the People's Democracy is attempting to mete out punishment for these abuses, but until we eliminate them they are serious obstacles to our progress.
We have also made mistakes with regard to the peasantry. Our system of collection is not simple enough. It changes from year to year thereby preventing the working peasantry from farming on the basis of advance calculations for years to come, from knowing their obligations exactly and beforehand. We must see that an end is put to this in the future, and that a system of collection, drawn up for a number of years, shall enable the peasantry to market their surpluses without hindrance in the free market. Such a regulation will augment the income of the peasantry and stimulate them to produce more. In regrouping the small plots – an indispensable necessity for the realisation of large-scale agricultural farming – our officials often lose sight of the interests of the working peasantry. In general, we have observed frequently that in the course of the socialist transformation of the countryside sometimes we did not pay sufficient attention to the individual working peasants who constitute the majority of our agricultural population. Under such circumstances, the assistance of our People's Democracy, designed to aid the individual peasants also, has been wasted. These mistakes must be rectified speedily, all the more so because, as I have said, it was proved last year when the crop was so poor that the individual peasants are loyal supporters of our People's Democracy.
The poor crop of last year slowed down temporarily our entire development and the rise in the living standard of our working people. Last year was a serious test for our entire political and economic edifice. Five months ago in the National Assembly I had to call the attention to the fact that, as a result of the poor crop, the wintering of the livestock had become a difficult problem, that there were serious shortcomings around the sowing. I had to call upon our people to observe the strictest economy in the field of public supply. Now that the hard winter is over, we can state that despite the drought the number of our livestock is larger than it was at this time last year. The crops, too, have withstood the winter well, and the prospects of a good crop have improved as a result of the May rains. Next month the new crops will mature, and we shall be able to liquidate in agriculture the consequences of last year's poor crop. To do this, however, we must see that not an inch of soil shall remain fallow this year. We shall be able to make up the loss caused by last year's drought if the spring sowing plan is carried out properly on each acre of land.
It is due to the firmness and good organisation of our People's Democracy that last year's frost and drought caused no heavier damage. This is also due to the assistance extended to us by the Soviet Union who, as in every difficult situation, supported us again. In connection with this I would like to mention Yugoslavia, where a drought similar to the one in this country has caused a real catastrophe, aggravated by the fact that the Yugoslav peasantry despises its rulers and opposes the Tito-gang. This compelled the Yugoslav government to postpone the elections, scheduled to be held this spring, until after the harvest.
The Second Five-Year Plan Turns our Homeland into a Country of Prosperity, Strength and Culture
On the other hand, the Hungarian People's Democracy is preparing calmly and self-confidently for the elections and the future tasks. The most urgent of these tasks is the successful execution of the balance of the Five-Year Plan. During 1953-1954, the Stalin Iron Works, the largest project of our Five-Year Plan, will start production. A number of other big factories will be put into operation. The Tiszalok Hydro-Engineering Project will be completed. The construction of our large polytechnical universities will be completed and the huge People's Stadium in Budapest will be opened. Our new socialist cities, such as Sztalinvaros and Koml6, will be built up. At the same time, the elections are a stand for the successful fulfilment of the Five-Year Plan. Realising this, our working people are conducting a broad election-peace emulation to speed up the fulfilment of our Plan. As a result of the pre-election labour emulation our industry fulfilled, or rather overfulfilled, its plan for April by 103 per cent.
One of the most important tasks of the new National Assembly will be to enact the second Five-Year Plan of the Hungarian national economy, the plan for building a socialist society in our country. The initial figures of this Plan indicate the magnitude of our objectives. Our starting point is that from 1955 to 1959 we want to double approximately the coal, iron, steel and electric power production of the first Five-Year Plan.
To cite figures: we want to raise the output of steel to approximately 3.5 - 4 million tons, the output of coal to about 40 - 50 million tons and electric power output to around 10 - 12 thousand million kilowatt-hours during the second Five-Year Plan. More coal, more steel, more electricity will mean a further rise in the living standard of our people, more food, more clothes, more culture. During the second Five-Year Plan we must uncover gradually the mineral resources of our country. We must build the huge hydroelectric plant on the Danube. In agriculture, to combat droughts, the area under irrigation must be increased to 370 - 400,000 hectares. In both industry and agriculture the mechanisation of difficult work processes must be intensified. We must build approximately 250,000 new flats during the second Five-Year Plan, many of them in Budapest which we have somewhat neglected during our first Five-Year Plan because of the building of the new socialist cities.
In addition to the continued expansion of the radio, we will introduce televised broadcasts. We will set as our goal that the youth shall complete at least the compulsory eight grades of general school in the countryside and at least secondary school in the cities. With the fulfilment of the second Five-Year Plan we wish to raise the real wages of the working people by at least 50 per cent. Accordingly, we want to make available an abundance of consumer goods and industrial products. Thus, similarly to the Soviet Union, we, too, will begin to reduce prices under the new Five-Year Plan.
The fulfilment of the second Five-Year Plan will result in Hungary in far outstripping the vast majority of advanced capitalist countries in every field. The successful fulfilment of the second Five-Year Plan will transform our country into a land of prosperity, strength and culture. I ask every Hungarian patriot to support these magnificent objectives! I call on the Hungarian working class and especially upon the working people of Budapest who have always been in the forefront in an exemplary conduct and readiness for self-sacrifice to carry out these plans! At the May 17th elections this better future will be at stake: this will be decided by our working people!
Do the prerequisites for our plans exist? Yes, they do. There are our politically conscious and self-sacrificing working class, our industrious working peasantry and our educated intelligentsia. The depths of the earth in Hungary have been scarcely tapped, and still conceal many undisclosed treasures. Our agriculture has the possibilities for increasing its yields considerably by the simplest methods, which do not require special investments or redoubled effort. The possibilities do exist and, therefore, we will make use of them. To this end, among other things, we must wage a ruthless struggle against our own shortcomings. We must not tolerate lack of discipline, absenteeism, rejects and waste of material in production! Let us be vigilant in all spheres of the People's Democracy, and deal ruthlessly with those who sabotage the building of our happier future ! One of the guarantees of our plans is that our liberator, the powerful Soviet Union, continues to support us and to make available to us the rich treasure house of her experiences. In the execution of these bold objectives, we are led by our united, great Party, the Hungarian Working People's Party, the driving force of all our progress and the engineer of our many successes and victories!
In Our Country, He Who Does Good Work Fights for Peace
There is another decisive prerequisite for the execution of the Five-Year Plan – the preservation of peace. This is not only our problem, but that of all mankind. War has been going on in Korea for nearly three years. Although during this long period the United States has mobilised the bulk of its military and economic resources, all its plans of conquest have been shattered by the courage and selfless patriotism of the heroic Korean people and the Chinese volunteers. Over two million American soldiers have passed through the battlefields of Korea. Tens of thousands have fallen in battle and a considerable number have returned home to America disabled, wounded or ill. American mothers shudder at the thought that their husbands or sons may be thrown in on the Korean front. Consequently, opposition to the Korean War is intensifying and growing, and the demand that the war be ended is becoming ever louder.
Among the ranks of the allies of the United States as well, aversion is rising not only against the Korean War, but also because of the insane armament race and their satellite position generally. Therefore, the consistent peace policy of the Soviet Union, the Stalin peace policy, is winning new adherents throughout the world. It was on the proposal of the leaders of the Soviet Union and China that the armistice talks were resumed in Korea, with the initial result that the sick and wounded prisoners of war were exchanged. In the nature of a reply to the series of peace proposals made by the Soviet Government, Eisenhower, President of the United States, delivered a speech in the middle of last month on the international situation. "Pravda', the organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, stated its position in an editorial on April 25. The Hungarian press published both the Eisenhower speech and the "Pravda" editorial.
There are a few parts of President Eisenhower's speech which concern us directly. The President declared that it was the inalienable right of every country to choose its own form of government and economic system, and he added that no country's attempt to impose its form of government on other countries could be justified.
The realisation of these two precepts would have to mean a thorough about-face in the policy of the United States with respect to us Hungarians, because during the past eight years – and we can add, since the time these statements have been made as well – our experience has been the very opposite in all cases. The Hungarian people have created their form of government according to their own choice, a form in which the power belongs to the working people. The Hungarian people themselves worked out their economic system in which there are no idle rich, no poverty-stricken masses, no unemployment and no anxiety over one's livelihood. Nevertheless, our People's Democracy must be constantly on guard against conspiracies, acts of sabotage and espionage, which almost without exception have been initiated, organised and financed by the United States. The aim of these unfriendly acts is to change the form of government in Hungary in such a way that the rule of the working people should be replaced by that of the former exploiters, the fascist capitalists and big landowners. Even now they continue to make so-called promises of liberation kept up in the United States, which mean in fact that they would like to re-impose on the liberated Hungarian people their former reactionary rulers. That is why we would be happy if the statements of the President were followed by corresponding deeds. For the time being, however, we have not observed any practical change in this policy towards us.
In his speech Eisenhower expressed his readiness to see the United Nations Organisation changed into the sort of institution which could effectively safeguard the peace and security of all peoples. Here again we must state that the facts tell a different story. The admission of our country to the United Nations Organisation has been prevented up to now primarily by the United States. Last year alone five times they rejected the compromise proposal of the Soviet Union to the effect that every country requesting admission, including our country, should be admitted to the United Nations Organisation. Therefore, in this respect also, we bear in mind the Hungarian proverb "promises are wonderful – it is deeds that prove their worth".
In his speech the President dealt with the armament race as if the leaders of the United States regretted most of all the fact that instead of schools, hospitals, and roads, they must turn out bombers and warships. For the sake of added emphasis, he enumerated what could be provided the civilian population for the cost of one or two of such murderous weapons. The only trouble lies in the fact that the American capitalists – and capitalists in general – do not produce primarily the goods most needed by the working masses, but the things which assure the greatest, the maximum profit for themselves. And war deliveries are the most profitable. Consequently, wars, including the cold war, rain gold for the war contractors, the merchants of death. I recently read an article written by an American college professor, who points out that during the two years following the outbreak of the Korean war the 100 biggest American corporations received military orders worth 44,000 million dollars. These huge firms, whose directors are today members of the American cabinet, obtain two thirds of their multi-billionaire incomes from these war orders. To show that this is common knowledge, I quote from an article by Mr. Hughes, a Member of the British Parliament, who wrote two weeks ago that whatever the Soviet Union should say or do for peace the ministers of war always would have their memoranda and expert opinions ready asserting that the West should keep on rearming; after all, their livelihood depended on the rumours of war; the same was true of the armaments industries ; the firms which had received lucrative orders for the manufacture of expensive, new weapons, would not like to see these plans altered; certain business circles in the United States as well as in other Western countries regarded as a veritable calamity any improvement in the international situation.
It is no wonder that following the serious peace proposals made by the Soviet Union, there was a 6,000 million dollar drop in two days on the New York stock market. The American capitalist newspapers write about a veritable "peace panic". "If Peace Breaks Out" – this and similar headlines feature the press. The merchants of death regard the conclusion of peace as just as much of a calamity as working men regard the outbreak of war. The facts indicate that, after all, the business executives of the capitalist countries are not so very eager to manufacture consumer goods for peace-time instead of murderous weapons of war. On the contrary. They fear that the conclusion of peace in Korea may cut off the bloodstained source of their incomes. Since Eisenhower's speech, some politicians of the United States have made new inciting, sabre-rattling speeches, which indicate that they do not want to take into account the desire of the peoples and of the whole world for peace. There is no doubt, however, that the bulk of the American people themselves demand a peaceful conclusion to the Korean war. "The Economist", the journal of the British capitalists, for instance, states in its May 2 issue of this year that American public opinion has never awaited the peaceful and successful conclusion of the Korean negotiations with the same expectations they display at present.
Testimony of the desire of the peoples for peace is the fact that today we read more frequently statements even in capitalist papers, which we would have sought for in vain a couple of months ago. The largest bourgeois paper in Britain, "The Daily Express", with a circulation of four million copies, for instance, writes in connection with the "Pravda" editorial that there could be no doubt that all people passionately yearned for peace, yet there should be doubt as to whether the present conduct and utterances of Western politicians, especially those of America, would lead to the averting of conflicts with the Soviet Union; the fear began to grow that these politicians instead of nurturing the first tender shoots of peace might trample them into the earth.
There are many signs, therefore, which indicate that it is growing increasingly difficult to continue the old imperialist tactic of preaching peace and preparing war. In the capitalist countries as well, the demand is becoming more vociferous for deeds for peace instead of "smart tricks" and "clever stunts". A number of elections which have taken place in recent weeks also indicate that the desire of the masses for peace is gaining momentum. In Japan, the Government which represented military preparations lost the elections. In Denmark the Government, which wanted to turn over airfields for American bombers was defeated. In the French municipal elections the Communist Party emerged victorious, and is now the first party in France. The parties which supported war preparations lost. The procrastination around the question of rearmament in Western Germany indicates similarly the growing desire for peace and the resistance of the West German masses.
Summing up, it can be said that thanks to the steadfast, consistent efforts for peace by the Soviet Union, the camp of the partisans of peace has grown stronger in recent weeks. The hope has grown that the pressure of the demand of hundreds of millions for peace will repel the fomenters of the cold war and the speculators on a new war.
What can we Hungarian working people do in the defence of peace, and to strengthen the peace camp? What is the best contribution we can make for the successful defence of our sector of the peace front? In our country everyone who does good work is directly fighting for peace. In the May Day parades thousands of our working people carried placards with inscriptions like "I am defending peace with my 150 per cent output!" "I am fighting for peace with my 220 per cent output!" These placards show that our working people know that with their good work they are not only raising their own living standard, not only promoting the progress and well-being of their country, but they are at the same time vigorously supporting the peace front. In the defence of peace – as in every good cause – the interests of the individual, and the great issues of the homeland and of human progress merge. We all become active fighters in the defence of our peace when in our own places, on our own jobs, we do our work well, fulfil and overfulfil the plan for the socialist construction of our country, are vigilant and counter firmly and resolutely all activities of the agents of the warmongers. We are working for the great cause of peace when we guard every achievement of the People's Democracy, when we combat lack of discipline, waste and complacency. We fight for peace when we strengthen our sincere, fraternal relations with our liberator, the mighty Soviet Union, the fraternal People's Democracies, and with every loyal soldier of the world-embracing peace camp, which is many hundred millions strong.
The People's Front election is a big battle in the struggle for peace. At this election we take a stand not only for the monumental projects, the great objectives of the second Five-Year Plan, the goal of which is the continued progress and flourishing of our country. This election is at the same time a plebiscite on behalf of our most important objective – the defence of peace. Therefore, the May 17 elections are not only the internal affair of the Hungarian working people, but also bear extraordinary international significance, primarily from the point of view of strengthening the peace camp. The enemy has followed with the keenest attention, with eagle eye the preparations for this election. They will follow the elections themselves even more closely and to them the elections and the voting figures will be an open book. If our working people will close their ranks enthusiastically under the banner of the People's Independence Front, if they will vote unanimously for the great cause of our better, socialist future and for peace, this will mark another victory for us and a serious defeat for the enemy. This victory will give new strength to the militants of peace at home and throughout the world.
The Hungarian people should keep this in mind on Election Day.
Hungarian mothers, Hungarian women, these loyal, enthusiastic soldiers
of our peace camp who have suffered so much from war and are ready for
any sacrifice for the defence of peace, should bear this in mind. The
substance of our life is creative peace! Our country is a land of
peace! The Hungarian people are a people of peace! Therefore, let the
entire nation unitedly, resolutely declare with their votes that they
shall continue to advance firmly on the socialist road of peace and a
better future, on the path they have followed up to now, and which has
brought them so many achievements. Let this election be a new milestone
of our peaceful socialist development, the source of new
victories, successes, and prosperity!
From Hungarian Bulletin
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