Message to Meeting on “Writers and the Hungarian Revolution” [1957]

IN COMMON WITH all liberal opinion, including what in the West is 10 least opposed to Communism, I am deeply shocked by the persecution of Hungarian writers that is being undertaken by the present Hungarian Government. Such persecutions are equally to be deplored whether they emanate from the Right or from the Left. After the fall of Bela Kun I joined in protests against the death sentence which had been pronounced by the then reactionary Government of Hungary on an eminent mathematician who happened to be a Communist. Although the Government at that time was about as illiberal as a Government could be, it gave heed to these protests and the mathematician was allowed to continue his work. I earnestly hope that Mr. Kadar’s Government will not 20 prove less amenable to considerations of liberal humanitarianism than the Government which established a reign of terror after the fall of Bela Kun. I hope this not only on the general ground of intellectual freedom, but because persecution of opinion by the present Hungarian Government promotes and perpetuates the hostility between East and West which is threatening mankind with extinction. I most earnestly hope that such considerations will cause Mr. Kadar and his coadjutors to abstain from a course which cannot but be condemned as one of petty malevolence.