Budapest Legation Files: 711.9 Peace Treaty
Memorandum by the Secretary of Mission in Hungary (Squires) for the Secretary of State73
While the conclusion of a peace treaty along the lines of the current Soviet proposals would not be as disadvantageous in Hungary as in Bulgaria and Rumania, it would serve to make improbable the early development of a realistically democratic national government.
The American and British declarations in recent weeks have served to strengthen the position of those Hungarian political leaders opposed to the Communization of Hungary. Those leaders are now, for the first time since the Russian occupation, losing the sense of physical and spiritual isolation which has frozen their will to resist the Communist drive.
The awakened spirit of those men and the possibility that their rebirth will develop into effective political action marks the first hopeful sign that the final and complete Communization of Hungary can be halted. The dictatorial drive of the Communist Party for full and unhampered control of Hungary has been checked but not blocked.
This favorable trend is directly attributable to the recent American and British declarations on Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria. It is a true measure of the sensitiveness of the Hungarian political scene to external influence. It is a trend which would be halted in its tracks by any indication that the United States is prepared to accept a Soviet-designed treaty of peace for Hungary.
As an indication that this trend has real meaning, it may be mentioned that there is every indication that the suggestion, made in the Department’s telegram 341 to Budapest,74 is about to be accepted. The [Page 870] Department in this telegram pointed out that it would be willing to suggest high-level consultation to the Governments of Great Britain and Russia on the development of a truly democratic regime in Hungary, provided the request for such consultation came from the Provisional National Government of Hungary.
The first revelation of the contents of this telegram to the Prime Minister led to no categoric action. It is known that while Miklos longed to take advantage of the opportunity, his desire was more than balanced by his fear of immediate Soviet retaliation.
In subsequent days it was possible for Mr. Schoenfeld to reveal the implications of the Department’s telegram to several high-placed personalities in the government and the political parties, notably Tildy, Leader of the Small Holders. In the interval, the trend set off by the American and British declarations had gained sufficient strength to cause even the hesitant Tildy to recommend to the Prime Minister that high-level consultation on Hungary’s future be “suggested” to the three Allied powers.
It would indeed be unfortunate if, at a moment when the non-Communist Hungarian political leaders are finally gathering sufficient strength and courage to take effective action, their hands were to be tied and their spiritual isolation renewed by American acceptance of a peace treaty which would strengthen the Communist position in Hungary.
The effect of replacing the present Armistice Agreement by a treaty of peace based on a rewording of pertinent provisions of the armistice would also produce the unfortunate result of eliminating, through the abolition of the ACC, an important agency for the presentation of the American viewpoint within Hungary.
While the ACC has certainly been less than effective in the past, there is evidence that its future course may lie closer to actual tripartite consultation on matters of policy. Even at the worst, however, so long as the ACC continues to function, the United States has at least a vested interest in the fulfillment of the obligations of the Hungarian armistice.
For all practical purposes the Soviet proposal, as outlined in the preliminary announcement, would replace the present arrangement in which the United States has, through the ACC, at least the right to consultation and consideration of its views with a bilateral “armistice agreement” in which the Soviet position would be not only dominant but exclusive.
If the American view that the development of a democratic government in Hungary is essential to European peace is to be attained, at least the machinery for the attainment of such a form of government must be in reach before the status quo is stamped “approved” by the signature of a treaty of peace. If the controls and the American [Page 871] right to participation in those controls are removed before the machinery is in view, let alone in operation, the principal point of pressure for a free election and the development of a democratic government will be removed.
While this consideration is not so vital in the case of Hungary as in Bulgaria and Rumania, it retains sufficient validity to make the signature of peace along the lines of the Soviet proposals an illogical step. Although the present Hungarian government retains a greater illusion of democratic procedures than those in Rumania or Bulgaria, the illusion is as unreal as it is apparent.
The steps towards full control of the government and nation by the Communist Party have been more adroitly planned and better disguised than in Rumania and Bulgaria, but they are nonetheless present:
- 1.
- The political police, under the direction of Minister of Interior Erdei, are already taking steps to throttle opposition in the forthcoming elections. This has not yet proceeded as far as the actual imprisonment of opposition party leaders but has taken the more subtle approach of incarcerating and discrediting those to whom the voters will look for guidance. Especially in the rural areas and small towns, the natural leaders of the people, if suspected of a non-Communist viewpoint, are held and imprisoned on minor charges. The resulting error is described by observers as more acute than anything experienced under the German or Arrow Cross regimes.
- 2.
- The removal from the cabinet of “reactionary” elements has already replaced the most active non-Communist party leaders with Communist stooges. The absence of Valentiny and Vasari, for example, has both lowered the level of ability and power of resistance of the non-Communist bloc within the cabinet. That bloc, which showed signs of shaping into an effective check on Communist plans, quickly disintegrated following the removal of Valentiny and Vasari.
- 3.
- The elimination of Valentiny both from the Ministry of Justice and his dominant position within the Social Democratic Party is symptomatic rather than casual, typical rather than an isolated incident. There is every evidence that the Communist program in Hungary calls for the careful and quiet elimination from the political scene of every leader in opposition to the total Communization of the country. Here again the steps are less drastic and more subtle than in Bulgaria or Rumania. The plan in Hungary calls for the destruction of the power of the opposition rather than the physical elimination of the leaders.
- 4.
- The recently announced decision of the Social Democrats to submit a single slate of candidates with the Communists in the impending Budapest municipal election points to a further step in the Communist campaign to eliminate the political opposition in Hungary. [Page 872] This campaign has not been waged in the open but it has been eminently successful. Of the five parties of the Hungarian Independence Front, the Social Democrats are committed to a single slate of candidates with the Communists, at least in the municipal election, while the National Peasants may in a measure be considered the rural branch of the Communist Party. The campaign to replace the Citizens Democratic Party with representatives of the labor unions would, if successful, leave the Small Holders as the only non-Communist party in the Independence Front.
The effect of a treaty of peace at this time along the Lines of the Soviet proposals would be to confirm the development of the situation along the lines indicated above and to throttle the developing right-center opposition to the final Communization of Hungary.
Increasing evidence can be adduced to show that a cleavage between right and left, a cleavage which would pass through the center of the Social Democratic Party, is increasingly possible. This cleavage, if it develops, might conceivably produce two factions of sufficiently equal strength to implement a free election. On the one hand would be the Communists and the National Peasants, with a fraction of the Social Democratic Party. On the other would be aligned the major portion of the Social Democrats, the Small Holders, the Citizens Democrats and a considerable bloc of both leaders and voters not now affiliated with any of the five “front” parties.
Such a unification of the right with its resulting strength could not but have effective value in implementing free elections. Neither this trend nor the other favorable signs in the Hungarian political scene can be expected to develop, however, if the Communists are allowed to carry out their program of intimidation and force, an almost inevitable consequence, at least in my opinion, of the type of peace inherent in the present Soviet proposals.
- Mr. Squires arrived in London on September 13 to work with the United States delegation at the First Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers in London. According to Squires’ memorandum of October 11 to Schoenfeld (a portion of which is printed on p. 886) Squires prepared this memorandum for the Secretary of State after having studied a copy of the Soviet proposals for a peace treaty with Hungary (C.F.M. (45) 4, September 12, 1945, vol. ii, p. 147).↩
- Dated August 23, 1945, p. 854.↩