Sixteen Political, Economic, and Ideological Points, Budapest, October 22, 1956
RESOLUTION ADOPTED AT PLENARY MEETING OF THE BUILDING INDUSTRY TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY'
Students of Budapest!
The following resolution was born on 22 October 1956, at the dawn of a new period in Hungarian history, in the Hall of the Building Industry Technological University as a result of the spontaneous movement of several thousand of the Hungarian youth who love their Fatherland:
(1) We demand the immediate withdrawal of all Soviet troops in accordance with the provisions of the Peace Treaty.
(2) We demand the election of new leaders in the Hungarian Workers' Party on the low, medium and high levels by secret ballot from the ranks upwards. These leaders should convene the Party Congress within the shortest possible time and should elect a new central body of leaders.
(3) The Government should be reconstituted under the leadership of Comrade Imre Nagy; all criminal leaders of the Stalinist-Rdkosi era should be relieved of their posts at once.
(4) We demand a public trial in the criminal case of Milidly Farkas and his accomplices. Mdty-ds Rdkosi, who is primarily responsible for all the crimes of the recent past and for the ruin of this country, should be brought home and brought before a People's Court of judgment.
(5) We demand general elections in this country, with universal suffrage, secret ballot and the participation of several Parties for the purpose of electing a new National Assembly. We demand that the workers should have the right to strike.
(6) We demand a re-examination and re-adjustment of Hungarian-Sovict and Hungarian-Yugoslav political, economic and intellectual relations on the basis of complete political and economic equality and of non~intervention in each other's internal affairs.
(7) We demand the re-organization of the entire economic life of Hungary, with the assistance of specialists. Our whole economic system based on planned economy should be re-examined with an eve to Hungarian conditions and to the vital interests of the Hungarian people.
(8) Our foreign trade agreements and the real figures in respect of reparations that can never be paid should be made public. We demand frank and sincere information concerning the country's uranium deposits, their exploitation and the Russian concession. We demand that Hungary should have the right to sell the uranium ore freely at world market prices in exchange for hard currency.
(9) We demand the complete revision of norms in industry and an urgent and radical adjustment of wages to meet the demands of workers and intellectuals. We demand that minimum living wages for workers should be fixed.
(10) We demand that the delivery system should be placed on a new basis and that produce should be used rationally. We demand equal treat ment of peasants farming individually.
(11) We demand the re-examination of all political and economic trials by independent courts and the release and rehabilitation of innocent persons. We demand the immediate repatriation of prisoners-of-war and of civilians deported to the Soviet Union, including prisoners who have been condemned beyond the frontiers of Hungary.
(12) We demand complete freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of the Press and a free Radio, as well as a new daily newspaper of large circulation for the MEFESZ [League of Hungarian University and College Student Associations] organization. We demand that the existing 'screening material' should be made public and destroyed.
(13) We demand that the Stalin statue-the symbol of Stalinist tyranny and political oppression-should be removed as quickly as possible and that a memorial worthy of the freedom fighters and martyrs of 1848-49 should be erected on its site.
(14) In place of the existing coat of arms, which is foreign to the Hungarian people, we wish the re-introduction of the old Hungarian Kossuth arms. We demand for the Hungarian Army new uniforms worthy of our national traditions. We demand that 15 March should be a national holiday and a non~working day and that 6 October should be a day of national mourning and a school holiday..
(15) The youth of the Technological University of Budapest unanimously express their complete solidarity with the Polish and Warsaw workers and youth in connexion with the Polish national independence movement.
(16) The students of the Building Industry Technological University will organize local units of MEFESZ as quickly as possible, and have resolved to convene a Youth Parliament in Budapest for the 27th of this month (Saturday) at which the entire youth of this country will be represented by their delegates. The students of the Technological University and of the various other Universities will gather in the Gorkij Fasor before the Writers' Union Headquarters tomorrow, the 23rd. of this month, at 2.30 P.m., whence they will proceed to the Pálffy Tér (Bern Ter) to the Bern statue, on which they will lay wreaths in sign of their sympathy with the Polish freedom movement. The workers of the factories are invited to join in this procession.
Source:
From Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, UN General
Assembly, Official Records: Eleventh Session, Supplement No. 18 (A/3592) p. 69.
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© Paul Halsall, November 1998
