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RADIO FR 6UROPERADIO LIB6RTY

RADIO FREE EUROPE ^iuareh

RAD Background Report/98(Eastern Europe)7 June 1989

BLOODY REPRESSION IN CHINA EVOKES CONDEMNATIONAND FEARS IN HUNGARY

by Alfrd Reisch

Summary: The brutal military repression inBeijing of unarmed students who wanted politicalreforms and democracy in China was promptlycondemned by the Hungrin mdia, independentyouth groups, and other organizations andpartieSf as well as by at least two leadingproreform politicians and a number of localparty organizations. At the same time, therewere obvious fears that the bloody move mightencourage Stalinist, conservative elements stillpresent in Hungary to use force to restore orderand "rel socialism" there.

Strong Media Coverage and Reaction. The brutal use ofmilitary force gainst unarmed Chinese students and othercivilians in the night of June 3 received immediate andobjective coverage by the Hungrin mass mdia. Radio Budapestspoke on June 4 of a bloodbath and massacre, in which thousandsof people lost their lives as soldiers fired indiscriminatelyint the large crowd of students demonstrating for democracy.The radio's Beijing correspondent als reported the officialChinese version that the armed forces had put down a "so-calledcounterrevolutionary rebellion" aimed at overthrowing thegovernment and had "saved socialism."1Quoting Chinese sources, Radio Budapest noted that this hadbeen the bloodiest mass killing in modern Chinese history,something that previous Chinese regimes and evn the Japanesewhen they held Beijing during World War II had never done. The

repression was said to have been ordered by the top Chineseleader, Deng Xiaoping, after the Chinese CP's reform v ing hadbeen weakened by the removal of Secretary-General Zhu, Ziyang.

This materil was prepared for the use ofthe staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

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RAD BR/98 2(It should be noted that the Chinese have not admitted that anychanges have been made in the leadership, although speculationabounds about who is in control in Beijing, with Radio Budapestevn suggesting the possibility of a military takeover.) RadioBudapest als gave a prominent place to Western and Far Eastern(primarily Japanese) reactions deploring and condemning theChinese military action, the condemnations by the Italian andFrench Communist Parties, and the candid coverage by the Polishmdia.

On June 5 Hungrin Television condemned the "mass murders"in Beijing and spoke openly about the possibility of similar"operations" in other socialist countries in case of a victoryby the conservatives in China. The television commentator EndreAczel said that the "murderers in Beijing are true followers of'order'" and that there were many people with similar viewselsewhere. "Those who kill in the name of order when historyhas already overtaken them," Aczel said, had not learned fromthe mistakes of the pst. Aczel said that Deng Xiaoping'sbloody methods and atrocities could not solve China's problemsand only showed what kind of "reserves antireformers in thesocialist countries still possess."2Editorials Condemn Military Repression. In an editorialentitled "Beijing Drma," the daily of the Patriotic People'sFront (PPF), Magyar Nemzet, wrote on June 5 that the Chinesearmy had extinguished not only thousands of young lives but alshope. Referring to Chinese Premier Li Peng's claim that"inciting and interventionist activities" by the USA were behindthe student mass movement in China, the PPF daily said thatdetails being currently revealed about Hungary's recent pst(that is, the events of 1956) showed what serious crimes couldoccur when political adversaries were branded as "agents offoreign powers" and were executed. There had already beenmillions of such victims in the international communistmovement, and those now murdered in Beijing had to be added tothem, the editorial said.Magyar Nemzet wrote that no economic success could beachieved without democracy and freedom and that while DengXiaoping had undertaken economic reforms, he had rejected socialand political change in favor of rule by a corrupt, alienated,and privileged party-state. In a clear allusion to formerHungrin party leader Jnos Kadar, the article said that "oldage can be a bad adviser" and that it was wiser for a trulygreat statesman to rtire at the height of his success andpopularity rather than delay the chc^ging of the guard. Citinga recent analysis by Deng (reprinted in the South China MornlngPost),3 in which he had alluded to the influence on the Chinesestudents and public of the political reform process under way inPoland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union, Magyar Nemzetasked whether the Chinese leader had thought of the consequencesof his decision to use military force. Hungary nad als

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3 RAD BR/98experienced a "reconsolidation" after the Rkosi era but at avery high price. Today, China was in mourning; but the demandsof the students and young people, who comprised the vastmajority of China*s 1.1 biliion inhabitants and who who wanteddemocracy and freedom, would become evn more radical, theeditorial concluded.

Als on June 5, Npszabadsg, the daily paper of theHungrin Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP), expressed horror atthe bloody events in China, saying that Hungary had learned fromits own history that "weapons cannot solve any problems but canonly kill." The government daily Magyar Hrlap was stronglycritical of Deng, who had called the Soviet Union and Hungary"centers of the ideas that the Chinese students let themselvesbe influenced by." In an editorial by Viktor Palfi entitled"Bloodbath," Magyar Hrlap of June 6 strongly condemned the"fundamentlist wing" of the Chinese leadership, which had notlearned from the pst and wanted to sav socialism by turningthe military against its own people. Ali the acts committed inpst decades against the Chinese people, from Mao's "great leap"and the cultural revolution to the bloodbath on TiananmenSquare, had been made in the name of socialism; and the peoplewould one day present the reckoning, Palfi wrote. The articlecondemned the "maniacal clinging to power" by the "foundingfathers" of the Chinese Revolution and the resulting bloodbathin Beijing, and it squarely rejected the claim that there hadbeen a counterrevolution in China.

A Chorus of Protests Against the Use of Force. As could beexpected, Hungary's youth organizations promptly condemned theactions in China. The leadership of the Association of YoungDemocrats (FIDESZ) expressed its shock and sorrow and urged theHungrin government to condemn the Chinese CP publicly. Itals called on the US to cancel the China*s most-favored-nation(MNF) trading status and announced that it would hold a protestdemonstration on June 7 in front of the Chinese Embassy inBudapest. The Hungrin Democratic Youth League (DEMISZ), whichrecently replaced the former Communist Youth League, called theevents a tragedy not only for the Chinese people but als forall those who wanted to transform the socialist system bypeaceful means. Guns aimed at unarmed people and the instrumentof fear could not ensure any democratic progress based onreforms, DEMISZ said.4In a very strong condemnation of the bloodshed, theAssociation of Free Democrats, an independent group, called onthe HSWP to distance itself from the events in China, which weresignificant from the viewpoint of the fate and future ofdemocracy in Hungary. According to Ottilia Solt, an AFD councilmember, the events in China should show Hungary that aprecondition for a political solution to the country's problemswould be for the HSWP to renounce the possibility of using forceand, as a first step, to condemn the Chinese CP. At a meeting on

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RAD BR/98 4June 5 the PPF Presidium decided to send its Chinesecounterpart, the Psople's Political Consultative Body, an openletter expressing its shock at the bloody events in Beijing andits conviction that the use of force and weapons could not solvesocial and political problems in any country in the world. Evnthe long-ineffectual National Peace Council expressed shock atthe events in Beijing.

By June 6 a growing number of local chapters of suchindependent organizations as the Hungrin Democratic Forum, theIndependent Smallholders' Party, the Youth Movement of theSocial Democratic Party, and the Association of HungrinPioneers, as well as local HSWP organizations, were condemningthe use of force in China and calling for joint demonstrationsto denounce the use of force under the pretext of defending the"interests of socialism" and were expressing their resolve toprevent once and for all a similar use of force in Hungary. w

First Official Statements Condemn the Use of Force. Notsurprisingly, two of Hungary*s leading reform politicians werethe first to comment on the events in China. Speaking at apress conference on June 5, HSWP Politburo member and Ministerof State Imre Pozsgay said that what was happening in China didnot discourage the Hungrin reformers. Power could not bemaintained by force and a society based on force could notfunction, Pozsgay said.At the sarne press conference, Hungary's newly appointedForeign Minister, Gyula Horn, a member of the HSWP CentralCommittee, said that the events in China were "extremelydeplorable" and showed that radical reforms could besuccessfully carried out only under peaceful conditions. Horncalled the events in Beijing a "horrible tragedy," because aninexcusable crime had been committed against thousands ofpeople. He als worried about the political consequences, ^namely, that repression would strengthen those who favoredcoercive measures rather than reform in China. Horn said thatthe basic lesson for Hungary was that the reform process had tobe carried out evn more vigorously to establish legal

guarantees and constitutional institutions that would preventthe use of such coercive methods. He felt that the tragicevents in China had to make Hungarians, especially thoseextremists who would go so far as to use force to reversereform, realize the terrible consequences of using weapons.This was particularly important in view of the forthcomingreburial of former Prime Minister Imre Nagy, which, he said,should strengthen national reconciliation.6As a first official move, the Hungrin Foreign Ministryadvised everyone planning to travel to China to postpone histrip. Som 20 Hungarians students in Beijing were taken to theHungrin Embassy when rumors began to spread that the militarywould enter the university. The approximately 60 Hungrin

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5 RAD BR/98citizens in Beijing were told to stay at home; and a decision toevacuate dependents, as was done during the Cultural Revolution,was still pending.The HSWPStill Studying the Situation. In a statementgiven on June 6 to Npszabadsg, Gza Kotai, Head of the HSWP CCDepartment for Party Relations, said that the party still didnot have "sufficient information" to evaluate precisely thesituation in China. As soon as such detailed information becameavailable, he said, the HSWP would decid what stand to take onthe events in Beijing.7

In the meantime, several party organizations have alreadymade their own views known. For the Vas County HSWP Committee,the bloody events in Beijing showed that a national consensusabout how to deal with Hungary's current crisis should beachieved by political means and that dictatorial means at a costof lives could not be used. The Sopron Municipal HSWP committeeals categorically rejected any attempt to solve politicaldifferences by force. At a meeting of the Budapest HSWP ReformCircles called by the city's HSWP Committee, Gyrgy Szanto, amember of the Reform Circles' organizing committee, red a draftstatement that was approved by an overwhelming majority of thosepresent. The Chinese leaders had committed an "historicalmistake," it said, by using force against students demandingreforms. The Budapest Reform Circles expressed support forFIDESZ's demonstration at the Chinese Embassy but warned that noviolence should be allowed to occur there a few days before thereburial on June 16 of former Prime Minister Imre Nagy.8

Fear Among the People. The average Hungrin, alreadyworried about the sad state of the national economy and thepossibility of chaos or a rollback of the reforms, was certainlynot cheered by the tragic and bloody developments in China. OnJune 5 a Radio Budapest reporter spent an hour interviewingpassers-by in Budapest. Almost all of them expressed horrormixed with bitterness and fear. "I am afraid that this willbecome the example to be followed in the socialist countries,"said one man. Another expressed the fear that the events inChina could provide encouragement to "som Stalinist, far-Left,blind people" in Hungary; yet another said, "this is probablythe only way to achieve socialism in China and can als beexpected in Hungary."0 Pter Polonyi, an Hungrin expert onChina, told Radio Budapest on June 6 that the events in Beijingcould not be an example for advocates of a hard line in Hungaryto follow but should, in fact, act as stimulus for moderation toall political forces in Hungary and not as an excuse either tostop or to precipitate reform.

Assessment. It remains to be seen whether the public willbe reassured by statements such as those by Pozsgay and Horn.Hungarians have already learned from coverage in the mdia ofthe USSR's somewhat ambivalent official reaction (Izvestia andTASS used the official Chinese claim of a counterrevolution,

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RAD BR/98 6while reform advocate Boris Yeltsin called the move "a crimeagainst the people" and likened it to the use of military forcein April in Georgia). A Soviet television reporter appeared torelay a somewhat different story from Beijing, and the man inthe street in Moscow was reacting very much k e those inBudapest but talking about Tbilisi rather than 1956. RadioBudapest has als reported East Germany's strong approval of theChinese repression of a "counterrevolution" as well as theoverall studied silence sparce comments of the Czechoslovakmdia, which contrasted sharply with the lively Polish andYugoslav mdia coverage and comments. A protest demonstrationin East Berlin and a condemnation by Czechoslovakia's Charter 77movement were als reported by Radio Budapest on June 6.

In all , Hungarians have every reason to be apprehensive ata time when the fate of their own reform has not yet been fullydecided. With conservative forces calling for law and orderlurking in the background and the party leader Karoly Groszstill expressing views that do not fully agree with those of theHSWP's reform wing,10 the political balance remains a delicateone; and a setback to the reform in China could very well haverepercussions in the Soviet Union and in other reformingcountries as well. On the other hand, v/ith a major nationalprotest movement developing over the latest events in China ,Hungary*s reformers may gain additional support in their effortsto make sure that a similar tragedy does not happen again intheir country.

*

1 Radio Budapest, 5 June 1989/ noon. The correspondent Mikls Lengyel wasnearly shot by soldiers when he went out on June 6 to buy bread. For adetailed report on the students' hunger strike at Tiananmen Square, seeJzsef P. Szab, "The Drma of Beijing," Orszag-Vlag, 31 May 1989.2 See AFP (Budapest), 5 June 1989.3 The analysis, in which Deng accepted economic reform while rejectingpolitical reform as "incompatible with socialism," was summarized inNpszabadsg and Magyar Hrlap, 2 June 1989.4 Radio Budapest, 5 June 1989, noon; and Magyar Nemzet, 6 June 1989.5 Magyar Nemzet, 6 June 1989.6 Radio Budapest, 5 June, 4:00 P.M. and 10:00 P.M.7 Ibid., 6 June 1989, 10:00 A.M.8 Ibid., 10:00 P.M.9 IJbid., 6 June 1989, 7:00 A.M.

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7 RAD BR/9810 Radio Budapest (5 June 1989, 2:00 P.M.) summed up a Stuttgarter Zeitungeditorial about possible effects of the events in China on other socialistcountries. Since economic modernization required political openness, the

article said, Deng was bound to lose in the long run, despite his bloodyvictory on the weekend. Only time would teli whether other socialistleaders, such as Gorbachev, Jaruzelski, and Grosz, would be able to solvepeacefully the "contradiction between preserving and sharing power."

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