[Dean's World] Celia Farber: What They Said: Jessica Mitford on Hungarian Uprising 1956

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Posted by Celia Farber:
What They Said: Jessica Mitford on Hungarian Uprising 1956
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1200850696.shtml


   The "Queen of Muckrakers," Jessica Mitford's book of letters,
   published last year, contain a rare glimpse into the cold Communist
   soul. I was assigned by the New York Post to review the book, and so
   carefully read all 723 pages. It's hard to dislike this particular
   British Upper Class Communist because she was so funny, brilliant as a
   writer and social sketcher, and yes, because she had a true fighter's
   soul. She fought many battles well, primarily, (like most Communists,
   to their eternal credit, in the Civil Rights Movement.) She is hailed
   as one of the greatest journalists and muckrakers that ever lived, and
   cited as a heroine by people like J.K. Rowlings.

   Jessica, aka "Decca" Mitford enjoyed a lifetime of fame and admiration
   not only for her writing and muck raking talents, ("The American Way
   Of Death" etc) but also for her staunch repudiation of her Nazi
   sympathizing family. One sister, Diana, married the founder of the
   British Fascist Party (Sir Oswald Mosley) and went to prison with him.
   Another, Unity, was a devout Hitler groupie who shot herself in the
   head the day Britain went to war against Germany.

   When, in 1955, Decca saw her mother's calendar note to herself
   "Mosley's to lunch," Decca responded: "I told her that Dink & I would
   not be present since we do not care to break bread with murderers. She
   got very cross ("your own sister" & all that sort of thing...)"(pp
   161)

   (Oddly enough, my own father, Jewish, had Sir Oswald Mosley on his
   radio show in the 1970s when Mosley was promoting a book. His way of
   registering offense was what he refers to as "subtle sarcasm only
   southerners understand:" Unfailingly polite throughout the interview,
   after the show, at 2 am, he took the old Nazi to Katz Jewish deli and
   ordered pastrami sandwiches. The joke was lost on Mosley, who
   apparently said, "Oh! We have this in Britain. We call it
   silverside.")

   Returning to Decca's objection to murder, one is suitably impressed,
   until one gets to the pages of her letters in the autumn of 1956. I
   actually knocked the book off the table when I read this:

   Dated Nov 14, 1956, ie days after the thousands of students, workers,
   women, and even children had been slaughtered by Soviet tanks and
   troops in the streets of Budapest, Decca wrote to her Hungarian mother
   in law, Aranka Treuhaft:

   "Incidentally, I find little agreement among my friends about it. I am
   pretty sure that the revolt was originated by workers and students
   with most justified grievances. Why couldn't we see signs of this
   while we were there? I don't know." (pp 167)(NOTE, MITFORD WOULD NEVER
   HAVE PASSED SERGE LANG'S "HUNTINGTON TEST" WHICH IS A TEST, APTLY
   NAMED AFTER SAMUEL P HUNTINGTON, DESIGNED TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER
   SOMEBODY IS ABLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN "A FACT AND A HOLE IN THE
   GROUND.")

   The letter continues: "We thought there was a high degree of unity
   around the regime. Sure there were privations and hardships, but it
   seemed to us that people were not only better off than before (Ed: !!)
   (On Bob's observations, from previous trips) but that above all the
   youth and children were benefiting enormously and were far better off
   than those in Austria, France, etc. (!!) However, the revolt and the
   continuing general strike would indicate that economic grievances of
   the people are extremely deep seated. Not to speak of their demands
   for National independence, symbolized by demands for return to
   Hungarian flags, uniforms etc and an end to compulsory Russian courses
   in the schools. However, I also gather from the news releases that the
   rebels were quickly joined by fascists and that a "white terror" was
   being established."

   Wait for it...

   "Because of this, I think in the long run, the interests of the
   Hungarian people are best served by entry of Russian troops."

   (Italics mine)

   Blithely, tut tut-ing in a breathtakingly vapid British manner, the
   great pity that Hungary was already under Soviet "authoritarian
   regime," Decca concludes that they should suck it up and stop causing
   trouble. The Russians, she reckons, "had no alternative but to try to
   restore order and to preserve a socialist system in Hungary against
   what looks like a fascist coup."

   "Does this make sense," she girlishly wonders.

   Only if you are a deranged British Upper class member of the Communist
   Party, blind in both ears, with granite for a heart, and nobody ever
   telling you you are a fulminant freak of nature.

   Why is it so hard to hold a gold standard? What use was Decca's
   lifelong crusade against oppression, racism, murder, lunacy, Naziism,
   her own family--when she was unable to condemn an open slaughter in
   the streets of a people seeking only the most elemental freedoms?

   If Jessica Mitford is the left's heroine of journalism, they are even
   more tragic than I gave them credit for. She was funny, and she was
   talented, sometimes blazingly, but she was unable to tell a fact from
   a hole in the ground.

   Do we, all of us, have blind spots the size of the Ukraine? Do we only
   see injustice and pain and murder on those places where we are able to
   see it because it fits our politics?

   I have to calm down.

   The Hungarian Uprising (aka revolution) of 1956 is a near sacred
   historical subject in my family.

   I'll tell you why another time.