Há 55 anos, na Hungria... - a criação de Conselhos Operários

Revolutionary and Workers’ Councils

62. Most of the available Soviet forces had been dispatched to Budapest and, meanwhile, there was comparatively little fighting in the provinces. Here, the first days of the uprising saw a transfer of power from the Communist bureaucracy to the new Revolutionary and Workers’ Councils. In most cases, these Councils took over without opposition, although some incidents were reported during this process. These Councils represented a spontaneous reaction against the dictatorial methods of the régime. The Revolutionary Councils took over the various responsibilities of local government. There were also Revolutionary Councils or Committees in the Army, in Government departments and in professional groups and centres of activity such as the radio and the Hungarian Telegraph Agency. Members of the Councils were usually chosen at a meeting of those concerned. They were intended to prepare for the setting up of a genuinely democratic system of government. The Councils also put forward various political and economic demands, calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, free and secret elections, complete freedom of expression and the abolition of the one-party system. The most influential of these bodies was probably the Transdanubian National Council, which represented the people of Western Hungary. Using the Free Radio Station at Győr, this Council demanded that Hungary should renounce the Warsaw Treaty and proclaim her neutrality. Should its demands not be accepted, it proposed to set up an independent Government.(21)

63. The Workers’ Councils were set up in a variety of centres of work, such as factories, mines, industrial undertakings and so on. They also put forward political demands and wielded considerable influence. However, their principal purpose was to secure for the workers a real share in the management of enterprises and to arrange for the setting up of machinery to protect their interests. Unpopular measures, such as that of establishing “norms” of production for each worker, were abolished. The emergence of Revolutionary and Workers’ Councils throughout Hungary was one of the most characteristic features of the uprising. It represented the first practical step to restore order and to reorganize the Hungarian economy on a socialist basis, but without rigid Party control or the apparatus of terror.(22)

[relatório da ONU - páginas 21-22]