The Bridge at Andau

by James A. Michener

  He took his sealed boxcars right to the Austrian border, where he jammed on the brakes, flung open all the doors and shouted, “Over here is Austria. I’ll lead the way.” He and his deportees all made it to safety, but he left behind his train and its dazzling big sign: FOOD FOR HUNGARY FROM SOVIET RUSSIA.

  At no time did Austria close her borders to such refugees. Instead she welcomed them with a warmth that surprised Europe, for there were many reasons why it would have been prudent for Austria to reject Hungarians who were attempting to flee from communism. For one thing, Austria herself had only recently been freed of Russian occupation and there remained a real danger that the Soviets, on any flimsy excuse, might come storming back. Therefore, Austria’s bold offer of sanctuary to the revolutionists was a most gallant action. For America to accept Hungarians was mere charity; for Austria to do so could have been suicide.

  For many years there had been a good deal of friction between Austria and Hungary, the last war between the two nations having ended only recently, and tempers were customarily so touchy that Austria could have been forgiven for any lack of generosity. Instead, she accepted her Hungarian cousins as if she truly loved them.

  Finally, Austria is a small nation, with only seven million people and no great resources to share. Had Austrians been niggardly, they could understandably have refused charity to the revolutionists on the grounds that they had few spare goods to share. Instead, they shared them in abundance. For Austria to have accepted, clothed, fed and housed two hundred thousand refugees would be like the United States accepting about five million unexpected guests. We are a rich country, but five million strangers would tax our energies. Austria was not a rich country, yet somehow she made do.

  The impact of this torrent of refugees was felt most strongly in the ancient province of Burgenland (Land of Castles), where little Andau huddles near the eastern border. The farmers of Burgenland are not wealthy and the villages are not spacious. Yet it seemed as if every citizen of Burgenland opened both his heart and his resources to the refugees. Farmers with tractors trailed up and down the border roads, hauling women to safety. Farm wives reported to soup kitchens at midnight and worked till dawn. One night I stumbled accidentally into the tiny village of Pamhagen, southwest of Andau, where Burgenlanders were working like pack animals to process an unusually heavy flood of arrivals. At three o’clock in the morning the mayor of Pamhagen arrived in neat uniform, to greet each Hungarian. “We are glad to offer you our homes,” he said simply. The women of Pamhagen that night were taking off the muddy shoes and washing the feet of each new Hungarian.

  There were villages in Burgenland which had more refugees than citizens. There were schools which literally had sleeping Hungarian children stacked one upon the other. There were farmhouses in Burgenland which held twenty Hungarians to a room. Many communities across the world rise to unexpected and noble performances in times of emergency, but I have never seen anything to surpass the 1956 performance of Burgenland.

  To many foreign observers, the most extraordinary behavior was that of the Austrian university students. For sixty nights in a row these daring teen-agers combed the border bringing refugees to freedom. I myself could count from my own experience a dozen lives they saved, and I saw but little. Some formed patrols and probed deep into the swamps. Others tended night fires and still others watched the canal for drowning Hungarians. Their performance was in the greatest tradition.

  The charitable spirit that motivated Austrian behavior was well illustrated one bitterly cold morning when a friend and I were watching a swampy section of the border. An Austrian soldier was with us when we three spotted a large group of Hungarians who were apparently lost and trying to find Austria.

  Instinctively the three of us started running forward to aid them, and just as instinctively this young Austrian soldier stopped, pushed me in front of him and said, “Please, hide me. It’s better they don’t see for their first sight of Austria a gun.”

  It would require another book to describe in detail Austria’s contribution to freedom. I can express it briefly only in this way: If I am ever required to be a refugee, I hope I make it to Austria.

  I cannnot guess by what twists of history Hungary will regain her freedom. I cannot yet see clearly by what means the Russian yoke will be lifted from the necks of the Hungarian people, but I am convinced that in that happy day Hungarians from their new homes all over the world will send in their money—their francs, their dollars, their pounds Australian, and their pesos—to erect at Andau a memorial bridge.

  It need not be much, as bridges go: not wide enough for a car nor sturdy enough to bear a motorcycle. It need only be firm enough to recall the love with which Austrians helped so many Hungarians across the old bridge to freedom, only wide enough to permit the soul of a free nation to pass.

  *Editor’s Note: On this page, Mr. Michener refers to a photographer as “he”; this was done deliberately in order to conceal the identity of his companion in the episode described, who was actually Mrs. Georgette Meyer Chapelle. As this book was about to go to press, Mrs. Chapelle was still in a Hungarian prison, having been arrested on December 4, 1956, by a border patrol while she was on a scouting trip that took her deep into Hungary; and her name was left out of the text so that this book could not be used as evidence against her by the communist authorities.

  Mrs. Chapelle, known to her friends as “Dickie,” is an expert photographer and a veteran of many refugee flights. Before her arrest, she and Mr. Michener were often on watch together at the Austrian-Hungarian border, frequently on the wrong side of it. After an imprisonment of fifty-five days in Hungary, Mrs. Chapelle was released and reached Austria and safety on January 27, 1957.

  10

  The Russian Defeat

  The Hungarian revolution of 1956 was a turning point in world history. Of this there can be no doubt. Unfortunately, we cannot yet predict in which direction the road of communism will now turn, but it simply cannot continue in its old course. Perhaps Russian troops will have to occupy Hungary outright in an undisguised iron dictatorship, turning the land into a moral and economic desert. But on the other hand the Russians may find this policy too costly in men and money and may have to modify their grip on the land and permit some kind of autonomy and freedom to the Hungarian people. But whatever the new course, it is absolutely clear that Russia has lost a propaganda battle of critical proportions, and the extent of the loss cannot even now be estimated.

  There is a way, however, to understand how grievously Russia has been hurt. Imagine the total Soviet position as a lake over which a green scum of lies, propaganda, window dressing and deceit has been allowed to grow. This seemingly placid lake has for some years been held up to the world as the serene portrait of life under communism. Not only happy Russian peasants, but also happy Hungarians and Mongols and East Germans and Poles are supposed to have lived harmoniously under the deadly green scum.

  Before Budapest it was possible for Indians and Indonesians, Italians and Frenchmen to believe the fable that life in the Soviet lake was as idyllic as painted, for the surface was kept perpetually calm. Hungary, however, was a gigantic stone thrown into the middle of that lying lake, and waves of truth have set out from the point of impact. Now, as they move far outward toward the remotest shores of the lake, we can begin to see what life was truly like under the green scum. Here is what the great Hungarian splash revealed.

  First there was the shuddering effect upon Russia itself. The Soviets can no longer trust any satellite armies stationed along their borders. Not only will Rumanian and Bulgarian armies refuse to protect Russia. They will pretty obviously join the enemy. This probably also applies to the subsidiary armies in Central Asia. This is not only disheartening to the Russian leaders. It is positively frightening.

  Russia can no longer trust any of the satellite intellectuals whom she enlisted to build the outposts of her empire. In Hungary they not only failed to oppose the uprising; they led it. Intellectuals
in all the other satellites are waiting to do the same.

  Russia has lost her fight for the souls of young people. In perhaps no other nation along the frontier will youth give quite so astonishing an account of itself as it did in Hungary, but Russia had better be prepared to defend herself against young Latvians and Poles and Turkomans and Mongols.

  Russia’s most crushing defeat, of course, came at the hands of workers in heavy industries. Here everything held most dear by communist theoreticians was proved to be one hundred per cent wrong. One cannnot even imagine additional insults which the workers of Csepel could have heaped upon the Soviets. Here the Russian defeat will have incalculable results.

  Russia retained no support at all among women. It had preached oily and sanctimonious sermons about how only communism was concerned with the welfare of women—while at the same time it tormented and starved them—but apparently the women of Hungary were not fooled by such lies. When the test came they were also one hundred per cent against communism. Here the Soviets lost another major propaganda battle.

  Russia found little support among the peasants, who, along with the workers in heavy industry, were supposed to be the darlings of the new regime. In one area after another throughout Hungary peasants took immediate steps to dissolve their collective farms. A large majority apparently wished to revert to old-style systems in which a man owned his own land, while holding onto certain new-style innovations like the collective use of expensive machinery. And when the general strike was threatened, peasants agreed to produce no extra food which might find its way into Russian hands. This Russian defeat by the peasants must have choked the Kremlin.

  Russia found that it could not trust the ordinary police of a satellite nation, for well over three-fourths of Budapest’s police turned their weapons and frequently themselves over to the revolutionists. Only the AVO remained true to their Soviet masters, and that no doubt through a certain knowledge that their only alternative was death. They knew they had so corrupted the nation that the freedom fighters would refuse any compromise.

  Finally, Russia discovered in the Budapest defeat that her own troops, if stationed too long in an area of superior culture and enviable standard of living, will defect. Probably the military leaders of the Kremlin had suspected this before, since some of their procedures indicated such a fear, but now they know. Henceforth, every unit commander will have to suspect what his troops might ultimately do if forced to fight enemies whose guilt is not clearly agreed upon by all Russia and her satellites.

  These are stupendous defeats, but they apply only to Russia itself. Grave as they are, it is the second wave of effects, spreading out from the Hungarian disturbance and reaching all of the satellites, that could have the gravest consequences. Of the Soviet tactics for controlling satellites, every device except one has proved bankrupt. Cajolery, threats, purges and promises have proved equally futile. Only force can hold a satellite.

  As to promises, events in Hungary have proved how ineffective they are. Russia had a potentially rich ally which she governed ruthlessly. If she had been able gradually to relax her control and to provide real benefits, she ought to have been able to establish communism here. But the Hungarians grew so tired of windy promises of material goods and political freedoms which never came that revolution became inevitable. Now the other satellites must expect the Soviets to abandon the use of vague promises and to rely upon force, openly used for the rest of the world to witness.

  If the promises failed, so did the terror. Horrible as the AVO seems, it was probably no worse than the similar terrors in the other satellites, and probably less than the terror that operates in Russia itself. But if such terror failed to build good communists in Hungary, the other terrors have probably also failed, and we should expect to find in nations like Poland and East Germany not only a body of noncommunists, but also ardent enemies of communism whose determination has been strengthened by the events in Hungary. This also applies to Red China, a fact of enormous significance.

  Any potential nationalist leader in any satellite nation who studies the accounts of what happened in Hungary can probably conclude that the national army and the police in his country, too, will fight on the side of nationalists as opposed to their Soviet masters. This could be of great importance in helping potential revolutionists—if the world climate ever encourages them—to take the first steps against the Russians.

  It is difficult to see how any of the satellite peoples can ever again take very seriously Russia’s propaganda about the better life, the brotherhood of communist nations, and the gentle protective friendship of the Soviet Union. A much more realistic approach will be required. This also applies to the education of youth, the propagandizing of labor, and the nonsense handed out to national soldiers. Now Russia must stand forth to the satellites as the monster she is.

  The satellites will also begin to make cold, honest calculations as to what has happened to their resources under communism. One of the most important aspects of the Hungarian revolution was the open cry, “Russia has stolen our uranium from us.” Prior to the revolution a man would have been shot for such a charge, although it was often whispered within the bosom of the family. Now it is common knowledge, and in all satellites similar charges are going to be made, for Russia has been systematically and callously plundering her neighbors.

  Of great importance will be the satellites’ new attitude toward purges. Since 1945 the Soviet rulers of Hungary had decreed a really astonishing sequence of purges, which the Hungarian communists were forced to make believe they had themselves thought up. First the Trotskyites were assassinated, then the Titoists and national communists, then the Stalinists (at which time the already murdered Titoists were exhumed and told, “You were honest communists after all! We’re sorry we shot you. It was all a mistake.”). And finally anyone who could be termed a deviationist. All these purges accomplished exactly nothing, and it is doubtful that the satellites will continue to sponsor them. From now on, the Russians will have to do their own murdering.

  From this we can see that the basic structure of satellite society is under fire and will continue to be from now on. Russia will be faced with terrible decisions in regard to each of the satellite nations, and every decision will be either a defeat on the military-economic front (if she surrenders to satellite demands) or a defeat on the peace-propaganda front (if she moves in with her army to crush the satellites completely). Either way, Russia must lose.

  It is in the third wave riding out from the central splash, however, that Russia’s losses will be most severe. This wave reaches countries that might conceivably have gone communist, like Italy and France in Europe, India and Indonesia in Asia, and parts of Central Africa. It also reaches lands where there are vocal communist parties, such as Uruguay, Australia and Japan. And here the result of the Hungarian revolution is not a wave at all. It is a hurricane, and this is what its great storms disclose.

  If France were to vote a communist government into power, accompanying that government would be an apparatus of terror that would mutilate the country, corrupt every aspect of life, and humiliate the spirit of all Frenchmen, even those who had called it into being.

  If Italy were to choose a communist government, the economic life of Italy would steadily deteriorate, and the people who would suffer most would be the workers in big cities.

  And if either France or Italy were to choose communism, at the first moment when some leading party henchman felt his power slipping, he could call in Russian aid, and if Soviet tanks could get into the country, they would happily blow either Paris or Rome to rubble. That is the big lesson of Budapest. Russian tanks are willing to annihilate any city where there is protest. And if the tanks run into trouble, as they did in Budapest, we can expect that next time the heavy bombers will be called in.

  Russia’s greatest loss in countries where there was once a chance for a communist victory lies in the matter of popular support. Die-hard communists who hope to keep the reins o
f power for themselves will not be affected by the destruction of Budapest, which probably did not surprise them. But those wavering voters who might possibly have one day voted the red ticket will see clearly what a tragic price they would have to pay for their folly. The Soviet losses among such groups are already staggering.

  Communist parties in these nations are already beginning to lose many card-carrying members who cannot accept the mass murder of civilians. These once-faithful communists are stating that after what happened to Budapest they would be unwilling to have some ruthless local red leader impetuously call in the Russian tanks merely to preserve his own position. Already the defections of prominent leaders who can foresee the destruction of cities like Paris and Rome have hurt communism, and the list will probably grow when the full story of Budapest is known.

  Of special importance in Asia is the fact that in Budapest, Soviet communism finally disclosed itself as much more barbarous than the colonialism against which Asia understandably protests. Up to now Russian propaganda has been extraordinarily successful in portraying itself in Asia as the smiling big brother to a host of European satellites who lived with it in harmony and who loved its gentle friendship. Asia was constantly being asked by implication, “Why don’t you join our happy brotherhood?” Now the nature of such a relationship has been made clear.

  It is difficult to see how Russia can fool foreign nations any longer, or how it can enlist the support of sensible local patriots. It must now rely almost entirely upon those committed communists who are determined to take their nations into communism; the rest of the country will now combat such betrayal, for they have seen what it will mean. Russia has suffered a staggering defeat in the world battle for men’s minds.

  One of the reasons why Russia will be unable to peddle her poisonous propaganda in the future as successfully as it has been doing in the past is that the nearly two hundred thousand Hungarian refugees who have scattered over the face of the earth go determined to tell the world the story of what communism is like. I would hate to be a Soviet apologist in Detroit if some of the refugees from Csepel are in the audience. The effect of these two hundred thousand reporters will be tremendous, and as their stories are relayed from one American or Canadian or Australian village to the next, even such communist propaganda as has begun to take root will find it difficult to grow.