Hungary Backs Multi-Party System; No Ruling Yet on ’56 Revolt

BUDAPEST, Hungary —  Communist Party chief Karoly Grosz said Saturday that the party’s leadership has endorsed a multi-party system but will continue to reassess a key chapter in Hungary’s history--the 1956 anti-Soviet revolt.

The Central Committee, split between hard-liners and reformers, ended a special two-day session aimed primarily at assessing the emotionally and politically significant revolt.

Grosz, who has said previously that a multi-party system in Hungary is likely next year, told Hungarian Radio that “the party has taken a stand that it accepts, takes note of and endorses a multi-party system.”

But the length and secrecy of the meeting indicated that the party was split over plans to share power with other parties, as well as over a host of other reforms.

Fifteen of the alternative political movements founded in recent months announced Monday that they will not enter a coalition government with the Communists, as some Communist Party reformers desire, unless the party revises its view of 1956.

Earlier, party spokesman Emil Kimmel told Hungarian Radio that the “various platforms” within the 108-member Central Committee “sought unity on the fundamental issues,” indicating a split.

The Central Committee meeting was called after Politburo reformer Imre Pozsgay shocked Hungarians in January by terming the 1956 revolt a “popular uprising.” It had been referred to for more than three decades as a counterrevolution.

The revolt began Oct. 23, 1956, with demands that Soviet troops leave Hungary. About 20,000 Soviet troops entered Budapest to quell the uprising on Nov. 4 and replaced the government.

When he referred to the revolt as a popular uprising on Jan. 28, Pozsgay said his reassessment was based on the report of a party commission investigating four decades of communist rule in Hungary.

The report has not been published, but Grosz said it will be. He also said Pozsgay’s comments were “too hasty.”