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PARTISAN REVIEW
senting himself as the defender of the working class. But this time the
maneuver miscarried. Some echoes of the social and political demands
made by the writers had somehow already reached the workers. Ha–
rangued by the Central Committee emissaries, the workers insisted they
wanted "to look into the matter a bit," and they demanded that texts
of the speeches by the incriminated Dery and Tardos be communicated
to them. Rakosi, unable to mobilize the faithful, failed to create a
favorable climate for the police measures he thought he could still
take against the authors of the disturbances.
The Soviets, it appears, advised him in the meantime to make
himself scarce. On July 17, Rakosi fell from power, as the result of a
compromise worked out between Stalinists who deserted his cause
(Gero) and the more moderate and pedestrian wing of "rehabilitated
Titoists." Immediately, the reshuffled Party leadership published a
resolution announcing its desire to accelerate the process of liberaliza–
tion. The new chief of the Cultural Department of the Central Com–
mittee, Jules Kallai, politely invited the writers-"now that the main
thing has been accomplished"-to return to their own field: creation,
and to leave politics to the professionals.
The writers responded to this appeal with a certain reserve. Be–
lieving rightly that the fall of the "Idol" was their handiwork, and
knowing that their audience in the country was growing, and that in
any case they were more popular if not more competent than the
leaders of the Party, they began to prepare for a National Congress by
way of emphasizing their independence. They went to the unprecedented
length of affirming that they stood ready to take over "cultural affairs
in this period of hiatus" while dealing with the Party
on a footing of
equality!
"They tell us: bring your debates to an end, just write some
good books," declared the poet Geza Kepes, the Secretary
pro
tem
of
the Writers' Union. "Our answer is: even while we were debating
violently, we wrote some pretty good things and we shall continue to
do so. But debate, participation in public affairs, is not only the right
but the duty of all citizens-writers included- in a socialist democracy."
Thus, the Writers' Congress held in September, which we have
mentioned above, was not only a professional convention but also a
kind of revolutionary assembly of Estates-General. Kallai there took it
upon himself to expound the "revised" point of view of the Party
leadership in matters cultural. The struggle of the writers against "dog–
matism," against "administrative direction" of intellectual life, was,
he said in essence, justified. Consequently, most of the measures taken
against "factious" writers had been declared void. Still others would
