RONALD RADOSH
390
press, the rule of law by constitution, and separation of the Party
and the state. Indeed, one can walk into the well-stocked Budapest
bookstores and see window displays of a few books paying
homage to the murdered Premier Imre Nagy; Orwell's
1984,
Koestler's
Darkness at Noon,
as well as for balance, books by Perry
Anderson, editor of the British
New Left Review.
Unlike Poland,
where the bookstores seem required to stock the obligatory com–
plete works of Lenin, there is little Marxism-Leninism to be
found. The newsstands in Budapest all offer for sale
The
International Herald-Tribune, Time,
and
Newsweek ,
as well as
Le
Monde
and other European papers. And although highly deriva–
tive, the Museum of Modern Art at the Heroes and Martyrs'
Square is a vivid and striking space, filled with everything except
socialist realism.
Travelling to Poland and- Hungary, then, is in the current
period an exhilarating experience. Years ago, when the hold of
Stalinism on the peoples of Eastern Europe seemed to be an om–
nipresent force that would last forever, the fate of Poles, Czechs,
and Hungarians seemed to be one of those determined outcomes
ofWorld War II that one had to accept. But now, due to the brave
and often ingenious devices of the once beleaguered opposition,
two of the Eastern European peoples, at least, seem on the verge of
a new dawn. Journeying by train to Hungary, our small group
had some trouble with Czech border guards. The Polish officers
tried to help, warning us, as one of them put it, that the Czechs
"are still crazy Communists. " But as we have read, Vaclav Havel
has been freed from prison, and Alexander Dubcek arrived at his
home to meet with him, Western press in tow. One can go so far
as to hope, perhaps, that even that madman Ceausescu in
Romania will one day be in the position Janos Kadar now finds
himself. An impossible dream? Ten years ago, one would have
said the same about Poland and Hungary.
