1 This article is a condensation of a much more detailed study written for the Special Seminar on The Problem of Hungary (Government 362A) of Columbia University in 1958. Those who took part in this seminar were the first to go through the completed mass of interview material accumulated after the Hungarian revolution of 1956 by the Research Program on Hungary of Columbia University. All statistics included below are based upon my research in this material. Each interview will be cited by number, when it is used as a specific reference.

2 George, Counts S., The Challenge of Soviet Education (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1957), pp.45–47.Google Scholar

3 Hugh, Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1956), p. 282.Google Scholar

4 William, Juhasz, “Education”, Hungary, Ernest Helmreich ed. Published for the Mid-European Studies Center (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), pp. 193–94.Google Scholar

5 Joseph, Somogyi, L'Instruction Publique en Hongrie (Geneve: Bureau International d'Education, 1944), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

6 William, Juhasz, Blueprint for a Red Generation (New York: Mid-European Studies Center, 1952), p. 56.Google Scholar

7 Interview # 610, p.2.

8 Interview # 601, pp. 3–10. See also # 505, p.10.

9 The responsibility for action in disciplinary matters was shared by a student board, controlled by the DISZ, and the Dean. Neal, Buhler and Stanley, Zuchowski, Discrimination in Education in the People's Democracies (New York: Mid-European Studies Center, 1955), p. 39.Google Scholar

10 Special interview made by E. Murray with Student A on July 21, 1958, p. 5 (in private files).Google Scholar

11 Interview # 412, p.6.

12 Interview # 107, p.23.

13 Interview # 412, p.13.

14 Interview # 601, pp.5–7.

15 Ibid., pp.3–4.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., p. 8.

18 Juhasz, “Education”, op. cit., p. 204

19 In 1948 there were 1,555,770 men and women between the ages of twenty and twentynine whereas in 1955 there were only 1,528,629, a difference of 27,141 people. United Nations, Demographic Yearbook–1956 (New York: United Nations Statistical Office, 1956), p. 160.Google Scholar

20 Interview # 608, p.39.

21 Seton-Watson, op. cit., p.273.

22 L'Office Central R.H. de Statistique, , Statistique des Etudiants des Ecoles Superieures Hongoises en 1930–31 (Budapest: Stephaneum Nyomda R.T., 1932), p. 43.Google Scholar

23 See Interview # 457, p. 11 and # 509, p.3.

24 Of the seventeen students in our interviews who had been expelled from an institution of higher education for political reasons or by fact of class origin, thirteen were expelled between 1949 and 1951.

25 Interview #561, p. 6.

26 Interview # 115, p. 22 and # 214, p. 32.

27 See Counts, op. cit., pp. 144–46.

28 Interview # 561, p.5.

29 Ibid.,P.7.

30 Ibid., p.18.

31 Ibid., p. 7.

32 “Speech by Matyas Rakosi to the Third Congress of the Hungarian Working People's Party,” New Hungary, Vol. 4 (June–July, 1954), p. 71.

33 It is interesting, however, that the Attila Joszef University which was established as a Night School in 1954 with the primary purpose of providing workers with the possibilities for further education, had in its first year enrollment of 4,300 students only 500 workers. Juhasz, “Education,” op. cit., p. 200. It is possible that the Part Time Universities and Correspondence Courses serve as the catch-all for those who are unable to continue their education elsewhere and have an overproportion of those refused admission to the universities for political reasons or class origin.

34 Interview # 501, pp.26–30.

35 Interview # 561, p.17.

36 Interview # 505, p.11

37 Interview # 213, p.65.

38 Interview # 226, p.59.

39 Most university students had only four hours of Marxism-Leninism a week but those in the Economics University and Lenin Institute had six hours per week.

40 Even in 1955 a professor reports that it was the visiting Russian agricultural expert who had the last word to say on the value of a new Hungarian invention, a weeding machine. The Russian was heard to say, “We no longer have weeds in the Soviet Union and in three or four years time you will not have in Hungary either. Therefore the machinery is superfluous.” Interview # 412, p.16.

41 Juhasz, Blueprint, p.16.

42 Student A, op. cit., p.2.

43 Interview made by E. Murray with Dr. William Juhasz on May 3, 1957. In Elinor, Murray, “The Student in Communist Hungary” (Term Paper for Government 162, Columbia University, 1957), p. 46 Google Scholar (unpublished).

44 Interview # 115, p.24.

45 Interview # 218, p.18

46 Murray, op. cit., pp. 16–18.

47 n 1952 and 1953 the Ministry of Education published lists of over 700 pages of “antiquated books” which were not to be circulated in Hungary. One student who was well acquainted with the town librarian reports that the librarian estimated that in that library only 1/3 of the books were allowed to circulate. The other 2/3 were forbidden. Ibid., pp. 27, 61.

48 Interview with Student F, ibid., p.52

49 Interview with Student G, ibid., p.54

50 Interview # 560, p.8.

51 Interview # 561, p.16.

52 Ibid

53 Interview # 501, p.30.

54 Interview # 112, p.51 and # 213, p.46.

55 See Interview # 107, p.31.

56 Interview # 226, p.45.

57 Interview # 106, p.6

58 Interview # 211, p.19

59 Interview with Student F, Murray, op. cit., p.50

60 Interview # 508, p.5.

61 Interview # 206, p.4.

62 Interview # 408, p.8.

63 Eighteen of the thirty-eight university students who were interviewed by the Research Project mentioned this

64 Interview # 101, p.12.

65 Interview # 213, pp.45, 47

66 Interview # 217, p.39.

67 Interview # 229, p.35.

68 Interview # 228, p.42.

69 Of the twenty-seven students who were asked about friendship patterns, fourteen mentioned close friends who they had known before entering the university, eleven had established close friendships while at the university and two had no close friends

70 Interview with Student F, Murray, op. cit., p.50.