And by the 80’s if not already by the 70’s most of these regimes realized that trying to control the masses with super-kitschy songs about Mao swimming across the Yangtze or the like (I just remember that one in particular) wasn’t working. Rather they figured the masses would be more docile if they listened to vapid, meaningless pop music that emulated vapid, meaningless pop music of the West. There was NO “popular communist songs” of the 1980’s or even 1970’s. There might have been some hold overs from the 50’s and 60’s, sung as mockery and satire.

The way I remember it many dates were important PRECISELY because the system didn’t recognize them and that’s where the connection came from. The big riots and demonstrations in Poland of the early 80’s always happened on days that didn’t exist. Reading Kundera, Havel and others I get the impression that a similar thing was true closer to the Vltava. Don’t know as much about similar literature of the Danube though.

In Denmark, the spring of 1956 saw a major labour market conflict which the then leader of the Danish Communist Party, Aksel Larsen, used very skillfully to enhance his position and the position of his party. The DCP had won some political support during the later part of the German occupation but lost most of it again in the early cold war-era so gaining credibility as defenders of workers’ rights would be one way back to political relevance.

Here, you should know that Danish – as indeed all Scandinavian – Social Democrats and trade unions were fiercely anti-communist (they ran propaganda and intelligence offices directed against Communists in the trade unions) and the prospect of a strong Communist presence in the trade unions was seen as a real threat by leading trade unionists and Social Democrats.

But just as they were on a political roll, Larsen and the Communists were hit by a disaster: The Hungarian uprising (Nikita Khrushchev’s anti-Stalinist speech predated the labour market conflict and had already spread doubts among a number of leading Danish Communists).

Even when you leave aside the anti-Communist element, many Danes would find it easy to identify with the Hungarians: Small country (think: Denmark) being suppressed by big-power neighbour (think: Germany). Since 1940 Danes had been agonising endlessly over the handling of the German occupation – and they still are.

The Hungarian uprising was also the first mass-televised international event and aid for Hungarian refugees was organised through public radio and tv.

But back to the Communists: Their hopes of gaining a mass following were effectively destroyed after Hungary. In 1958, Aksel Larsen left the DCP to found an independent Socialist Party which has been an integral part of Danish politics since the 1960 election (since 1960, Denmark has always had a non-Communist left wing which was very strong in an European comparision: Leftist Social Democrats found a Socialist party more acceptable than a Communist).

In a European context one might say that the question of Europcommunism was “solved” in Denmark following the Hungarian uprising. (The Swedish Left Party is still agonising about its Communist past and only shed the label “Communist” in 1990, so there was nothing automatic about the process – but then the Swedish political history during the 1940s and 1950s also differs from the Danish). Except for a minor revival during the 1970s, the DCP faded into oblivion following the founding of the Socialist Party.

Of cause the Hungarian uprising didn’t cause the realignment on the Danish left but it – or rather: the way it was interpreted and used in the political debate – is an integral part of Danish political history in the 1950s which has also had lasting effects.

Sorry about the lecture but the point is: Given the right circumstances, political events in one country can have effects in another. But it’s a strange irony that Danes would probably have a more intimate relationship with the Hungarian uprising than the Hungarians do.

“Celebrated” or “Were supposed to celebrate”?

In a separate privat e-mail I will contact you, with full information.

Best wishes!