The Way And The Aim
Hungarian National Socialist Martyr
Ferencz Szalasi
A selection from his Magnum Opus
UT ES CEL (THE WAY AND THE AIM)
Hungarism is an ideological system. It is the Hungarian practice of the National Socialistic view of the world and time spirit.
Not Hitlerism, Not Fascism, Not anti-semitism, but Hungarism.
Thus Hungarism means socialism, the tuning together of the moral, spiritual, and material interests of the I and the Us. It has set as its aim not the happiness of the particular privileged individuals or classes, but of the totality of individuals and classes. But Hungarism at the same time also means National Socialism, because it fights for the happiness of the most natural community of the people, for the welfare of the nation and through this of every working individual. Hungarism is not designed for the ‘mutilated country,’ neither is it merely the designed for the needs of the Hungarian people, but for all the nationalities who live in the Danube basin surrounded by the Carpathian mountains, who are worthy of a country and earth to grow roots in, and who, under the direction and guidance of the Hungarian people, and with them, compose the social, economic, moral, spiritual, material and political unity of the Hungarian nation.
Besides all this, Hungarism is the protector of all the members of its national family who are strewn all over the world and have been forced out of their country by the need to earn a livelihood. Its right and duty is their repatriation into the Great Fatherland.
Hungarism assures peace for the Hungarians and groups of nations living here, the Pax Hungarica, in the Carpathian Danube basin not only by giving a Fatherland and a home to the groups of peoples, furthermore by giving cultural autonomy (language, popular education, self-government and the self-determination of economic interest groups) all these are assured for them within its system of allegiance, but also it will sanction through popular elections based on free assertion of their will, the moral, spiritual, and material well-being of the national groups living within the Carpathian Danube basin under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian people . . .
The basis for this inner peace will be the workpeace of all working classes who live within the nation. This workpeace will maintain the inseparable national unity of the peasant who supports the nation, the worker who builds the nation, the intelligentsia who lead the nation, the soldier who defends the nation, and those bearers of our future, our national immortality: women and youth! Furthermore it creates:
1.The economic peace which proportionately divides the profits of labor and production between the factors of production, in order to abolish money capitalism and the hopeless misery of the working class.
2.Social peace which ignores privileged classes: feudal, clerical, and liberal capitalist ruling class, upper, middle and lower class, but rather the united socialist community of the workers; and
3.Political peace which does not mislead the political nation with selfish party interests, but in which a single leading political idea directs the community to ensure the welfare of the nation within the community of other European nations . . .
During history three totalities have developed, first successively and later parallel to each other and strengthening each other. Their common feature is that they demand unconditional obedience, each representing a most ancient government within a closed society. The oldest is the military totality. Later came the totality of the Church. And after that the economic totality of the leaders of the economic life – mainly Jews. Thus morality, spirituality, and material things have separately found their most typical representatives, they have progressed separately, but in their great decisions we always find them together.
In National Socialism, however, the fourth totality was born: the totality of the nation. This is the most perfect totality, because it can unite the others. The envious dwarfs have cast ill will upon the new-born Heracles. They have perceived the threatening fact that this great child can by himself unite, and fulfill their moral, spiritual and material beings which had, up to now, developed separately: the religious totality as a fact of national morality, the military totality as the armed nation, the totality of the private economy as National Socialist communal well-being. It follows that the fight between them and ourselves is inevitable. And it is indeed a fact that Italy and Germany, which pioneered in National Socialism, have been opposed by the three totalities, the enemies of national totality.
In the final development of the victorious National Socialist struggle, it is interesting to see how the separate fights resulted: the Church withdraws its political divisions from the fight and, keeping them in reserve for better times, it comes to terms; the armed forces are absorbed into the armed nation and come to their broadest fulfillment; and the totality of private economy is annihilated. . . . Thus, when we foresee the results of our own victory, we must remember that of the three totalities we can only expect understanding from the military totality, this being the one which really gains and attains its most perfect development with the victory of National Socialism. . . .
The past World War demanded immeasurable sacrifices from the opposing parties in human lives on the battlefronts and in material goods behind the front lines. The peace treaties which followed did not bring quiescence, merely armistice in which hundreds of thousands bled to death, and millions lost their daily bread.
Big capital having only gained in the war, wanted to continue its activities where it left off in 1914. The lords of big capital dared to believe that the enrichment which for some was the result of the war, bought by the blood and sufferings of millions, could not only be maintained but greatly increased.
Some military leaders understood the war. The peace had no experts. And while France demanded Gold payments from Germany of such magnitude that they exceeded the amount of gold in existence, the United States, forgetting the alliance, forced France into stiff payments. France could not fulfill her obligation, but could not transfer it either, and thus the whole world, creditor and debtor alike, was in an unsettled “pending” position.
National Socialism is the expert of peace, of everybody’s peace. Its executor: the Nation. One of the most important tasks of National Socialism is the just balancing of the inequality of fortunes, the abolition of the artificial obstacles that paralyze our economic life, and the prevention of the immoral amassing of fortunes based on abuses and called “extremely clever.”
We must not fear that the Hungarian National Socialist economy will harm the talent, the diligence, and the know-how of the nation, because it will only limit that extremely unjust process of getting rich which in its present form leads to an orgy of the degeneration of millions. The Hungarian National Socialist economy is inseparable from the Hungarian National Socialist moral and spiritual life; its aim being the material welfare of the community of the people. Thus our national economy and its every part is a means and not an end. . . .
We cannot bring our fight against the obsolete system of private capital to victory without solving the Jewish Question! The realization of the Hungarian National Socialist economic system and the solution of the Jewish Question are inseparable, one follows from the other, the two tasks are two sides of the same coin.
As a result of our successful work of enlightenment liberal private capitalism has little by little only Jewish followers left. In spite of this the objection is still, though ever more rarely, heard in intellectual circles – especially on the part of the leading intellectuals who have been forced upon the nation, that the solution of the Jewish Question by the “German system” would result for this country in upsetting the economic and financial order from one day to the next and that the country’s economy and finance could not survive this for a single day. Such a statement is either a fool-hardy lie or criminal stupidity which leads to the misleading, to the ruin, and to the death of the nation. Let there be an end, once and for all to the official superstition that Hungarian life without Jews is unimaginable. Truly, the Hungarian national community separate from the Jew. We shall solve the Jewish Question not according to a “foreign system,” since the totality of our National Socialist practice does not develop according to a foreign system, but according to our peculiar national circumstances and Hungarian national abilities.
It is true that the forcing of the forcing of the solution of the Jewish Question in the years 1919-20 would have bankrupted the country because of our isolation. Today however, our national economy can be transferred into Hungarian hands without a hitch, since almost every one of our neighbors is ruled by the National Socialist system. . . . It is also quite clear to us that in the purification of our economic life not only the solution of the Jewish Question is essential, but also the exclusion of the Christian Hungarians contaminated by the economic spirit of Jewry. These will have to be relieved and retired. We shall dare to do this because in our economic knowledge and economic abilities we shall not be guided by the spirit of Jewish morality, but by the life-force, resourcefulness and will for life of our Hungarian people. We shall continue with our indoctrination to ripen the majestic theories of Hungarian National Socialism for this transformation. Against those whom enlightenment cannot change, or those who use the slogans of socialism to play their obscene game of filling their pockets, we shall employ the whip. . . .
In the crystallization of Hungarism the “socialnational” is that ideological system which
– assures for every worker of the Nation within the Hungarian National Socialist brotherhood and community of faith employment and a living and thus creates for the workers of the Nation a secure and worker loving nation
– provides an ideological basis for the workers of all National Socialist states and communities of people for the appropriate fulfillment of their socialism and for its practical establishment
– safeguards, assures, and legalizes the obligation to work in the work-order, and the right to work in the national economy
– fulfills socialism within the body of the nation in its moral, spiritual, and material totality
– fights for a nationally conscious national community for the workers of the Danube basin surrounded by the Carpathian mountains, a community which is built on work, on right and on appreciation. . . .
The socialism of liberalism is capital socialism, the socialism of Marxism is state socialism, while the socialism of the socialnational is National Socialism. In liberalism the state serves the individual, the individual serves capital; in Marxism the individual serves the state and the state serves capital; while in the socialnational capital serves the state, the state serves the nation, and the moral, spiritual, and material interests and values of the national community serve without exceptions for the good and the benefit of its every member. . . .
The basic tenet of our national economic system:
Capital amassed by one man has a limit. Above this limit capital is not the fruit of ones man’s labor. The working nation has contributed to its amassing with production, the millions of the national community with consumption, and the state power by ensuring production, consumption and the enjoyment of profits by the will of the nation. Thus the Hungarian National Socialist state power has a right to exert an influence in the utilization, production, the enjoyment of the profit of capital communally amassed and to provide a just share from the blessed profits of the capital for the participants in such a way that this division of the shares should serve the community of the people through its material interests, its moral and spiritual interests as well. . . .
The Worker
The Worker is a nation builder.
The road to the peasant leads through nature to the worker through ideology.
Many forks of the road lead towards the peasant, every one of which can be travelled without the need to bury and annihilate the others. But to the worker, there are only two roads: the road of the old ideology, and the road of the new ideology. When one has reached its end the other will be destroyed by itself. This is the difference when the National Socialist Movement starts to tackle the two largest strata of our national community.
The road which leads to the peasant is by its nature more tactical, the road which leads to the worker is more strategic: thus the first can be conquered with practical weapons, and the second with spiritual weapons. This is the first basic law of our labor movement. We must make the peasant practice Hungarian National Socialism, and we must make the worker conscious of it, because after it has become evident he will practice it himself. This is the second basic law of our labor movement. From our point of view, the peasant is not an active factor, because he only accepts and fights for that which has already proven itself. . . . the worker . . . will fight to bring victory the to the ideology of which he has become inwardly conscious, in order to make it into a really practical system. It follows from this that every ideology has become victorious as soon as it has been accepted by the workers. . . . This is the third basic law of our labor movement.
The peasantry can be drawn into a new system in partial groups and slowly molded into the new framework. The worker breaks away voluntarily and consciously from the old ideology, annihilates it entirely, and throws himself with great elan into the new patterns that the ideology provides. He does not lose his strength even temporarily, on the contrary he increases it, because he knows, professes and believes that the new ideology as opposed to the old means greater strength for him. This is the fourth law of our labor movement. The inner and practical life of the peasant is outspokenly egocentric socialism, whose most fertile aspect is the socialization of the land. He cannot develop his socialism further. The inner and practical life of the worker is all-encompassing, and it includes the whole community of the nation. Thus the socialism of the worker is a folk and social socialism. This is the fifth law of our labor movement.
The working class is dissatisfied, and this is essential because of the bankruptcy of its Marxist ideologies. It had to be disillusioned with the system it believed in, from which it hoped, for which it fought, and from which it expected its welfare. It does not know what to do with the bankrupt mass of its Marxist ideology, which stifles and pushes it into moral, spiritual and material annihilation. It would not accept the Marxist ideology anymore, even if Communism were to reappear in our Fatherland. This is the sixth law of our labor movement, and at the same time the most important, because the knowledge of this provides our movement with an excellent fighting weapon.
The purpose of our Hungarist movement is to win over the Hungarian working class to the Hungarian National Socialist ideology. . . .
The Intellegentsia
The intellegentsia is the leader of the Nation and guides it. The road to the peasant leads through nature to the worker through the destruction of his old ideology. The road to the intellegentsia is through the restoration of its faith, of its self-esteem, and of the elevating awareness of a calling, through its inner and bodily rebirth.
We emphasize that by intelligentsia we do not mean only the bourgeois classes. They are only an element of the intelligentsia, within the collective idea of which belong all those who through conscious intellect have deserved the responsible direction and leadership of some community with their personal knowledge and action.
Thus the peasantry and the working class have their intelligentsia, just some layers of the bourgeois lack it.
Out of their intelligentsia comes the spiritual leadership of the life of the state and the nation. The Hungarian National Socialist state will draw from the circles of the intelligentsia the most important directive and leading organ: the national general staff. Our intelligentsia will rediscover its self-respect as soon as it becomes an organic part of our national community; responsibility will fall not merely upon technical elaboration, but on the essence itself which is called upon to solve and decide some questions that concerns the Nation.
We shall not educate “paperwork bureaucrats,” but leaders who are responsible to the nation, even in seemingly unimportant fields. To live for paperwork is worse than death; this is why the masses of the intelligentsia who were locked in offices were really living dead. They were for the greatest part letter workers, without any of the freedom that comes from self-sufficiency or from a concrete field of action, without the least pleasure or hope of satisfying the creative instinct which slept in their strength and lived in their hearts.
Letters are dead; only the spirit of letters is life. To fight for our Nation, for our people: this is the type of work from which spiritual and moral powers rise. Our intelligentsia will see that their work makes sense, and through their work, so will their lives. The intellectual will be freed from aimless accomplishments, from disillusioning uselessness, from the nightmare of impotent struggles and unfulfilled efforts which have been stifling him in the liberal past, smothering his manhood, his spirit, and his whole individuality. We are going to strengthen him spiritually and morally, so that, as he casts his eyes round the Hungarian horizon, he will be able to see clearly that the ideal for which one has to live and work is that of the people and the Fatherland. In order to fulfill its primary national function, the intelligentsia has to be nation-conscious and consciously socialist.
It should be our belief and conviction that the way shown here is the way of Hungarian life, Hungarian justice and Hungarian opportunity, but at the same time the only passable way for our other brother nations also whose existence or, nonexistence is closely and inseparably tied to our moral, spiritual and material existence or nonexistence.
We shall march on this road, because we know that our Hungarian people have an important and great calling which points to this road and in its aim stands the happiness, greatness and glory of our Nation!
FERENCZ SZALASI’S LAST WORDS AT HIS TRIAL, 1946
The Spirit is always stronger than all else. If Truth is the servant of life then Truth will be Victorious and not transient.
Two thousand years ago the belief of Truth was on earth, But He, Christ, was killed on the Cross.
This war was not won by anyone. The purpose of war is not to knock the weapon out of the hand of the fighting party, but that the following peace should be realized on the basis of everybody’s welfare and security.
I am convinced that the present events have not yet come to a close. Neither party has conquered. The great world question, the problems which came to the surface during the war, are still unsolved.
From the point of view of the fate which lives within me and from the point of view of the fate which lives within me and from the point of view of the new world, I always took such steps as according to my conviction were called for to serve the glory and happiness of the Hungarian Nation. . . .
On October 15, 1944, it had to be decided whether the Hungarian Nation and its leadership should move towards East or West. My decision could not be anything else, but that we must persevere; because by fighting we gained time, precious time and he who wins this time wins the war as well.
My activities had no other basis than this. It would make no sense to attribute a different reason to my decision, because I would come to total contradiction with that worldview to which I resolutely adhere. It was no crime that I proceeded, nor is it a crime now that I proceed with conviction. It cannot be a crime that I live for this cause with conviction!
I do not want to exempt myself from this responsibility and I do not try to escape from it. What has been said about me is untrue and severely touches my honour.
I thank everyone without exception who has followed me on this grave road. I thank the widows, the orphans, the heroic dead, the wounded, for the sacrifices they made for this belief!
