Extracts from a confidential report from Josephine McNeill
to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
'Visit to Austria'
(A 240-1) (Confidential)

[matter omitted]

II. Situation in Hungary
According to my informants the situation in Hungary was still chaotic and confused at the time of my visit. The Kadar¹ Government was without authority or control. The Russians had lost face and did not know how to get it back. The insurrection in Hungary was not only anti-Russian but also anti-Communist. It was blind and instinctive and without any clear objective as to the social and political structure that would succeed Communism.
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The Poles are no less an explosive people than the Hungarians – in fact I was told the saying is going round Poland at present that ‘the Hungarians are behaving like Poles’ –nevertheless they are being well held in leash by Gomulka,² as is generally said but with more truth perhaps (as was said to me by State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Kreisky)³ by Gomulka on the one hand and by Cardinal Wycinski on the other, both of whom are working with admirable statecraft in close co-operation (according to Kreisky) despite their different viewpoints towards an orderly advance of the Polish people to freedom.

The Hungarian revolution was of an explosive character more difficult to control. Nevertheless Imre Nagy⁴ was not equal to the situation. In Vienna the opinion was generally held that his appeal to the United Nations to recognise Hungary as a neutral state and his declaration of the withdrawal of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact cut off all possibility of negotiations with the Russians and left the latter with no alternative but the adoption of repressive military measures.
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IV. Conclusions
In general the situation in eastern Europe is regarded as being still extremely dangerous and the opinion prevails that while Russia in this region is in greater difficulties than anybody else, this fact in itself offers a great danger as regards world peace and is not an unmitigated source of consolation.

Russia is in difficulties as regards (1) the satellite states in which the defection actual and potential has not only shattered her prestige as the leader of world Communism but actually also endangers her own security. To quote Foreign Minister Figl⁵ – Russia cannot go to war in Europe because the satellite armies would prove to be all ‘partisan armies’ and in the event of war would turn their arms against Russia. She is therefore at the moment in a position of considerable isolation. She has found no solution for Hungary; she would gladly settle for a Polish solution with the other satellite states but this is absolutely dependent on the order and evolution of events and with so many explosive elements in the situation the road to orderly solutions may be barred and blocked. Not even America views with composure the present isolation of Russia. The USA Ambassador in Vienna pointed out to me that Mr. Dulles twice recently in public statements had emphasised that America does not want the satellite states as ‘allies’. This was to reassure the Russians, he said ‘who do not understand that we want freedom for the satellite states for its own sake and not for an ulterior motive’.

There was a good deal of talk in Vienna of the establishment of a belt of neutral nations from the Baltic to the Balkans as a possible way out of the present impasse. This would find favour in Austria as her long-term dream of playing a predominant part in the countries of the Danube region might in such circumstances stand a chance of materialising.

V. Russia and the East
Russia is in difficulties in the East because the blow to her prestige in Europe is a blow to her prestige in the East where she had so successfully posed as the friend of the rising eastern nationalisms. Foreign Minister Figl stressed the fact (in his talk with me) that Nehru had already shifted his ground. Many of my diplomatic colleagues pointed out that China would fill the gap of Communist leadership in the East left vacant by Russia. China would fill the gap with all the greater effect as China was a Bandung power which Russia never had been.

China is now defending Russia as the leader of world Communism but what China is really defending is the Communist idea. Events in Eastern Europe have destroyed the basis of Russian leadership of world Communism. The emergence of China in importance was emphasised by many Vienna colleagues and the American Ambassador referred to it also and said ‘it was not ruled out’ that if China made some concessions as regards prisoners etc. to US …, the latter would not also find a modus vivendi with China which would permit the latter to enter UNO and discuss matters of common interest with the USA.

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