Matyas & His Little Lamb

It looked like a magnificent mulatsdg.* In Budapest's carnival-bright streets, workers danced the csdrdds and the rumba, while youngsters jitterbugged. In parks, tents had been set up for the distribution of goulash and other delicacies; beer flowed as fast as it once did at Tammany picnics. Communist Boss Matyas Rakosi had ordered weeks of countrywide fun and frolic to get the voters into the proper mood for Hungary's national elections. As in all such well-run Communist affairs, there was no opposition; the communist "People's Independence Front" presented a single list of candidates.

The Communists worked hard to get a "popular mandate" for their "People's Front" government. They concentrated their biggest efforts in staunchly Catholic Transdanubia where prayers are still openly said for the health of jailed Cardinal Mindszenty. Paunchy (280 Ibs.) Father Istvan Balogh, suspended by his church and long in favor of collaboration with the government (TIME, Feb. 14), raced over back-country roads in his light blue Studebaker, campaigning among the peasants, who dread the Communists' plans for collectivization.

At the town of Celldb'molk, the Reds organized a huge picnic rally. One morning 55 flower-decked trains brought 150,000 peasants. Special Organization Guards (in blue shirts and red ties) led them into the park, kept the applause going 15 minutes after Boss Rakosi himself arrived. A peasant woman kissed him on the cheek, presented him with a white lamb. Said she: "Anybody who is not going to vote for the People's Front has no more brains than this little lamb."

Despite all the preliminary rowdedow, the country was subdued on election day. Theoretically, the ballot was secret, but few voters used the booths set aside for them. To vote "Yes" (i.e., for the People's Front), the voter simply had to drop an unmarked ballot into the box. But if he wanted to vote "No," he had to make a cross on the ballot. Thus only "No" voters had any reason to walk into the booths; the names of those who did could be carefully noted. By midafternoon, on election day, eligible voters who had not appeared at the polls found typewritten notes under their doors: "Dear voting citizen: We have established that you have not voted by 2 p.m. We request you to carry out your patriotic duty by 8 p.m. Sincerely, 'People's Front.' 5:

Equally sincerely, two days later, the government announced the results, which surprised nobody: 96.5% of the voters had cast their ballot for the Communist regime. The People's Front bowed to the duly expressed will of the majority. The Reds folded their goulash tents and sent their brass bands home. The mulatsdg was over.

* Pronounced moolah-chag. Hungarian for binge.

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