The Peace Movement in Eastern Europe
The Peace Movement in Eastern Europe

Summary/Abstract: Of course, there is hardly an independent intellectual or student peace movement to speak of in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, Hungary did hold its own modest experiment in November 1981. A ten-member peace group was set up at the student parliament of the Arts Faculty (of Budapest University) with the intention of organising a peace march for university and college students on the theme of multilateral disarmament. Its plan was to create similar peace groups in other universities which, in time, would establish a loose organisational network of university youth prepared for community action and ready to take responsibility. Their activity was viewed with strong suspicion by officialdom and was accompanied by an almost immovable dragging of feet. The plan to create sympathetic peace groups in other universities did not get anywhere, and it proved impossible to organise the peace march. After this failure, the peace group that started it disbanded, leaving in its wake the lesson that this sort of initiative cannot be fought through to the end without exceptional determination.

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