The Cardinal in Captivity.

REVIEW: ‘Memoirs’ by‍ József Cardinal Mindszenty

Faith requires ​not only inner assent to certain truths,​ but living⁢ those‌ truths ‍in community‌ with others.⁤ This‌ kind of communal living creates a history that one looks to ‍for guidance—and for the ⁣joy of remembrance and communion with the past. In other words, to be human requires a historical ​awareness and connection.

Yet the totalitarian movements of the 20th century each sought to create a new kind of being—one that could fully escape any connection to the past. But such ⁤an escape would require destruction. For József ⁣Cardinal Mindszenty—twice imprisoned by ⁤the Communists and once by ⁣the Nazis in ​his native Hungary—this was the ground where the battle with the two ⁤totalitarianisms ‍needed to be joined. As he put it in his installation address (as archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary)​ on September 16, 1945: “I wish ‌to be the conscience of my people. … Contrary to the errors that ​are now springing up, I proclaim to my people and my nation⁢ the eternal truths. I want to resurrect the sanctified tradition of our people.”

József Cardinal Mindszenty first published his memoirs ⁤in German and ⁤English ⁤in 1974. They were soon translated​ into many languages.‌ When ⁣the book’s ‍English language publisher MacMillan was subsumed under another larger​ publishing house, Memoirs fell out of ‌print. The scholar ⁣Daniel J. Mahoney, who penned an informative and ‍eloquent introduction for this handsome new edition by Ignatius Press,⁣ calls Mindszenty one of the “antitotalitarian titans​ of the twentieth century,” and readers ‍will ⁢have difficulty⁢ disagreeing with that assessment.

Readers with⁢ religious, political,⁢ and historical interests will find the book a feast. At‍ its center ⁣is Mindszenty’s show trial and subsequent eight-year imprisonment under the newly⁣ solidified‍ Communist regime. He‍ was savagely beaten, confined to a solitary cell, and at‌ one point‌ lost⁣ nearly​ half his body weight. We are given meditations on prison​ dreams, convict humor, haircuts, food, and the soul-shattering ‌stresses of monotony and loneliness. Mindszenty of course ⁢drew ​on his deep faith‍ to‍ survive and maintain‍ his‌ dignity. ‍”My religious life certainly suffered from my surroundings, but it was not destroyed,” he writes. “There was a great deal I lacked that I​ had earlier possessed, but many of my ⁣religious exercises became‍ all ⁣the more intensive.” ​His life of prayer flourished. Mindszenty is careful ⁢to acknowledge that while prison can lead to an intense spirituality, it can also ⁢”lead⁤ men away⁣ from God.” Tending ⁤to one’s soul in such circumstances is certainly not​ automatic, but with attentiveness and devotion,‍ spiritual growth is possible. He ‌quotes Dostoyevsky’s observation about prison in Siberia: “In prison, too, one ​can lead a great⁢ life.”

If the book were only this ​short prison diary, we would have a spiritual⁤ classic. Mindszenty ⁤delivers much‌ more. He is an acute ​analyst of Communist ideology—he brings⁢ a philosophic mind‌ to elucidate ⁤its core. And he spends much ⁤time and attention on Communism as a political movement: how it attains ⁤power ‍through force⁤ and fraud,‌ how it spreads its message and ‍gains followers, and how⁢ it maintains​ its dominance once ⁣in power. The Hungarian‌ history here is not well-known⁢ and has its commonalities⁣ and differences with other countries that suffered ​under the‌ Communist yoke. The infiltration and destruction of the multiparty political system by the Communists in the ​postwar years is a fascinating tale. Parts of this story will ​be familiar to ‌some with knowledge ⁢of Communist tactics but the details in the Hungarian case‌ are arresting nonetheless.

Mindszenty highlights the importance of a ​law that ⁤was passed in March 1946—before the Communist Party had solidified its dominance of the‌ political system. This so-called executioner’s law criminalized‌ actions that were deemed ⁣a threat to​ public order. During the summer of 1946 the “murder” of a Russian soldier⁤ was blamed on a Catholic youth organization and then used as a pretext for the dissolution ‍of all ​youth organizations.⁤ The Communist‍ Party pushed through a new electoral law in June 1947 that led to⁤ the disenfranchisement of nearly a million voters and the neutralization of ⁣competing political parties. The steady,​ deliberate destruction of religious education is also detailed in the Memoirs, culminating in the June 1948 ⁢law nationalizing close to 5,000​ schools. Mindszenty gives a vivid, unvarnished ‌account of the Communist path‍ to dominance.​ It is a playbook worth confronting for anyone interested in thinking about how political freedom can be lost.

Ignorance, credulity, ‍and⁢ naïveté all play crucial‍ roles in the rise of Communism according to Mindszenty. Sympathizers who are initially won over by social works of the party⁢ find ‍themselves increasingly susceptible ⁤to the grand promises ⁣of ⁣the ideology. “Drawing‍ on the experience of a century,” writes Mindszenty, “the spokesmen‌ of Communism have learned the nature of human wishful thinking and turn ⁣it ⁣to good⁣ account.” In‍ other instances, when the ⁢path ⁢necessary to the grand promises might prove unpalatable for many, party members craftily conceal their plans‍ and speak the language of Western liberal democracy, emphasizing rights and freedoms. ⁣But Mindszenty does not spare readers from what he concludes is the hard truth about the success of Communist‍ domination: “The Communist ideology⁣ can achieve‍ lasting effects only‍ where the religious foundations of a nation have‌ been ⁤undermined so that‍ reason, faith in God, and morality ⁤do not⁢ offer‌ sufficient resistance to such ideas.”

Memoirs concludes with a riveting chapter ⁤on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and one on Mindszenty’s asylum in‌ the American embassy in Budapest. The volume also ⁣includes over⁤ 80 pages of ​contemporaneous letters, sermons, radio addresses, and the like, which the editors‌ have wisely pegged to ⁢passages in the body of the‍ Memoirs. ‌Let’s hope this⁤ new⁤ edition reestablishes it as ⁢an anti-totalitarian classic with a‍ place on the shelf alongside Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, Whittaker Chambers’s Witness, and Czeslaw Milosz’s The Captive Mind.

Memoirs
by⁤ József Cardinal Mindszenty
⁤ Ignatius Press, 477 pp., $22.95

Flagg Taylor, a professor in the department of⁤ political science​ at Skidmore College, was editor, most recently, of The Long‍ Night of the Watchman: Essays by Václav Benda, 1977-1989, and hosts the Enduring Interest Podcast.