INDEPENDENT RESOLUTIONS

The 7^th June would appear to be a day of resolutions for independence.

Lee Resolution

R.H.Lee

On the 7^th June 1776, Richard Henry Lee, delegate from Virginia to the Continental Congress, proposed a resolution at the second Continental Congress. He put forth the motion: Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. The motion was seconded by John Adams and adopted on the 2^nd July 1776 by 12 of the thirteen colonies, with only New York abstaining.

On the 7^th June exactly one year apart, two men were travelling on trains, one of whom was arrested and the other thrown off. On the 7^th June 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the ‘whites-only’ car of a train. His legal challenges resulted in the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy –v- Ferguson resulting in a ruling supporting the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ citizenship. See blog entry 18 May 2011. A year later on the 7^th June 1893, whilst travelling on a train in South Africa Mohandas K Ghandi was forcibly ejected from a first-class compartment and thrown off the train at Pietermaritzburg, even though he had a first class ticket. He viewed this as his moment of truth and his campaign of civil disobedience (satyagraha) began.

Ghandi 1895

Homer Plessy

On the 7^th June 1905, the parliament of Norway broke the personal union with Sweden under the House of Bernadotte. In early 1905, the then prime minister, Christian Michelsen, formed a coalition government consisting of liberals and conservatives, whose only stated objective was to establish a separate Norwegian corps of consuls. The law was passed by the Norwegian parliament. As expected and probably as planned, King Oscar II refused to accept the laws, and the Michelsen government resigned. When the king declared himself unable to form a cabinet under the present circumstances, a constitutional crisis broke out on 7 June 1905. The Norwegian position was that the impasse had resulted in a de facto dissolution of the union.

The text of the unanimous declaration, remarkable for the fact that the declaration of the dissolution was an aside to the main clause, read:

The Norwegian Storting passes the "revolutionary" resolution

Since all the members of the cabinet have resigned their positions; since His Majesty the King has declared his inability to obtain for the country a new government; and since the constitutional monarchy has ceased to exist, the Storting hereby authorizes the cabinet that resigned today to exercise the powers held by the King in accordance with the Constitution of Norway and relevant laws - with the amendments necessitated by the dissolution of the union with Sweden under one King, resulting from the fact that the King no longer functions as a Norwegian King.

Norway considers 7 June to be the date that it regained its independence, even though Norway had possessed the legal status of an independent state since 1814, so not exactly shattering but clearly momentous for the Norwegians.

Imre Nagy

The 7 June also marks the birthday of a man who effectively gave his life for the independence of his country. Imre Nagy (7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People’s Republic of Hungary on two occasions. After two years as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People’s Republic of Hungary (1953–1955), during which he promoted his "New Course" in Socialism, Nagy fell out of favour with the Soviet Politburo. He was deprived of his Hungarian Central Committee, Politburo and all other Party functions and on 18 April 1955, he was sacked as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Nagy became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People’s Republic of Hungary again, this time by popular demand, during the anti-Soviet revolution in 1956. Soon he moved toward a multiparty political system.

On 1 November, he announced Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and appealed through the UN for the great powers, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, to recognize Hungary's status as a neutral state. Throughout this period, Nagy remained steadfastly committed to Marxism; but his conception of Marxism was as "a science that cannot remain static", and he railed against the "rigid dogmatism" of "the Stalinist monopoly".

When the revolution was crushed by the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Nagy, with a few others, was given sanctuary in the Yugoslav Embassy. In spite of a written safe conduct of free passage by János Kádár on 22 November, Nagy was arrested by the Soviet forces as he was leaving the Yugoslav Embassy, and taken to Snagov, Romania.

Subsequently, the Soviets returned him to Hungary, where he was secretly charged with organizing to overthrow the Hungarian people's democratic state and with treason. Nagy was secretly tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in June 1958. His trial and execution were made public only after the sentence was carried out. According to Fedor Burlatsky, a Kremlin insider, Nikita Khrushchev had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries.” He was buried along with his co-defendants in the prison yard where the executions were carried out and years later moved to a distant corner (section 301) of the Municipal Cemetery of Budapest, face-down, and with his hands and feet tied with a barbed wire. M During the time when the Communist leadership of Hungary would not permit his death to be commemorated, or permit access to his burial place, a cenotaph in his honour was erected in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

In 1989, Imre Nagy was rehabilitated and his remains reburied on the 31st anniversary of his execution in the same plot after a funeral organized in part by opponents of the country's communist regime. Over 100,000 people are estimated to have attended Nagy's re-interment. 1989 was a landmark year in the history of the cold war. The Berlin wall came down on the 9^th November.

My parents ashes are also buried in the Municipal Cemetery of Budapest. They too, were good communists. Following is a Hungarian Film "The Unburied Man" about the life of Imre Nagy. This is part 1 or 9 - follow the links on you tube for the rest.