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Arrests in the Fog. Even Kadar's radio had to admit that the "workers' movement has never seen such a strike." That night there were many arrests. In the swirling fog, lanced by armored-car head lamps, the blue-clad police and steel-hel-meted Russian infantry cordoned off Bu dapest and went from street to street, door to door, demanding identity papers. In their gloved hands they held lists of names of wanted persons: members of the workers' councils, journalists, writers, poets, intellectuals who had backed the revolution and helped keep Hungary informed of events. That night the sound of a woman wailing as her man was taken away, or the sob of relief as a man went free, could be heard in any street. In some last desperate effort to hold power, Kadar (some said with Russia's Secret Police Boss Ivan Serov at his elbow) was destroying his last bridge with the people.
The only sanctuaries left in Budapest were the factories where armed workers stood guard. At one factory, Central Council Chairman Sandor Racz, called "The
Boss" despite his 23 years, was protected by bodyguards whose hands never left their weighted pockets. But now that the impact of the strike was being felt, people everywhere were saying, "What more can we do?" Their hatred for Kadar and the Russians had not diminished, but they had to eat, to find coal, panes of glass. There was no doubt in Racz's mind about the next step. Emerging from his factory sanctuary, he went, with Sandor Bari, to Parliament House, on Kadar's invitation "for consultations." That night the radio announced the arrest of Racz and Bari.
Racz had not gone innocently to his fate. Before he left the factory, he gave a statement to Italian Newsman Gabriele Benzan to be printed in case of his arrest. The government, said Racz, "is aware that the country is not behind it. It realizes that the only organized force in Hungary is the working class. Therefore, it aims at dismantling the workers' front. But the government will never succeed in crushing the will of the workers. The workers are prepared to die to defend their ideals."
Under Kadar's martial law, to die was the least Racz could expect.