Hungarian Revolution (1956): Difference between revisions

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== Background ==
The '''Hungarian Revolution of 1956''' was the largest anti-Stalinist rebellion in history, with rebels successfully topping the Hungarian government and the revolution was only started by an invasion where the USSR came from. It's also where the term "tankie" comes from, indicating someone who supported the USSR's crushing of the rebellion.
The revolution had several major causes, namely:
* Low living standards, which had dropped 17-20% between 1949 and 1953 as a result of an idiotic 'Five-Year Plan' devoted to heavy industry and steelworks in a largely agricultural country with no iron ore or coking coal. Similarly, the imposition of co-operatives on unwilling peasants led to
<nowiki> </nowiki>fall in their meagre incomes, and 1952 saw the worst ever yields in
Hungarian agriculture. Official statistics revealed that while 15% of the population was above the 'minimum' standard of living, 30% were on it and 55% below. A day's pay for a state farm worker wouldn't buy a kilo of bread; in 15% of working-class families not everyone had a blanket; one in every five workers had no winter coat.
* As a result, this created a rebellious culture where people would regularly steal from their jobs, scamming people and not going to work.
Following the [[East German Uprising (1953)|1953 uprising in East Germany]],


Workers and peasants went beyond theft, absenteeism and what the MDP
== Events ==
leadership liked to call 'laziness' and 'wage-swindling'. The third
banner in the official procession on May Day 1953 proclaimed "Glory to
the immortal Stalin, star which guides us towards freedom, socialism and
<nowiki> </nowiki>peace". Seven weeks later the workers of East Berlin rioted for their
vision of freedom and were quickly put down by Russian tanks. 20,000
workers went on strike at the Rakosi iron and steel works in Budapest's
Csepel district against low pay, production norms and food shortages.
There were wildcat strikes in Diosgyor, and mass peasant demonstrations
in the countryside. To avoid further outbreaks, Russia ordered a change
of leadership and a change of policy.


Matyas Rakosi, who styled himself "Stalin's Hungarian disciple" but
=== Protests and Statue Toppling ===
was more popularly referred to as 'arsehole' by Hungarian workers, was
20,000 protesters on 23 October gathered around a statue of József Bem - a national hero of Poland and Hungary as Péter Veres, president of the Writers' Union, read a manifesto to the crowd. Demanding independence, democratic socialism, joining the UN and civil liberties for all people. AfterwardsIts claims were Hungary's independence from all foreign powers; a political system based on democratic socialism (land reform and public ownership in the economy); Hungary joining the United Nations; and all freedom rights for the citizens of Hungary.<sup>[46]</sup>  After reading out the proclamation, the crowd began to chant a censored patriotic poem, the National Song (Hu: ''Nemzeti dal''),
required to make way for Imre Nagy, who had managed not to be involved
<nowiki> </nowiki>with the refrain: "This we swear, this we swear, that we will no longer
in the purges and generalised terror of the late 'forties. His 'new
<nowiki> </nowiki>be slaves." Someone in the crowd cut out the Communist coat of arms from the Hungarian flag, leaving a distinctive hole in the middle of it, and others quickly followed suit.<sup>[47][''page range too broad'']</sup>
course' outlined in late June 1953 was designed to ease the load on the  
workers and peasants, produce higher living standards, end the  
internment camps and turn the economy away from heavy industry. Because
he was opposed by the hard-line Stalinists around Rakosi and Brno Cero,  
Nagy is presented by some as popular and liberal. In fact he was much
like the rest. After Stalin's death, he talked of him as the "great
leader of all humanity"; the whole Stalinist era was a period of "trial
and error". In late 1954 Nagy felt able to say "We have created a new
country and a happy and free life for the people"; meanwhile Rakosi and
Gero argued that workers' living standards were too high.


Although Nagy may have felt that the removal of some of Stalinism's
Afterwards, most of the crowd crossed the River Danube to join demonstrators outside the Parliament Building. By 18:00, the multitude had swollen to more than 200,000 people;<sup>[48]</sup> the demonstration was spirited, but peaceful.<sup>[49]</sup>
worst features constituted a 'free life', his 'liberalism' was met by
even more absenteeism, indiscipline and slacking by workers. A typical
Nagy speech from that period shows why. "The production results of the  
third quarter show that, if the labour drive to mark these elections is
carried out with the same enthusiasm and vigour as the revolutionary
shift that was worked in honour of the Great Socialist October
Revolution, and if management and workers can get the same improvement
in worker discipline - in which there are still grave deficiencies - as
in production, then MAVAG will be able to take its place amongst the
ranks of the elite plants."[5] No amount of apologetics can cover up the
<nowiki> </nowiki>straightforward capitalist content of such a speech.


Workers' cynicism spread outside the workplace: in 1954 there were
Placing of Hungarian flag into remains of dismantled Stalin statue
three days of rioting after the World Cup final defeat by West Germany
in the belief that the game had been thrown for hard currency. Games of
any kind against Russia were rarely without trouble. The MDP sent
intellectuals and writers out into the country at large during 1953 to
explain Nagy's 'new course': for most it was a first sight of the
miserable conditions of the peasants and workers. They soon found out
that the 'toiling masses' had little time for the Literary Gazette or
for 'building socialism'. A young Communist commented "The workers hated
<nowiki> </nowiki>the regime to such an extent that by 1953 they were ready to destroy it
<nowiki> </nowiki>and everything that went with it."


Workers expressed this themselves: "The workers did not believe in
At 20:00, the first secretary of the ruling party, Ernő Gerő broadcast a speech condemning the writers' and students' demands.<sup>[49]</sup> Angered by Gerő's hard-line rejection, some demonstrators decided to carry out one of their demands, the removal of Stalin's 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze statue that was erected in 1951 on the site of a former church, which was demolished to make room for the monument.<sup>[50]</sup> By 21:30, the statue was toppled and the crowd celebrated by placing Hungarian flags into Stalin's boots, which was all that was left of the statue.<sup>[49]</sup>
anything the communists promised them, because the communists had
cheated their promises so often." A worker from the Red Star Tractor
factory: "Under Communism, we should have a share in governing Hungary,  
but instead we're the poorest people in the country. We're just regarded
<nowiki> </nowiki>as factory fodder." Another worker: "The Communists nationalised all
the factories and similar enterprises, proclaiming the slogan, 'the  
factory is yours - you work for yourself.' Exactly the opposite of this
was true."


Among the students the peasants' and workers' sons were most prepared
At about the same time, a large crowd gathered at the headquarters of the Hungarian Radio,
<nowiki> </nowiki>to speak their minds. They were more insolent than the middle-class
<nowiki> </nowiki>which was heavily guarded by the ÁVH. The flash point was reached as a
ones. They were also less likely to engage in abstract ideological
delegation attempting to broadcast their demands was detained. The crowd
discussions but stuck to concrete issues - like food shortages.
<nowiki> </nowiki>outside the building grew increasingly unruly as rumours spread that
Disillusion and anti-communism were widespread amongst Hungarian youth.
the members of the delegation had been killed. Tear gas was thrown from the upper windows and the ÁVH opened fire on the crowd, killing many.<sup>[51]</sup> The ÁVH tried to re-supply itself by hiding arms inside an ambulance car,
"We spoke less about political subjects, but if we did, we were cursing
<nowiki> </nowiki>but the crowd detected the ruse and intercepted it. Soldiers were sent
the Russians, that was most of the time what it amounted to." "We were  
to the spot relieving the security forces but they tore off the red
the first generation that was not scared. After all we had nothing to
stars from their caps and sided with the crowd.<sup>[47][''page range too broad''][51]</sup> Provoked by the ÁVH attack, protesters reacted violently. Police cars were set ablaze, guns were seized from military depots and distributed to the mass while symbols of the regime were vandalised.<sup>[52]</sup>
lose and we also had the feeling that we couldn't bear this for an
entire life."


Discontent and workers' opposition thus existed long before 1956.
=== Fighting spreads, government falls ===
However, the American assessment in December 1953 by an army attaché was
During
<nowiki> </nowiki>that "There are no organised resistance groups in Hungary; the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>the night of 23 October, Hungarian Working People's Party Secretary
population does not now, nor will they in the future, have the capacity
Ernő Gerő requested Soviet military intervention "to suppress a  
to resist actively the present regime;". With a similar attitude, the
demonstration that was reaching an ever greater and unprecedented
Russian leader Khrushchev thought that if he'd had ten Hungarian writers
scale".<sup>[36]</sup> The Soviet leadership had formulated contingency plans for intervention in Hungary several months before.<sup>[53]</sup> By 02:00 on 24 October, acting in accordance with orders of Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet defence minister, Soviet tanks entered Budapest.<sup>[54]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>shot at the right moment, nothing would have happened. A week before
the revolt a reader's letter to the Literary Gazette complained about
the uselessness of the intellectuals' debates: "The working class is,
and will remain, politically passive for good, and uninterested in such
hair-splitting...and without them what good can we do?"[6] However, a
Yugoslavian political analyst was more perceptive, commenting nine days
before the uprising, "People refuse to live in the old way, nor can the
leadership govern in the old way. Conditions have been created for an
uprising." The AVH ('Allamvedelmi Hatosag', State Security Force) sensed
<nowiki> </nowiki>trouble toot they and the Russian troops garrisoned in Hungary were put
<nowiki> </nowiki>on alert five days before October 23rd.


Much has been made of the dissatisfaction of Communist writers and  
By noon, on 24 October, Soviet tanks were stationed outside the  
intellectuals and their supposed leading role in the revolution. The
Parliament, and Soviet soldiers guarded key bridges and crossroads.  
intellectuals' program was only a criticism of Stalinism. Their 'Petofi
Armed revolutionaries quickly set up barricades to defend Budapest, and  
Circle' debating club wanted orderly reform and a change in the
were reported to have already captured some Soviet tanks by mid-morning.<sup>[47][''page range too broad'']</sup> That day, Imre Nagy replaced András Hegedüs as Prime Minister.<sup>[55]</sup>
leadership (because the Stalinists Rakosi and Gero had returned to power
<nowiki> </nowiki>On the radio, Nagy called for an end to violence and promised to  
<nowiki> </nowiki>replacing Nagy, now out of public life altogether). The Petofi Circle
initiate political reforms that had been shelved three years earlier.
did not encourage the revolt: it considered that precipitate actions
The population continued to arm itself as sporadic violence erupted.<sup>[56]</sup>
could lead to a catastrophe. They were seen by workers as Communists and
<nowiki> </nowiki>supporters of the regime. Nagy became a focus for this kind of
'opposition', which favoured working through MDP channels, and was
certainly against demonstrations. Most of these people came out against
the uprising: two such journalists thought that the crowds behaved "like
<nowiki> </nowiki>idiots" on October 23rd. One writer though, Gyula Hay, was honest
enough to see who was stirring up that: "I am perfectly willing to  
accept that it was not I who awoke the spirit of freedom in youth: on
the contrary, it was youth who pushed me towards it." Workers started to
<nowiki> </nowiki>take an interest in what the writers were getting up to in
mid-September 1956, when a meeting of the Writers' Union saw the
Stalinists defeated in elections. A Literary Gazette account of that
meeting sold 70,000 copies in half an hour. Such a rebuff to the
authorities was bound to be of interest now.


The occasion of the reburial of a rehabilitated Communist, Laszlo
March of protesters on 25 October
Rajk, a victim of an earlier purge, was used by workers to demonstrate
en masse. Some 200,000 attended in the rain on October 6th: an observer
commented "perhaps if it had not rained, there would have been a
revolution that day," There had been no difference between Rajk and
Rakosi politically, personal rivalry resulting in Rajk's trial and
execution as a 'Titoist fascist'. The workers' 'support' for Rajk's
rehabilitation was purely symbolic: on the other side of the coin, a top
<nowiki> </nowiki>Communist said that "if Rajk could have seen this mob he would have
turned machine guns on to them." The same day 2-300 students marched
away after the burial using the slogan, "We won't stop halfway,
Stalinism must be destroyed" Despite shouting this, the students weren't
<nowiki> </nowiki>stopped by the police, who assumed that any kind of demonstration must
be an official one.


<strong>October 23rd</strong>
Armed protesters seized the radio building. At the offices of the Communist newspaper ''Szabad Nép'' unarmed demonstrators were fired upon by ÁVH guards who were then driven out as armed demonstrators arrived.<sup>[56]</sup> At this point, the revolutionaries' wrath focused on the ÁVH;<sup>[57]</sup>
It was the students who were responsible for the event that sparked off
<nowiki> </nowiki>Soviet military units were not yet fully engaged, and there were
the inevitable. On October 16th students in Szeged had broken away from
reports of some Soviet troops showing open sympathy for the  
the official organisation and set up a new association. They sent
demonstrators.<sup>[58]</sup>
delegates countrywide to encourage similar breaks. By the 22nd there
were similar groups in most of the universities and large schools. News
had reached Budapest of events in Poland, where the Soviet army had
encircled Warsaw as the Polish Communist Party changed its leadership
under pressure from below. A meeting at the Polytechnic in Budapest
resolved to march on the 2Jrd in support of sixteen demands. These
included support for the Polish struggle for freedom; the removal of
Soviet troops; the election of MDP officials; a new government under
Imre Nagy; a general election; "the complete reorganisation of Hungary's
<nowiki> </nowiki>economic life under the direction of specialists"; the right to strike;
<nowiki> </nowiki>the "complete revision of the norms in effect in industry and an
immediate and radical adjustment of salaries in accordance with the just
<nowiki> </nowiki>requirements of workers and intellectuals"; and a free press and
radio.[7]


This mixed bag of demands could not even have begun to be met by the  
On 25 October, a mass of protesters gathered in front of the  
regime - therein lay its explosive potential. Yet underlying the demands
Parliament Building. ÁVH units began shooting into the crowd from the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>was the all-too-common illusion that what had been mismanaged by 'bad'  
rooftops of neighbouring buildings.<sup>[59][60]</sup> Some Soviet soldiers returned fire on the ÁVH, mistakenly believing that they were the targets of the shooting.<sup>[47][''page range too broad''][61]</sup>
leaders could be rectified by 'good' leaders elected to replace them.
<nowiki> </nowiki>Supplied by arms taken from the ÁVH or given by Hungarian soldiers who
The element of naivety was compounded by the way the students asked
joined the uprising, some in the crowd started shooting back.<sup>[47][''page range too broad''][59]</sup>
workers for support but not for them to strike; they wanted a silent
march only. The Interior Ministry banned the march, which made more
people resolve to go. The ban was lifted after the march went ahead
anyway. Although the march started silently as the students wished, it
became more militant as workers off the morning shift joined in after 4
o'clock. The early slogans of support for the Poles were overtaken by
shouts for freedom and "Russians go home.'" Someone cut the communist
symbol out of a national flag and the flag of the revolution made its
first appearance - red, white and green with a hole in the middle. More
people left work to join a demonstration that they weren't forced to
take part in; soldiers were sympathetic and joined in too.


By dusk there were 200,000 people (about one-sixth of the whole
During this time, the Hungarian Army was divided as the central
population of Budapest) in Parliament Square. The authorities turned off
command structure disintegrated with the rising pressures from the
<nowiki> </nowiki>the lights, whereupon newspapers and government leaflets were set
protests on the government. The majority of Hungarian military units in
alight. The crowd demanded that Imre Nagy speak to them, but by the time
Budapest and the countryside remained uninvolved, as the local
<nowiki> </nowiki>he turned up the mood had gone beyond listening calmly to speeches.
commanders generally avoided using force against the protesters and
Appalled by the sight of so many people and by the flags with holes,
revolutionaries.<sup>[62][''page needed'']</sup>
Nagy made the mistake of starting with the word 'Comrades!' This was
<nowiki> </nowiki>From 24 to 29 October, however, there were 71 cases of armed clashes
greeted with boos and shouts of "We're no longer comrades!" The people
between the army and the populace in fifty communities, ranging from the
had already rejected the whole HDP, not just the Stalinists, and the
<nowiki> </nowiki>defence of attacks on civilian and military objectives to fighting with
'oppositionists' were too moderate. The disappointment with Nagy turned
<nowiki> </nowiki>insurgents depending on the commanding officer.<sup>[62][''page needed'']</sup>
into positive talk of a strike, and a crowd of youths marched to the
Radio building.


At 8 o 'clock there was an official broadcast by Erno Gero in which
One example is in the town of Kecskemét on 26 October, where
he said: "We condemn those who seek to instil in our youth the poison of
demonstrations in front of the office of State Security and the local
<nowiki> </nowiki>chauvinism and to take advantage of the democratic liberties that our
jail led to military action by the Third Corps under the orders of Major
state guarantees to the workers to organise a nationalist
<nowiki> </nowiki>General Lajos Gyurkó, in which seven protesters were shot and several
demonstration."[8] This did nothing to calm the situation. The crowd
of the organizers were arrested. In another case, a fighter jet strafed a
outside the Radio demanded access, with microphones in the street "so
<nowiki> </nowiki>protest in the town of Tiszakécske, killing 17 people and wounding 117.<sup>[62][''page needed'']</sup>
that the people can express their opinions." A delegation was taken in  
by the AVH to the Radio boss, Mrs Benke: she checked their ID cards and
found they were workers from the long machinery plant and an arms
factory. Similarly, Kopacsi, the Budapest police chief, questioned some
youths picked up on the demonstration and discovered they were factory
workers, some with Party cards.


When the delegation failed to reappear, the Radio building was
The attacks at the Parliament forced the collapse of the government.<sup>[63]</sup> Communist First Secretary Ernő Gerő and former Prime Minister András Hegedüs fled to the Soviet Union; Imre Nagy became Prime Minister and János Kádár First Secretary of the Communist Party.<sup>[64]</sup> Revolutionaries began an aggressive offensive against Soviet troops and the remnants of the ÁVH.
attacked and defended: at about 9 o'clock the first shots were fired
with many dead and wounded. The crowd had got weapons from sympathetic
police and soldiers before the AVH's first shots, and as the news
spread, workers from the arsenals brought more. The revolution had now
started in earnest. An observer felt that "it was at Stalin's statue
that the workers of Budapest appeared on the scene." When the crowd had
trouble getting it down, two workers fetched oxy-acetylene gear to cut
it down. The boots remained on the plinth, with a road sign saying 'Bead
<nowiki> </nowiki>End' stuck on them. Hungarian troops were greeted as friends and allies
<nowiki> </nowiki>by the crowds; workers were arriving from Csepel in lorries with
ammunition. Arms factories were raided and the telephone exchange taken.


The authorities called on the sappers in a nearby barracks, and told
Body of executed Party member at Central Committee of the Communist Party
them that fascists had risen against the government. The sappers were
met by workers who told them the truth. More sappers arrived to defend
the HDF's Central Committee HQ. When they saw, for the first time, the
luxury of the accommodation there, and realised that the crowds were
ordinary Hungarians, they went back to their barracks, changed out of
uniform and elected a revolutionary council. By midnight 'spectators'
were leaving the scene and the armed workers of Csepel and Ujpest were
taking their place. The battle for the Radio building went on all night:
<nowiki> </nowiki>it was finally taken at nine in the morning.


The mass, revolutionary character of the Hungarian uprising "was
Units led by Béla Király,
established within hours. "The Hungarian uprising was the personal
<nowiki> </nowiki>after attacking the building of the Central Committee of the Communist
experience of millions of men and women, and therefore of no one in
Party, executed dozens of suspected communists, state security members,  
particular, just like the Paris Commune or other mass revolts."[9] The
and military personnel. Photographs showed victims with signs of  
casualty lists in the hospitals showed that it was young workers in  
torture. On 30 October, Király's forces attacked the Central Committee
particular who did most of the fighting. A doctor commented: "There was
of the Communist Party building.<sup>[65]</sup>
any number of youngsters amongst the fighters who knew nothing about the
<nowiki> </nowiki>Hungarian Communist politician János Berecz, in his
<nowiki> </nowiki>Petofi Circle or who for that matter hadn't even heard of it, to whom
government-sponsored "white book" about the Revolution, claimed that the
Gomulka's name was equally unknown, and who replied to the question as
<nowiki> </nowiki>rebels detained thousands of people, and that thousands more had their
to why they had risked their lives in the fighting with such answers as,
names on death lists. According to his book, in the city of Kaposvár 64 persons including 13 army officers were detained on 31 October.<sup>[66]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>'Well, is it really worth living for 600 forints a month?" A student
noticed the same thing: "It is touching that it was the hooligans of
Ferencvaros who created ethics out of nothing during the revolution."


The participants knew why they were fighting: "We wanted freedom and  
In Budapest and other areas—according to Berecz and other
not a good comfortable life. Even though we might lack bread and other
Kádár-era sources—the Hungarian Communist committees organised defence.  
necessities of life, we wanted freedom. We, the young people, were  
In Csepel,
particularly hampered because we were brought up amidst lies. We
<nowiki> </nowiki>an area of Budapest, some 250 Communists defended the Csepel Iron and
continually had to lie." The character of the uprising was distinctive
Steel Works. On 27 October, army units were brought in to secure Csepel
in that it had a clear direction without a 'leadership'. The United
and restore order. They later withdrew on 29 October, after which the
Nations Committee investigating it was told by a Hungarian professor of  
rebels seized control of the area. Communists in Angyalföld,
philosophy, "It was unique in history that the Hungarian revolution had
<nowiki> </nowiki>also part of Budapest, led more than 350 armed workers and 380
no leaders. It was not organised; it was not centrally directed. The
servicemen from the Láng Factory. Anti-fascist resistance veterans from
will for freedom was the moving force in every action." The same point
World War II participated in the offensive through which the offices of
is well made by two fighters: "There was no organisation whatsoever,
the ''Szabad Nép'' newspaper were recaptured. In the countryside, defence measures were taken by pro-Communist forces. In the county of Békés County, in and around the town of Szarvas, the armed guards of the Communist Party were in control throughout.<sup>[67]</sup>
consequently there was no discipline either, but there was astonishingly
<nowiki> </nowiki>good teamwork." "Some people got together, fought, went home, then
others came and continued the fight."


The first tasks of the rebels involved seizing the telephone
Hungarian revolutionaries, beginning of November 1956
exchanges, requisitioning lorries, attacking garages, barracks and
arsenals, getting arms and ammunition above all else. Then barricades
and molotov cocktails were made to face the Soviet tanks that entered
Budapest shortly after four in the morning of the 24th. Russian troops
had moved into action before the Hungarian authorities, in emergency
meetings all night, called for their 'fraternal' assistance. Some
'barricades were made of paving stones ripped up by hand by women and
children. The rebels took up positions in narrow streets and passages.
Those in the Corvin Passage made their stand by a convenient petrol
pump. As dawn broke, workers in Calvin Square confronted five tanks
without running away. Public support was immediate, with armed rebels
having no trouble getting food and shelter. Soldiers, when not taking
part in the fighting themselves, handed arms over to the rebels.


<strong>Thirteen days in Budapest... </strong>
As the Hungarian resistance fought Soviet tanks using Molotov cocktails in the narrow streets of Budapest, revolutionary councils arose nationwide, assumed local governmental authority and called for general strikes. Public Communist symbols such as red stars
First reactions to events were starting to come out. The Stalinists
<nowiki> </nowiki>and Soviet war memorials were removed, and Communist books were burned.
called the revolt "a fascist counter-revolutionary action." The
<nowiki> </nowiki>Spontaneous revolutionary militias arose, such as the 400-man group
'moderate' Communists wanted Nagy, but both wanted order restored, by  
loosely led by József Dudás, which attacked or murdered Soviet sympathisers and ÁVH members.<sup>[68]</sup>
Russian troops if necessary. The writers' role was over already, their
<nowiki> </nowiki>Soviet units fought primarily in Budapest; elsewhere the countryside
demands surpassed. The students too were having second thoughts about
was largely quiet. One armoured division stationed in Budapest,  
what they had sparked off. Very few people went to work on the 24th. At
commanded by Pál Maléter, instead opted to join the insurgents. Soviet commanders often negotiated local cease-fires with the revolutionaries.<sup>[69]</sup>
4.30 am an official announcement banned all demonstrations and referred
to "fascist and reactionary elements". Just after 8 o'clock, Nagy was  
declared Prime Minister: fifteen hours earlier the appointment might
have had some effect but from now on the authorities ' moves were way
behind the developing events. Half an hour later Nagy showed what
'liberal', 'moderate' Communism was about: he declared martial law with
the death penalty for carrying arras, and his government called in the  
Soviet troops. After this, his program was of little interest to the  
rebels.


The intervention by the Soviet troops now gave the revolt a national
In some regions, Soviet forces managed to quell revolutionary
character. The attitude of sympathetic neutrality that the Hungarian
activity. In Budapest, the Soviets were eventually fought to a
army had taken in the first few hours was now replaced by and large by
stand-still and hostilities began to wane. Hungarian general Béla Király,
one of active support for the rebellion. Soviet tanks were being
<nowiki> </nowiki>freed from a life sentence for political offences and acting with the
immobilised by the fighting youth, who, though poorly armed, were using
support of the Nagy government, sought to restore order by unifying
the partisan techniques drummed into them at school in praise of the
elements of the police, army and insurgent groups into a National Guard.<sup>[70]</sup>
Soviet resistance to the German armies in World War Two. This was a rare
<nowiki> </nowiki>A ceasefire was arranged on 28 October, and by 30 October most Soviet  
<nowiki> </nowiki>case of Hungarians eager to learn from Russian example. Anti-tank
troops had withdrawn from Budapest to garrisons in the Hungarian
tactics included loosening the cobblestones, then soaping the road, or
countryside.<sup>[71]</sup>
pouring oil over it. Liquid soap was used in Moricz Zsiground Square. In
<nowiki> </nowiki>Szena Square bales of silk taken from a Party shop were spread out and  
covered with oil so the Soviet tanks couldn't move on this and became
sitting targets for petrol bombs. Youngsters would run up and smear jam
over the driver's window; some rebels blew themselves up knowingly
getting close enough to a tank to destroy it.


A thirteen year old girl was seen taking on a 75 ton tank with three
=== Interlude ===
bottle bombs. A Viennese reporter at the Kilian Barracks met another 13
Fighting
year old who had defended a street crossing alone with a machine-gun for
<nowiki> </nowiki>ceased between 28 October and 4 November, as many Hungarians believed
<nowiki> </nowiki>three days and nights. "The Russians found themselves faced by hordes
that Soviet military units were withdrawing from Hungary.<sup>[72]</sup>
of death-defying youngsters: students, apprentices and even
<nowiki> </nowiki>According to post-revolution Communist sources, there were
schoolchildren who did not care whether they lived or died." A Swiss
approximately 213 Hungarian Working People's Party members lynched or
reporter, seeing children fighting and dying, wrote: "If ever the time
executed during this period.<sup>[73]</sup>
comes to commemorate the heroes in Hungary, they mustn't forget to raise
<nowiki> </nowiki>a monument to the Unknown Hungarian Child." A chemical engineer saw
some children with empty bottles. He told them to use nitro-glycerine
rather than petrol, so they all went to their school laboratory where he
<nowiki> </nowiki>helped them to synthesise enough nitro-glycerine to make a hundred
bottle bombs. Then he went home and left them to it. Twelve year olds
learnt how to handle guns: older men instructed rebels in the use of
grenades and how to attack tanks.


An air force officer typed out copies of guerilla tactics. Many of
==== New government ====
the carefully selected and supposedly politically indoctrinated officer
Flyer. Imre Nagy, Head of government – 1956.10.27
corps went over to the rebels. Officers of the Petofi and Zrinyi
Military Academies, the future elite, fought the Russians. After the
rebellion the army was reorganised with many officers and cadets got rid
<nowiki> </nowiki>of. The police were generally sympathetic. Only the AVH fought
alongside the Russians. The AVH (referred to by workers as 'the Blues'
or 'the AVOs', the name they had before 1949) had some 35,000 men and
women, the latter being reputedly the worse torturers. Their minimum pay
<nowiki> </nowiki>was over three times that of a worker, plus bonuses. They had their own
<nowiki> </nowiki>subsidised stores and a holiday village by Lake Balaton. Many
Hungarians had experienced 'esengofraz', namely 'bell-fever', a midnight
<nowiki> </nowiki>call by the AVH. Now it was the turn of the AVOs to be hunted. "The
security forces were capable of terrorisation in times of peace, or of
firing on an unarmed crowd, but impotent in the face of a people's
uprising."[10]


The AVH was abolished on the afternoon of October 29th, to be
The rapid spread of the uprising in the streets of Budapest and the
resurrected after the Russian invasion. Since the 21st, two days before
abrupt fall of the Gerő–Hegedüs government left the new national
the uprising, the AVH had been destroying its files. Neither of these
leadership surprised, and at first disorganised. Nagy, a loyal party
things saved individual AVOs from lynchings: such killings were
reformer described as possessing "only modest political skills",<sup>[74]</sup>
generally carried out in a purposeful and sombre manner. Without any
<nowiki> </nowiki>initially appealed to the public for calm and a return to the old
doubt, the AVH killed many more people over the years than the crowds
order. Yet Nagy, the only remaining Hungarian leader with credibility in
managed to kill of them. Despite this and the AVH's continued brutality
<nowiki> </nowiki>both the eyes of the public and the Soviets, "at long last concluded
during the revolution, most insurgents condemned the lynchings. In the  
that a popular uprising rather than a counter-revolution was taking
work of creating a new society, such imitations of the old were
place".<sup>[75]</sup>
unwelcome. However, no one was sorry for the dead AVOs: as a Hungarian
<nowiki> </nowiki>At 13:20 on 28 October, Nagy announced an immediate and general
told a Polish reporter "Believe me, we are not sadists, but we cannot
cease-fire over the radio and, on behalf of the new national government,
bring ourselves to regret those kind of people."[11] In the streets
<nowiki> </nowiki>declared the following:
bodies of AVOs lay or hung with the money found in their pockets either
stuffed in their mouths or pinned to their chests. Even in poverty, no
self-respecting Hungarian would touch it. After the rebellion was
crushed, the Hungarian authorities themselves put the total number of
security force members killed as 234 - a remarkably low figure in the  
circumstances.


The crowds got on with removing symbols of the old regime: red stars
* that the government would assess the uprising not as counter-revolutionary but as a "great, national and democratic event"
were torn down. At the offices of Szabad Nep, the MDP newspaper,
* an unconditional general ceasefire and amnesty for those who participated in the uprising; negotiations with the insurgents
journalists threw down leaflets of support for the revolt out of the  
* the dissolution of the ÁVH
windows: people tore them up and burnt them without reading them -after
* the establishment of a national guard
all their years of lying, no one was going to believe them now. The
* the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest and negotiations for the withdrawal of all Soviet forces from Hungary
Party bookshop and the Soviet 'Horizont' bookshop were ransacked and the
On 1 November, in a radio address to the Hungarian people, Nagy formally declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact as well as Hungary's stance of neutrality.<sup>[62][''page needed''][76][77][''page needed'']</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin piled up and set alight. A
<nowiki> </nowiki>Because it held office only ten days, the National Government had
general strike spread over the country, a move which left the MDP
little chance to clarify its policies in detail. However, newspaper
embarrassed. So often it had praised the strikes of Western workers, now
editorials at the time stressed that Hungary should be a neutral,  
<nowiki> </nowiki>Hungarian workers were doing the same - but this time against them.
multi-party social democracy.<sup>[78]</sup> About 8000 political prisoners were released, most notably Cardinal József Mindszenty.<sup>[79][80]</sup> Political parties that were previously banned, such as the Independent Smallholders and the National Peasant Party (under the name "Petőfi Party"),<sup>[81]</sup> reappeared to join the coalition.<sup>[82]</sup>
Fighting was fierce in Parliament Square and at the Party HQ after AVH
units fired on largely unarmed crowds. Black flags made their first
appearances to mourn fallen rebels. Radio Budapest, still in the hands
of the authorities, threatened: "If the destructions and assassinations
continue, the football match between Hungary and Sweden, scheduled for
Sunday, will have to be cancelled."[12] This radio station was now only
listened to for laughs, as its statements bore no relation to observable
<nowiki> </nowiki>reality. The fighting groups continued to form throughout the city. The
<nowiki> </nowiki>armed group holding Szena Square held open democratic meetings to
discuss strategy and tactics.


On the 25th the Government urged a return to work in its radio
Crowd cheers Hungarian troops in Budapest
broadcasts. This call was ignored, but as it implied an end to the
curfew (which had also been widely ignored anyway) many thousands more
took to the streets to find out what was going on and to discuss events:
<nowiki> </nowiki>going to work was the last thing on most people's minds, Nagy's
reshuffles of his ministers, his 'concessions' and announcements were
increasingly irrelevant and always too slow and too late to satisfy the
rebels. The people in the streets didn't give a damn that Georgy Lukacs,
<nowiki> </nowiki>a darling of leftist academics, was now in the cabinet. On the 26th
Lukacs said in a radio broadcast that "what we want is a socialist
culture worthy of the Hungarian people's great and ancient
achievements", while all around people were dismantling all the
'socialist culture' they could find.


The writers were giving up quickly. Gabor Tanesos said no progress
During this time, in 1,170 communities across Hungary there were 348
(whatever it was he had in mind) could be made "while the guns are
cases in which revolutionary councils and protesters dismissed employees
roaring." As early as the 25th, Gyula Hay stated "We must immediately
<nowiki> </nowiki>of the local administrative councils, 312 cases in which they sacked
revert to peaceful methods; fighting must stop immediately. Even
the persons in charge, and 215 cases in which they burned the local
peaceful demonstrations should not now be undertaken."[13] While the
administrative files and records. In addition, in 681 communities
intellectuals were way behind the workers, lacking their basic
demonstrators damaged symbols of Soviet authority such as red stars,
intransigence, not all were so craven. On the 29th some told Nagy to arm
Stalin or Lenin statues; 393 in which they damaged Soviet war memorials,
<nowiki> </nowiki>the workers. He shrank back from such a suggestion, replying that "At
<nowiki> </nowiki>and 122 communities in which book burnings took place.<sup>[14][62][''page needed'']</sup>
present that is quite impossible. A lot of the workers are unreliable."
At times it seemed that Nagy had lost touch with the reality of what was
<nowiki> </nowiki>happening's in a speech he referred to the "historic, durable, and
ineffaceable" results of twelve years of Communist rule! The MDP's
plight now was of no consequence - the rebels had rejected it. On the
basis of their own direct experience, Hungarians were exposing the sham
of the 'socialist states'.


The call for the Russians to leave was an expression of this. The
Local revolutionary councils formed throughout Hungary,<sup>[83][84][85][86]</sup>
fighting between the rebels and the Russians did not however have the
<nowiki> </nowiki>generally without involvement from the preoccupied National Government
bitterness that the clashes with the AVH had. No Soviet soldiers were
in Budapest, and assumed various responsibilities of local government
lynched, none of their corpses were mutilated, and on the other side
from the defunct Communist party.<sup>[87]</sup>
there was no vindictiveness shown towards the rebels by the Russians.  
<nowiki> </nowiki>By 30 October, these councils had been officially sanctioned by the
The Red Army soldiers were not keen to be shot at, nor were they eager
Hungarian Working People's Party, and the Nagy government asked for
to shoot at a population they had been peaceably stationed amongst for
their support as "autonomous, democratic local organs formed during the  
some time. There were some desertions, particularly among members of the
Revolution".<sup>[87]</sup> Likewise, workers' councils
<nowiki> </nowiki>Soviet Union's national minorities. One example was an Armenian major
<nowiki> </nowiki>were established at industrial plants and mines, and many unpopular
who went over to the rebels on the 24th and distributed leaflets to
regulations such as production norms were eliminated. The workers'
Soviet troops urging them not to fire. Some rebels too disliked fighting
councils strove to manage the enterprise while protecting workers'
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Russians. One fighter commented "I found myself shooting at
interests, thus establishing a socialist economy free of rigid party
bewildered Ukrainian peasant boys who had as much reason to hate what we
control.<sup>[88]</sup> Local control by the councils was not always bloodless; in Debrecen, Győr, Sopron, Mosonmagyaróvár
<nowiki> </nowiki>fought as we had... It was an embittering shock to find that one can't
<nowiki> </nowiki>and other cities, crowds of demonstrators were fired upon by the ÁVH,
confront the real enemy even in a revolution. "
with many lives lost. The ÁVH were disarmed, often by force, in many
cases assisted by the local police.<sup>[87]</sup>


While the rebels struggled to confront and defeat the real enemy,  
In total there were approximately 2,100 local revolutionary and  
victims of the old regime were being set free. On the 26th the police
workers councils with over 28,000 members. These councils held a  
building in Csepel was stormed and its prisoners released. Thousands
combined conference in Budapest, deciding to end the nationwide labour
were let out of forced labour camps and some 17,000 from the country's
strikes and resume work on 5 November, with the more important councils
prisons. The most common crime was petty theft. Police chief Kopacsi
sending delegates to the Parliament to assure the Nagy government of
allowed all political prisoners and those fighters held from the first
their support.<sup>[62][''page needed'']</sup>
day or so's fighting out of the City Police HQ in Budapest. This act was
<nowiki> </nowiki>to cost him a life sentence in 1958. As the fighting continued, with
most damage occurring in the working-class suburbs of Budapest and the
industrial towns, the country's farmers worked to provide food for the  
rebels, and lorries with bread, flour and vegetables streamed into the  
towns. Bakers worked throughout the rebellion and strike to ensure that
rebels and strikers were fed.


Despite hunger and poverty there was an absence of looting in the  
==== Soviet perspective ====
city. Shops with broken windows had their goods left intact. After the  
On 24 October, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (the Politburo) discussed the political upheavals in Poland and Hungary. A hard-line faction led by Molotov was pushing for intervention, but Khrushchev and Marshal Zhukov
radio and the Soviet press talked of looting, signs were put up on such
<nowiki> </nowiki>were initially opposed. A delegation in Budapest reported that the  
shops saying, "This is how we loot." Another popular slogan dated back
situation was not as dire as had been portrayed. Khrushchev stated that
to the Korean War when the Federation of Working Youth collected metal
he believed that Party Secretary Ernő Gerő's request for intervention on
for the North Korean war effort: "Scrap Metals Ensure Peace!" now made a
<nowiki> </nowiki>23 October indicated that the Hungarian Party still held the confidence
<nowiki> </nowiki>more appropriate reappearance on burnt-out Soviet tanks. Some North
<nowiki> </nowiki>of the Hungarian public. In addition, he saw the protests not as an
Korean students (and some Polish ones) returned the favour by joining
ideological struggle, but as popular discontent over unresolved basic
the rebels.
economic and social issues.<sup>[36]</sup> The concurrent Suez Crisis
<nowiki> </nowiki>was another reason to not intervene; as Khrushchev said on 28 October,
it would be a mistake to imitate the "real mess" of the French and  
British.<sup>[89]</sup>


The collapse of the MDP and the unity of industrial workers, peasants
After some debate,<sup>[90][91]</sup> the Presidium on 30 October decided not to remove the new Hungarian government. Even Marshal Georgy Zhukov
<nowiki> </nowiki>and white-collar workers left the Government powerless by the 27th.
<nowiki> </nowiki>said: "We should withdraw troops from Budapest, and if necessary
Real power was moving towards the revolutionary workers' councils. It
withdraw from Hungary as a whole. This is a lesson for us in the  
was these councils that called the strike, and the workers obeyed this
military-political sphere." They adopted a ''Declaration of the
call because it came in effect from themselves. Similarly, the call for a
Government of the USSR on the Principles of Development and Further
<nowiki> </nowiki>return to work was accepted when the councils made it. The Communists
Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and
had said that workers were the ruling class, now, through the councils,  
<nowiki> </nowiki>other Socialist States'', which was issued the next day. This
the workers were putting it into practice. As the workers' councils
document proclaimed: "The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into
spread from factory to factory and district to district the National
the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian
Trade Union Council, realising that it was being made redundant, tried
People's Republic and other members of the Warsaw Treaty on the question
to pre-empt developments by advocating workers' councils, but with its
<nowiki> </nowiki>of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of Hungary."<sup>[92]</sup> Thus for a brief moment it looked like there could be a peaceful solution.
own old hacks on the platform. Workers still turned up to such meetings,
<nowiki> </nowiki>but elected from among themselves, rejecting the trade union officials.
<nowiki> </nowiki>MDP members were then urged to infiltrate the genuine councils. A paper
<nowiki> </nowiki>called 'Igazsag' ('Truth') was started, which kept in touch with the  
councils. Delegations from the councils besieged Nagy's government with
endless demands. Two recurrent demands were for Hungarian neutrality and
<nowiki> </nowiki>withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.


Among Hungary's Warsaw Pact allies, the Czech, East German and
Damaged Party headquarters on Köztársaság tér
Romanian Communist Parties were particularly virulent in their
condemnations of the 'counter-revolution'. This was motivated by the
fear that their own working classes might choose to settle accounts with
<nowiki> </nowiki>them. Russia itself, while getting more troops into Hungary ready for
the second assault on the workers, chose to make an official declaration
<nowiki> </nowiki>on relations between socialist states. Its high-sounding phrases were
of course meaningless, but it also contained an 'analysis' of events in
order to justify the approaching' repression. Russia's view was that
"the workers of Hungary have, after achieving great progress on the
basis of the people's democratic order, justifiably raised the questions
<nowiki> </nowiki>of the need for eliminating the serious inadequacies of the economic
system, of the need for further improving the material well-being of the
<nowiki> </nowiki>people, and of the need for furthering the battle against bureaucratic
excesses in the state apparatus. However, the forces of reaction and of
counter-revolution have quickly joined in this just and progressive
movement of the workers, with the aim of using the discontent of the
workers to undermine the foundations of the people's democratic system
in Hungary and to restore to power the landlords and the
capitalists."[14] For sheer drivel this was hard to beat: the workers
and peasants were fighting to eliminate the economic system itself and
destroy the state apparatus; the only 'counter-revolutionary force'
involved was the Soviet Union itself and its Hungarian supporters in the
<nowiki> </nowiki>MDP.


The rebels were quite emphatically not for the restoration of
On 30 October, armed protesters attacked the ÁVH detachment guarding
capitalism, nor were the political parties, which were re-emerging. The
the Budapest Hungarian Working People's Party headquarters on
Smallholders Party leader Bela Kovacs was clear: "No one, I believe,  
Köztársaság tér (Republic Square), incited by rumours of prisoners held
wants to re-establish the world of the aristocrats, .the bankers and the
there and the earlier shootings of demonstrators by the ÁVH in the city
<nowiki> </nowiki>capitalists. That world is definitely gone." Likewise National Peasants
of Mosonmagyaróvár.<sup>[87][93][94]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>Party leader Ferenc Farkas: "We shall retain the gains and conquests of
<nowiki> </nowiki>Over 20 ÁVH officers were killed, some of them lynched by the mob.  
<nowiki> </nowiki>socialism..." Even Catholic Party leader Endre Varga saw no point in
Hungarian army tanks sent to rescue the party headquarters mistakenly
trying to turn back the clock - "We demand-the maintenance of the social
bombarded the building.<sup>[94]</sup> The head of the Budapest party committee, Imre Mező, was wounded and later died.<sup>[95][96]</sup> Scenes from Republic Square were shown on Soviet newsreels a few hours later.<sup>[97]</sup> Revolutionary leaders in Hungary condemned the incident and appealed for calm, and the mob violence soon died down,<sup>[98]</sup> but images of the victims were nevertheless used as propaganda by various Communist organs.<sup>[96]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>victories which have been realised since 1945..."[15] People were
worried that the reappearance of these old parties would undermine the  
unity of the revolution, but the hatred of the one-party system was such
<nowiki> </nowiki>as to tolerate them: demands for parties to be allowed was not though
an expression of any great enthusiasm for them. Despite the MDP's record
<nowiki> </nowiki>in power, no worker wanted private capitalists back: they wanted their
supposed collective property to become theirs in fact. No peasant wanted
<nowiki> </nowiki>the private landlords back - but they wanted the co-operatives to be
voluntary rather than forced. As the Party collapsed, members burnt
their cards. One member stuck his to a wall with a message next to it -
"A testimony to my stupidity. Let this be a lesson to you." The MDP
reorganised itself as the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSzMP).


Of the twenty or more new papers that appeared within days of the  
On 31 October the Soviet leaders decided to reverse their
uprising none were right wing. One that tried to publish found the  
decision from the previous day. There is disagreement among historians
compositors refusing to touch it. The papers were usually four pages or a
whether Hungary's declaration to exit the Warsaw Pact
<nowiki> </nowiki>single sheet, either printed or stenciled. 'Igazsag' proved the most
<nowiki> </nowiki>caused the second Soviet intervention. Minutes of 31 October meeting of
popular, as it was closest to the workers' councils. Walls were covered
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Presidium record that the decision to intervene militarily was
with copies of the papers and other notices. Accounts of MDP leaders'
taken one day before Hungary declared its neutrality and withdrawal from
lifestyles made popular reading. There was very little nationalism, and
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Warsaw Pact.<sup>[99]</sup>
no anti-Semitism. Soviet armoured cars distributed the Party paper, but
<nowiki> </nowiki>Historians who deny that Hungarian neutrality—or other factors such as
people tore the bundles to bits without any regard for the contents. As
Western inaction in Hungary or perceived Western weakness due to the  
the Russian troops dug in round Budapest, boxes were left in the streets
Suez crisis—caused the intervention state that the Soviet decision was  
<nowiki> </nowiki>to collect for widows and orphans. No one needed to guard these boxes
based solely on the rapid loss of Communist control in Hungary.<sup>[89]</sup>
full of money. A notice next to one said "The purity of our revolution
<nowiki> </nowiki>However, some Russian historians who are not advocates of the Communist
permits us to use this method of collection." The mayor of the capital,
<nowiki> </nowiki>era maintain that the Hungarian declaration of neutrality caused the  
Jozsef Kovago, said the city was "pervaded with such sacred feelings
Kremlin to intervene a second time.<sup>[100]</sup>
that even the thieves abandoned their trade." On the wreck of a Russian
tank someone scrawled the words 'Soviet culture'. A girl fighter in the  
Corvin Passage spoke for thousands: "Now I'm making history instead of
studying it."


<strong>....and in the country</strong>
Two days earlier, on 30 October, when Soviet Politburo representatives Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov
Hungarians were not just making history in Budapest. In the country
<nowiki> </nowiki>were in Budapest, Nagy had hinted that neutrality was a long-term
districts and industrial towns, workers and peasants were quick to  
objective for Hungary, and that he was hoping to discuss this matter
follow up the events in the capital. On the 23rd October itself in
with the leaders in the Kremlin. This information was passed on to
Debrecen, red stars were already being taken off buildings and local
Moscow by Mikoyan and Suslov.<sup>[101][102]</sup> At that time, Khrushchev was in Stalin's dacha,
trams. In Szeged, crowds tore down Soviet emblems. In Miskolc, some
<nowiki> </nowiki>considering his options regarding Hungary. One of his speech writers
Russians were attacked and an army staff car thrown in the river. The
later said that the declaration of neutrality was an important factor in
police were disarmed in Cegled when some 5,000 joined the uprising. The
<nowiki> </nowiki>his subsequent decision to support intervention.<sup>[103]</sup> In addition, some Hungarian leaders of the revolution as well as students had called for their country's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact much earlier, and this may have influenced Soviet decision making.<sup>[104]</sup>
removal of Soviet troops from Hungarian soil was demanded by oil workers
<nowiki> </nowiki>in Lovasz, miners from Balinka and auto repair workers in Szombathely.
Everywhere workers were finding their voices and taking action.


In Gyor on the 24th a small demonstration of factory workers ripped
Several other key events alarmed the Presidium and cemented the interventionists' position:<sup>[105][106]</sup>
red stars off the factories and destroyed a Soviet war memorial. They
broke down the prison gates and released political prisoners. They found
<nowiki> </nowiki>a list of the prisoners' occupations - drivers, workers, waiters and
mechanics. The AVH turned up and fired at the crowds, killing four and
wounding more. The next day the local police and army garrison joined
the revolution, forcing the surrender, of the AVH. The local Soviet
commander withdrew his troops saying that the rising "against the
oppressive leaders is justified". On the 26th a general strike got under
<nowiki> </nowiki>way, and by the next day a Workers' Council and a 'National
Revolutionary Council' had 'been set up ('National' referring to the
local county, not the whole of Hungary), composed in the main of workers
<nowiki> </nowiki>with some MDP members. These councils were in constant session. They
were both insurrectionary and self-governing. The local radio was in
rebel hands, and on the 28th it called for an end to the Warsaw Pact and
<nowiki> </nowiki>demanded that Imre Nagy negotiate with the Budapest workers. Thirty
thousand miners struck for these demands. A network of local workers'
councils developed, linking the railway works with the miners of
Tatabanya and Balinka. Personnel chiefs were dismissed and new plant
managers elected by workforces. The national Revolutionary Council
successfully repulsed efforts by a handful of reactionaries to exploit
the situation.


In nearby Magyarovar, everybody was talking politics as the news came
* Simultaneous movements towards multi-party parliamentary
<nowiki> </nowiki>through from Budapest. A peaceful unarmed demonstration was fired on by
democracy, and a democratic national council of workers, which could
<nowiki> </nowiki>the local AVH. Between 60 and 90 were shot in the massacre. Upon this,  
"lead towards a capitalist state". Both movements challenged the
the local police joined the rebels and the Revolutionary Council in Gyor
pre-eminence of the Soviet Communist Party in Eastern Europe and perhaps
<nowiki> </nowiki>sent an army detachment. The AVH surrendered, and their officers were
<nowiki> </nowiki>Soviet hegemony itself. Hannah Arendt considered the councils "the only free and acting soviets (councils) in existence anywhere in the world".<sup>[107][108]</sup>
lynched in revenge by a large crowd. Here as elsewhere essential
* Khrushchev stated that many in the Communist Party would not understand a failure to respond with force in Hungary. Destalinisation
services were kept ticking over; miners produced just enough coal to
<nowiki> </nowiki>had alienated the more conservative elements of the Party, who were  
keep the power going. Peasants joined the rebellion as the MDP crumbled
alarmed at threats to Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. On 17 June
and the AVH retreated in the face of popular opposition. Farmers worked
1953, workers in East Berlin had staged an uprising, demanding the resignation of the government of the German Democratic Republic. This was quickly and violently put down with the help of the Soviet military, with 84 killed and wounded and 700 arrested.<sup>[109]</sup> In June 1956, in Poznań, Poland, an anti-government workers' revolt had been suppressed by the Polish security forces with between 57<sup>[110]</sup> and 78<sup>[111][112]</sup> deaths and led to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government.
to feed the rebels. In town after town, radio stations were taken over,
<nowiki> </nowiki>Additionally, by late October, unrest was noticed in some regional
Party buildings burnt down, AVOs sought out and killed, informers
areas of the Soviet Union: while this unrest was minor, it was
attacked.
intolerable.
* Hungarian neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact represented a breach in the Soviet defensive buffer zone of satellite nations.<sup>[113]</sup>
Soviet fear of invasion from the West made a defensive buffer of allied
<nowiki> </nowiki>states in Eastern Europe an essential security objective.
Soviet T-54 tanks in Budapest on 31 October


The Borsod district was the largest industrial area in Hungary, and
The militants arrived at the conclusion that "the Party is the incarnation of bureaucratic despotism"
its main town, Miskolc, the largest industrial town outside Budapest. On
<nowiki> </nowiki>and that "socialism can develop only on the foundations of direct
<nowiki> </nowiki>October 24th a workers' council met at the Dimavag iron foundry. The
democracy". For them the struggle of the Hungarian workers was a  
next day the foundry workers marched into town with a list of demands,
struggle "for the principle of direct democracy" and "all power should
removing red stars and the like wherever they were seen. They were
be transferred to the Workers Committees of Hungary".<sup>[114]</sup> The Presidium decided to break the ''de facto'' ceasefire and crush the Hungarian revolution.<sup>[115]</sup>
joined by other workers and a mass meeting created a workers' council
<nowiki> </nowiki>The plan was to declare a "Provisional Revolutionary Government" under
for all the factories of Greater Miskolc. A general strike was declared.
János Kádár, who would appeal for Soviet assistance to restore order.
<nowiki> </nowiki>On the 26th a crowd besieged the local police Hi trying to get the  
According to witnesses, Kádár was in Moscow in early November,<sup>[116]</sup> and he was in contact with the Soviet embassy while still a member of the Nagy government.<sup>[117]</sup> Delegations were sent to other Communist governments in Eastern Europe and China, seeking to avoid a regional conflict, and propaganda
release of political prisoners. The AVH fired at the crowd. Some police
<nowiki> </nowiki>messages prepared for broadcast when the second Soviet intervention had
gave their weapons to the workers, and miners turned up with dynamite to
<nowiki> </nowiki>begun. To disguise these intentions, Soviet diplomats were to engage
<nowiki> </nowiki>get their revenge. Six or seven AVOs were lynched in the ensuing
the Nagy government in talks discussing the withdrawal of Soviet forces.<sup>[99]</sup>
battle. The Workers' Council said "Stalinist provocateurs have felt the
just punishment of the people." The next evening the Council calmly
announced that it had "taken power in all the Borsod region".


In Salgotarjan in Nograd county all work stopped on 25th October. On
According to some sources, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong played an important role in Khrushchev's decision to suppress the Hungarian uprising. Chinese Communist Party Deputy Chairman Liu Shaoqi pressured Khrushchev to send in troops to put down the revolt by force.<sup>[118][119]</sup>
the 27th steelworkers marched through the town, taking down red stars,  
<nowiki> </nowiki>Although the relations between China and the Soviet Union had
releasing political prisoners and destroying the Soviet war memorial. A
deteriorated during the recent years, Mao's words still carried great
'National Council' was set up for the district. In Pecs, even the AVH at
weight in the Kremlin, and they were frequently in contact during the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>the uranium mines sided with the revolution. The Workers' Council there
crisis. Initially, Mao opposed a second intervention, and this
<nowiki> </nowiki>farmed a military council which immediately made plans to face another
information was passed on to Khrushchev on 30 October, before the  
Soviet attack, which was not long in coming.
Presidium met and decided against intervention.<sup>[120]</sup> Mao then changed his mind in favour of intervention but, according to William Taubman, it remains unclear when and how Khrushchev learned of this and thus if it influenced his decision on 31 October.<sup>[121]</sup>


<strong>The Workers' Councils</strong>
From 1 to 3 November, Khrushchev left Moscow to meet with his Warsaw Pact allies and inform them of the decision to intervene. At the first such meeting, he met with Władysław Gomułka in Brest. Then, he had talks with the Romanian, Czechoslovak, and Bulgarian leaders in Bucharest. Finally Khrushchev flew with Malenkov to Yugoslavia (Communist but outside Warsaw Pact) where they met Josip Broz Tito on his holiday island Brijuni. The Yugoslavs also persuaded Khrushchev to choose János Kádár instead of Ferenc Münnich as the new leader of Hungary.<sup>[122][123]</sup>
The first workers' council to be set up in Budapest was at the United
<nowiki> </nowiki>Two months after the Soviet crackdown, Tito confided in Nikolai
Lamp factory. This council representing ten thousand workers got going
Firiubin, the Soviet ambassador to Yugoslavia, that "the reaction raised
on October 24th, within hours of the revolution starting. It appealed to
<nowiki> </nowiki>its head, especially in Croatia, where the reactionary elements openly
<nowiki> </nowiki>workers to "show that we can manage things better than our former blind
incited the employees of the Yugoslav security organs to violence".<sup>[124]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>and domineering bosses." 16 Within a day, workers' councils were set up
<nowiki> </nowiki>in the towns of Miskolc, Gyor, Debrecen and Sztalinvaros: incredibly,
the Dimavag Workers' Council mentioned above was actually set up on the
22ndi In Budapest, councils appeared at the Beloiannis electrical
equipment factory, the Gamma optical works, the Canz electric, wagon and
<nowiki> </nowiki>machine works, the Lang and Danuvia machine-tool factories, the Matyas
Rakosi iron and steel works and elsewhere. On the 26th the MDP
graciously announced that it "approved" the new workers' councils, but
it was hoping to keep them isolated as separate 'factory councils'.
However the councils were already assuming a united political and
economic role. The general strike was a political act in support of the  
armed uprising. The councils kept their power at the local level, yet
exerted a collective pressure on the government. For the next few days
there were constant delegations from the councils to government
ministers.


The Miskolc Workers' Council wrote to Nagyj "Bear President, the  
==== Polish response to the Hungarian uprising ====
Workers' Council yesterday assumed power in all the domain of the Borsod
Plaque commemorating Polish-Hungarian solidarity during the Hungarian revolution of 1956, at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street 5, in Warsaw.
<nowiki> </nowiki>department." The councils in the districts unhesitatingly seized power
straight away; in Budapest, only as the armed rebels appeared to win.
The councils in Miskolc, Gyor, Pecs and Skolnok had control of radio
stations which allowed them to co-ordinate with each other and with
Budapest. As the fighting eased off, the workers' councils began to
group themselves into district workers' councils. On the 29th delegates
from the Ujpest councils met at the United Lamp factory; similar
meetings occurred in the 9th district of Budapest and Angyalfold. On the
<nowiki> </nowiki>30th October, nineteen factories in Csepel set up the Central Workers'
Council of Csepel. Only one day later, these moves to centralise and
strengthen the movement resulted in a Parliament of Workers' Councils
for the whole of Budapest.


This historic meeting drew up a statement of the duties and rights of the workers' councils with nine points, here in full:
The events in Hungary met with a very spontaneous reaction in Poland. Hungarian flags were displayed in many Polish towns and villages. After the Soviet invasion, the help given by the ordinary Poles to Hungarians
<nowiki> </nowiki>took on a considerable scale. Citizen organizations were established
throughout Poland to distribute aid to the Hungarian population. By 12
November, over 11,000 honorary blood donors had registered throughout
Poland. Polish Red Cross
<nowiki> </nowiki>statistics show that by air transport alone (15 aircraft), 44 tonnes of
<nowiki> </nowiki>medication, blood, and other medical supplies were delivered to
Hungary. Assistance sent using road and rail transport was much higher.
Polish aid is estimated at a value of approximately US$2 million of 1956
<nowiki> </nowiki>dollars.<sup>[125][126][127]</sup>


1. The factory belongs to the workers. The latter should pay to the
==== International reaction ====
state a levy calculated on the basis of the output and a portion of the
Although John Foster Dulles, the United States Secretary of State recommended on 24 October for the United Nations Security Council to convene to discuss the situation in Hungary, little immediate action was taken to introduce a resolution,<sup>[128]</sup> in part because other world events unfolded the day after the peaceful interlude started, when allied collusion started the Suez Crisis.
profits.
<nowiki> </nowiki>The problem was not that Suez distracted U.S. attention from Hungary
2. The supreme controlling body of the factory is the Workers' Council democratically elected by the workers.
but that it made the condemnation of Soviet actions very difficult. As
3. . The Workers ' Council elects its own executive committee composed
Vice President Richard Nixon
of 3-9 members, which acts as the executive body of the Workers'
<nowiki> </nowiki>later explained, "We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets
Council, carrying out the decisions and tasks laid down by it.
intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British
4. The director is employed "by the factory. The director and the
and the French picking that particular time to intervene against [Gamel
highest employees axe to be elected 'by the Workers' Council. This
Abdel] Nasser".<sup>[38]</sup>
election will take place after a public general meeting called "by the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>Despite his earlier calls for the "rollback" of communism and
executive committee.
"liberation" of Eastern Europe, John Foster Dulles sent the Soviet
5. The director is responsible to the Workers' Council in every matter which concerns the factory.
leaders a message: "We do not see these states [Hungary and Poland] as
6. The Workers' Council itself reserves all rights to:
potential military allies."<sup>[79]</sup>
a. approve and ratify all projects concerning the enterprise;
b. decide basic wage levels and the methods by which these are to be assessed;
c. decide on all matters concerning foreign contracts;
d. decide on the conduct of all operations involving credit.
7. In the same way, the Workers' Council resolves any conflicts
concerning the hiring and firing of all workers employed in the
enterprise.
8. The Workers' Council has the right to examine the balance sheets and to decide on the use to which the profits are to be put.
9. The Workers' Council handles all social questions in the enterprise."[17]


This statement was an attempt by a workers' movement within days of
The United States response was reliant on the CIA to covertly effect change, with both covert agents and Radio Free Europe.
an uprising, before the success of the revolution was in any way
<nowiki> </nowiki>However, their Hungarian operations collapsed rapidly and they could
assured, to take power away from the bureaucrats. It was an attempt to  
not locate any of the weapon caches hidden across Europe, nor be sure to
establish workers' control, and to an extent, workers' management, in
<nowiki> </nowiki>whom they'd send arms. The agency's main source of information were the
the workplace. It wasn't concerned with abstractions but with a
<nowiki> </nowiki>newspapers and a State Department employee in Budapest called Geza
day-to-day reality; it represented a starting-point for the workers'
Katona.<sup>[40]</sup>
councils As the workers had generally taken their factories and
<nowiki> </nowiki>By 28 October, on the same night that the new Nagy government came to  
workplaces over already, the meeting's resolution that the factories etc
power, RFE was ramping up its broadcasts—encouraging armed struggle,
<nowiki> </nowiki>belonged to the workers recognised a fait accompli.
advising on how to combat tanks and signing off with "Freedom or
Death!"—on the orders of Frank Wisner. When Nagy did come to power, CIA director Allen Dulles advised the White House that Cardinal Mindszenty would be a better leader (due to Nagy's communist past); he had CIA
<nowiki> </nowiki>radio broadcasts run propaganda against Nagy, calling him a traitor
who'd invited Soviet troops in. Transmissions continued to broadcast
armed response while the CIA mistakenly believed that the Hungarian army was switching sides and the rebels were gaining arms.<sup>[129]</sup> (Wisner was recorded as having a "nervous breakdown" by William Colby as the uprising was crushed.<sup>[130]</sup>)


All the councils were both anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist. Borsod
March to support Hungary in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 5 November 1956
<nowiki> </nowiki>District Workers' Council said that it "resolutely condemns the
organisation of political parties."[18] The tendency to unify continued
into early November. The workers' councils in Miskolc set up a municipal
<nowiki> </nowiki>one for the town, then a departmental one for the whole district. On
November 2nd, the president of the Miskolc councils, Jozseff Kiss,
called for a 'National Revolutionary Council' based on the workers'
councils. The developing implicit trend was towards the idea of "all
power to the councils", and its realisation, but this was not clearly
stated: the second Russian attack cut short such developments, Imre Nagy
<nowiki> </nowiki>and his ministers saw nothing of significance in the councils;
similarly, the various political parties that had sprung up looked to
their own activity as a solution to Hungary's problems. Workers'
self-management was a notion beyond them.


On November 3rd the Csepel and Ujpest district councils called for
Responding to the plea by Nagy at the time of the second massive
the strike to end, with a disciplined return to work on the 5th. This
Soviet intervention on 4 November, the Security Council resolution
was intended to strengthen the Nagy government's negotiating hand with
critical of Soviet actions was vetoed by the Soviet Union; instead resolution 120 was adopted
the Russians. On November 1st there had been a declaration of neutrality
<nowiki> </nowiki>to pass the matter onto the General Assembly. The General Assembly, by a
<nowiki> </nowiki>and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact - this accession to one of the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>vote of 50 in favour, 8 against and 15 abstentions, called on the  
major demands of the revolution gave Nagy a temporary popularity.  
Soviet Union to end its Hungarian intervention, but the newly
However, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact was unlikely to be tolerated by
constituted Kádár government rejected UN observers.<sup>[131]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Russians. On November 3rd Pravda reported in Moscow that "militant
communists had been massacred and murdered"; on the day of the invasion
it referred to "bestial atrocities" committed by the rebels, and the  
Chinese Communist Party paper urged - "Bar the road to reaction in
Hungary" (by which they meant - "stop this example to Chinese workers").


<strong>The Military Defeat of the Revolution</strong>
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware of a detailed study of Hungarian resistance that recommended against U.S. military intervention,<sup>[132]</sup>
The Russian attack began on November 4ths 150,000 men and over 2,000
<nowiki> </nowiki>and of earlier policy discussions within the National Security Council
tanks were used. The political parties as well as all the various
that focused upon encouraging discontent in Soviet satellite nations
'leaders' disappeared in the face of it. The working class stood firm
only by economic policies and political rhetoric.<sup>[38][133]</sup> In a 1998 interview, Hungarian Ambassador Géza Jeszenszky was critical of Western inaction in 1956, citing the influence of the United Nations at that time and giving the example of UN intervention in Korea from 1950 to 1953.<sup>[134]</sup>
and took the lead. An immediate spontaneous general strike started, and
the fiercest resistance to the Soviet troops came in working-class
areas. Janos Kadar was the new Hungarian puppet the Russians used to
'invite' them in. His 'Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government" composed
<nowiki> </nowiki>of a handful of Communists rested simply on Russian armed might. Soviet
<nowiki> </nowiki>troops and tanks made straight for the industrial centres and
working-class districts to crush the revolution, Throughout Hungary,
peasants and workers tried to explain the truth to the invaders. Pecs
radio broadcast messages to Russian troops, many of whom had no idea
where they were, that "the Hungarian people have only taken the power
into their own hands". As even the Communist Radio Rajk proclaimed "The
place of every Hungarian communist today is on the barricades", Kadar's
first move was to set up a new secret police force. The workers'
councils rejected Kadar and his fake government without hesitation. When
<nowiki> </nowiki>Dunapentele was surrounded by Soviet troops on the 7th, the Workers'
Council there met the surrender ultimatum with the statement:
"Dunapentele is the foremost socialist town in Hungary. Its inhabitants
are workers, and power is in their hands. The houses have all been built
<nowiki> </nowiki>by the workers themselves. The workers will defend the town from
'fascist excesses' but also from Soviet troops!"


In Budapest the heaviest concentration of Soviet amour was in Csepel
However, a Department of Defense study recently declassified by the National Security Archive
and Kobanya. In the centre of the city fitting went on till the 6th,
<nowiki> </nowiki>suggests that one of the main reasons the United States did not
when the rebels' ammunition ran out. Some suburbs held out until the
intervene was the risk of inadvertently starting a nuclear war with the  
8th; Ujpest and Kobanya till the 9th and 10th, leaving Red Csepel to
Soviet Union. These concerns made the Eisenhower Administration take a  
fall on the 11th when the Russians could move all their troops to attack
more cautious approach to the situation.<sup>[135]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>it. These last districts saw by far the fiercest fighting. Some 80-90%
of the Hungarian wounded were young workers. Kadar's own reports
confirmed that most damage occurred in the working-class areas. On the
7th, rebels raised the red flag to commemorate the Russian Revolution,
while the heirs of that revolution killed Hungarian workers. The AVOs
re-emerged, looking for revenge for their recent humiliations.
Government proclamations started to appear on walls. Passers-by defaced
them, or pasted over them, or just ripped them down. In Csepel the
workers joked grimly "The 40,000 aristocrats and fascists of Csepel are
on strike." Trenches were dug in front of the workers' flats. Csepel
workers for those seven days slept eight hours, fought for eight hours
and spent the other eight hours working in the factories producing arms
and ammunition. The Csepel armoured car made its appearance - a  
three-wheel mechanised wheelbarrow with a machine-gun in the bucket
propped up with sandbags. Against this, the Red Army used heavy
artillery and bombers. Le Figaro, a French paper, commented, "The Red
Array now occupies Budapest. It is red with the blood of the workers."


Outside the capital, Dunapentele lasted till the 9th led by its
During the uprising, the Radio Free Europe
Workers' Council. In Pecs, the Workers' Council decided not to defend
<nowiki> </nowiki>(RFE) Hungarian-language programs broadcast news of the political and
the town. Instead a plan was carried out for guerrilla warfare in the
military situation, as well as appealing to Hungarians to fight the  
nearby hills: this went on in a major way for ten days, and some miners
Soviet forces, including tactical advice on resistance methods. After
and soldiers carried on fighting the Russians for several weeks, in
the Soviet suppression of the revolution, RFE was criticised for having
Miskolc there was a brief resistance to the Soviet attack, followed by a
misled the Hungarian people that NATO or United Nations would intervene if citizens continued to resist.<sup>[136]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>declaration of a general strike of all non-essential workers. The
<nowiki> </nowiki>Allen Dulles lied to Eisenhower that RFE had not promised U.S. aid;
Borsod Workers' Council offered to take 20,000 armed workers to Budapest
Eisenhower believed him, as the transcripts of the broadcasts were kept
<nowiki> </nowiki>so that Nagy (now sheltering in the Yugoslav embassy) could prove to
secret.<sup>[129]</sup>
the Russians that their fears of a 'capitalist restoration' were
groundless. Later on, when the Budapest police chief, Kopacsi, who came
from the Miskolc area, was tried and sentenced to death, the Borsod
Workers' Council repeated this offer to Kadar, who promptly reprieved
Kopacsi. In Salgotarjan in Nograd county, workers supported their local
'Rational Workers' Council' after the Soviet invasion. Until the 16th
the workers held the town hall, the local press and radio, and local
army units were on the revolution's side. On that day the Russian troops
<nowiki> </nowiki>took over, setting up a 'Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Committee' in
opposition to the Workers' Council. On December 1st, the Russians
arrested the leaders of the National Workers' Council, but real power
still lay in the hands of the workers: they marched to the police HQ and
<nowiki> </nowiki>secured the release of their fellow-workers. There followed a solid
two-day strike in the area. A few days later when further arrests of
district Workers' Council members took place, thousands of demonstrators
<nowiki> </nowiki>were confronted by tanks, and the AVH fired on unarmed crowds.


<strong>Workers' Councils lead the Resistance</strong>
=== Soviet intervention of 4 November ===
The military defeat of the Hungarian workers and peasants thus took just
Play media
<nowiki> </nowiki>over a week. The struggle now moved into a new phase. The workers may
have been beaten by an overwhelming armed force from outside, but they
still had control over productions as long as they could keep that,
"workers' power" was a reality and Kadar's government would rest on
repression alone. The workers' councils reorganised in the wake of the
invasion, setting up district workers' councils with an overtly
political role. The Csepel Workers' Council sent delegations to Kadar
and the Soviet army commander. The common demand of the councils was
that the workers were to run the factories, ensuring that power stayed
with them. On November 12th moves were made towards establishing a
Central Workers' Council for the whole of Greater Budapest, and on the
14th the founding meeting was held at the United Lamp factory. A young
Hungarian intellectual, Miklos Erasso, has claimed the credit for the
idea of a Central Workers' Council (CWC1), but he himself relates how he
<nowiki> </nowiki>was put in his place at the meeting: "The elderly social democratic
chairman asked: 'What factory are you from?' 'None', I said. 'What right
<nowiki> </nowiki>have you to be here?' I said that I had actually organised the meeting.
<nowiki> </nowiki>The chairman replied: 'This is untrue. This meeting is an historical
inevitability!"[19] The CWC1 was indeed the inevitable result of the
councils' attempts to unite. Krasso's 'idea' coincided with the
direction of the workers' movement.


The delegates who came together were in the main toolmakers, turners,
1 November newsreel about the situation in Hungary
<nowiki> </nowiki>steelworkers and engineers. The following day a more widely based
meeting was held. Some of the delegates wanted to create a National
Workers' Council for the whole of Hungary then and there; while many
agreed, it was pointed out that they only had a mandate to form a CWC1
for Greater Budapest. The workers' councils were determined to be truly
democratic. "For the Hungarian workers and their delegates the most
important thing about the councils was precisely their democratic
nature. There was a very close relationship between the delegates and
the entire working-class: the delegates were elected for the sole
purpose of carrying out the workers' wishes, and it is noteworthy that
workers often recalled delegates who diverged from their mandate. They
didn't like delegates who were too 'independent'."[20] At the meeting,
Sandor Racz, elected president, stated "We have no need of the
government! We are and shall remain the leaders here in Hungary!"
Unfortunately, the majority were inclined to compromise in the face of
armed might, and to negotiate with Kadar's fake government. A return to
work, backed also by the Csepel Workers' Council, was planned in order
to show that the strike was conscious and organised. Many workers were
very angry at this, and accusations of sell-outs abounded.


As real power lay with the councils, Kadar's government had to
On 1 November, Imre Nagy received reports that Soviet forces had entered Hungary from the east and were moving towards Budapest.<sup>[137]</sup> Nagy sought and received assurances (which proved false) from Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov
destroy them and reinstall authoritarian relationships in the factories.
<nowiki> </nowiki>that the Soviet Union would not invade. The Cabinet, with János Kádár
<nowiki> </nowiki>For two months the struggle continued, Points 9 and 11 of Kadar's
in agreement, declared Hungary's neutrality, withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, and requested assistance from the diplomatic corps in Budapest and Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General, to defend Hungary's neutrality.<sup>[138]</sup>
'Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Program' were for "workers'
<nowiki> </nowiki>Ambassador Andropov was asked to inform his government that Hungary
management of the factories" and "democratic election of the workers'
would begin negotiations on the removal of Soviet forces immediately.<sup>[139][140]</sup>
councils". Kadar's counter-revolution had to hide behind fine phrases.
But there was no way Kadar could agree to the workers' demands:
"collective ownership of the factories, which were to be in the hands of
<nowiki> </nowiki>the workers' councils, which were to act as the only directors of the
enterprises; a widening of the councils' powers in the economic, social
and cultural fields; the organisation of a militia-type police force,  
subject to the councils; and on the political plane, a
multi-socialist-party system."[21] The CWC1 negotiated directly with the
<nowiki> </nowiki>Soviet army commander, Grebennik, giving him a list of missing workers'
<nowiki> </nowiki>council members every day, whereupon the Russians released them from
prison. The Soviets for their part showed that they knew power lay with
the councils, not Kadar. At first, Grebennik treated workers' council
delegations as fascists and imperialist agents; in due course though a
Soviet colonel and interpreter were made permanent representatives to
the CWC1. It was the councils, not Kadar's government, that was
arranging' all food and medical supplies.


On November 18th, a plan was developed for a truly national council, a
On 3 November, a Hungarian delegation led by the Minister of Defense Pál Maléter was invited to attend negotiations on Soviet withdrawal at the Soviet Military Command at Tököl, near Budapest. At around midnight that evening, General Ivan Serov, Chief of the Soviet Security Police (KGB) ordered the arrest of the Hungarian delegation,<sup>[141]</sup> and the next day, the Soviet army again attacked Budapest.<sup>[142]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>'parliament of Workers' Councils'. This was to have 156 members,  
delegates from district workers' councils in Budapest and the counties,
and from the largest factories. This body would elect a thirty-strong
presidium, which would co-opt up to 20 representatives from other groups
<nowiki> </nowiki>such as the army, intellectuals, political parties, and the police. An
appeal went out for delegates to attend a. conference on the 21st to
discuss this. "The principal task of this national conference was to
create a power under the direction of the workers, and in opposition to
the government." On the 19th work restarted as a sign of discipline and
support by the workers for the CWC1. Delegates to the conference came
from Budapest, Gyor, Pecs, Tatabanya, and Ozd and there were others from
<nowiki> </nowiki>peasant organisations. A vital link had been established between the
CWC1 and the provincial councils. The various miners' delegates were
very much against the return to work: "You can work if you want, but we
shall provide neither coal nor electricity, we shall flood all the  
mines!" But those in favour pointed out that the strike was hitting
everybody indiscriminately, and a return to work would keep the workers
united in their workplaces.


A rumour spread through Budapest that the CWC1 had been arrested: the
A Soviet built armored car burns on a street in Budapest in November
<nowiki> </nowiki>workers immediately resumed their strike. Although the workers in
Csepel joined in, the Csepel Workers' Council condemned the new strike.
Before a commission from the CWC1 could investigate this difference, the
<nowiki> </nowiki>Csepel workers had promptly elected a brand new council that was in  
line with their wishes and actions, supporting the strike and the CWC1.
Workers were arguing through the different options facing them now:
active resistance, passive resistance or flight. The first could not be
maintained, although in fact there was never a Hungarian surrender, and a
<nowiki> </nowiki>quarter of a million Hungarians chose the latter and fled the country
to the west. Thousands were deported to Russia, particularly younger
workers, in an act of indiscriminate terror. Railway workers did what
they could to prevent these, for instance by removing railway track.
Some ambushes were carried out against trains and deportees released.
Most deportees were allowed back during 1957.


As passive resistance became the course followed by most Hungarians, a
The second Soviet intervention, codenamed "Operation Whirlwind", was launched by Marshal Ivan Konev.<sup>[106][143]</sup> The five Soviet divisions stationed in Hungary before 23 October were augmented to a total strength of 17 divisions.<sup>[144]</sup> The 8th Mechanized Army under command of Lieutenant General Hamazasp Babadzhanian and the 38th Army under Lieutenant General Hadzhi-Umar Mamsurov from the nearby Carpathian Military District were deployed to Hungary for the operation.<sup>[145]</sup> Some rank-and-file Soviet soldiers reportedly believed they were being sent to Berlin to fight German fascists.<sup>[146]</sup> By 21:30 on 3 November, the Soviet Army had completely encircled Budapest.<sup>[147]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>sullen hatred developed towards the Russians and their puppet
government. When, later on, the Russian leader Khrushchev came to
Hungary, supposed mass meetings of support on the radio had to be
boosted by canned applause. A succession of sarcastic posters appeared
on walls: "Take care! Ten million counter-revolutionaries are roaming
the country. Hundreds of thousands of landowners, capitalists, generals
and bishops are at large, from the aristocratic quarters to the factory
areas of Csepel and Kispest. Because of this gang's murderous activities
<nowiki> </nowiki>only six workers are left in the entire country. These latter have set
up a government in Skolnok." "Lost: the confidence of the people. Honest
<nowiki> </nowiki>finder is asked to return it to Janos Kadar, prime minister of Hungary,
<nowiki> </nowiki>address: 10,000 Soviet Tanks Street." "Wanted! Premier for Hungary.  
Qualifications - no sincere convictions; no backbone; ability to read
and write not essential, but must be able to sign documents drawn up by
others." "Proletarians of the World Unite: but not in groups of three or
<nowiki> </nowiki>more." A popular joke did the rounds: "D'you know where we went wrong
in October? We interfered in our own internal affairs."


As part of the policy of passive resistance, a silent demonstration
At 03:00 on 4 November, Soviet tanks penetrated Budapest along the Pest
took place on November 23rd: from 2 o'clock till J in the afternoon, no
<nowiki> </nowiki>side of the Danube in two thrusts: one up the Soroksári road from the
one went out on the streets of Budapest. This sort of action showed what
south and the other down the Váci road from the north. Thus before a
<nowiki> </nowiki>Hungarians thought of Kadar, and was impossible for his new security
single shot was fired, the Soviets had effectively split the city in
force to suppress. He appealed to the workers' councils to help
half, controlled all bridgeheads, and were shielded to the rear by the
establish order and get production restarted. As if in reply, the CWC1
wide Danube river. Armoured units crossed into Buda
stated on November 27th "We reaffirm that we have received our mission
<nowiki> </nowiki>and at 04:25 fired the first shots at the army barracks on Budaörsi
from the working class... and we shall work with all our might for the
Road. Soon after, Soviet artillery and tank fire was heard in all  
strengthening of the workers' power." The only press that the councils
districts of Budapest.<sup>[147]</sup> Operation Whirlwind combined air strikes, artillery, and the co-ordinated tank–infantry action of 17 divisions.<sup>[148]</sup>
had was a duplicated 'Information Bulletin' which was passed from hand
<nowiki> </nowiki>The Soviet army deployed T-34-85 medium tanks, as well as the new
to hand or read out loud at meetings. The councils allowed no party
T-54s, heavy IS-3 tanks, 152mm ISU-152 mobile assault guns and open-top
organisations in the factories: MSzMP and pro-government trade union
BTR-152 armored personnel carriers.<sup>[149]</sup>
officials were banned and physically prevented from entering.


December saw Kadar's government slowly wrest power away from the
Two Soviet ISU-152 assault guns positioned in a street in Budapest 8th District. An abandoned T-34/85 stands behind them
workers' councils in the battle for the factories. From below came a
relentless pressure for anti-Kadar action. On December 4th there was the
<nowiki> </nowiki>'March of Mothers', a silent procession of 30,000 women in black with
national and black flags. In support, all houses had lighted candles in
their windows at midnight, despite the government taking all the candles
<nowiki> </nowiki>it could out of the shops. The next day a decree dissolved the
Revolutionary Committees that had sprung up alongside the workers'
councils in the districts, for instance in Gyor, and 200 workers'
council members were arrested. The offensive continued on the 6th with
the arrest of the Workers' Councils in the Ganz and MAVAG factories. At
the same time the CWC1 was discussing plans for a National Workers'
Council and a provisional workers' parliament with representatives from
all the workers' councils. On the 8th, 80 miners were killed in
Salgotarjan by Soviet troops. The next day Kadar dissolved the CWC1,
arresting most of its members. The others carried on and declared a
48-hour strike in response to the dissolution and the shooting of the
miners. One delegate declared "Let the lights go out, let there be no
gas, let there be nothing!"


So it was for a 100% solid two-day strike. Two of the CWC1 leaders
Between 4 and 9 November, the Hungarian Army
who escaped arrest, Sandor Racz and Sander Bali, were protected for two
<nowiki> </nowiki>put up sporadic and disorganised resistance, with Marshal Zhukov
days by workers at the Beloiannis factory, who refused to hand them over
reporting the disarming of twelve divisions, two armoured regiments, and
<nowiki> </nowiki>despite the fact that Soviet tanks were ringing the factory. On the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>the entire Hungarian Air Force. The Hungarian Army continued its most
11th, Kadar 'invited' them to negotiations: as soon as they left the  
formidable resistance in various districts of Budapest and in and around
factory they were arrested. The strike continued. Even the party paper
<nowiki> </nowiki>the city of Pécs in the Mecsek Mountains, and in the industrial centre of Dunaújváros
'Nepszabadsag' was forced to say of it that "the like of which has never
<nowiki> </nowiki>(then called Stalintown). Fighting in Budapest consisted of between ten
<nowiki> </nowiki>before been seen in the history of the Hungarian workers' movement." On
<nowiki> </nowiki>and fifteen thousand resistance fighters, with the heaviest fighting
<nowiki> </nowiki>the 13th as the strike finished, the Csepel iron and steel workers sat
occurring in the working-class stronghold of Csepel on the Danube River.<sup>[150][''page needed'']</sup>
in demanding the release of Racz and Bali; other factories followed
<nowiki> </nowiki>Although some very senior officers were openly pro-Soviet, the rank and
suit. Soviet troops were then moved into the major factories to force
<nowiki> </nowiki>file soldiers were overwhelmingly loyal to the revolution and either
the workers to work at gunpoint.
fought against the invasion or deserted. The United Nations reported
that there were no recorded incidents of Hungarian Army units fighting
on the side of the Soviets.<sup>[151]</sup>


<strong>The Revolution Defeated</strong>
At 05:20 on 4 November, Imre Nagy broadcast his final plea to the
The strike was the workers' last card. Kadar's "Revolutionary Workers'
<nowiki> </nowiki>nation and the world, announcing that Soviet Forces were attacking
and Peasants' Government" had defeated the workers and peasants.  
Budapest and that the Government remained at its post.<sup>[152]</sup> The radio station, Free Kossuth Rádió, stopped broadcasting at 08:07.<sup>[153]</sup>
Internment was introduced, and the death penalty set for striking or
<nowiki> </nowiki>An emergency Cabinet meeting was held in the Parliament but was
inciting to strike. A few days after this announcement, the Csepel Iron
attended by only three ministers. As Soviet troops arrived to occupy the
and Steel Workers Council resigned with- the words "we are returning our
<nowiki> </nowiki>building, a negotiated evacuation ensued, leaving Minister of State István Bibó as the last representative of the National Government remaining at his post.<sup>[154]</sup> He wrote ''For Freedom and Truth'', a stirring proclamation to the nation and the world.<sup>[155]</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>mandate into the hands of the workers". As other councils did the same,
<nowiki> </nowiki>Kadar complained of "provocative self-dissolutions"! The CWC1's final
message was that "sabotage and passive resistance are the order of the
day". Kadar, backed by a new AVE and the Soviet army, had seized the  
means of production back from the workers and attacked every workers'
organisation. Naturally, he had a theoretical justification for this. In
<nowiki> </nowiki>May 1957 he told the National Assembly: "In the recent past, we have
encountered the phenomenon that certain categories of workers acted
against their own interests and, in this case, the duty of the leaders
is to represent the interests of the masses and not to implement
mechanically their incorrect ideas. If the wish of the masses does not
coincide with progress, then one must lead the masses in another
direction."


Two thousand Hungarians were executed for what the ruling classes
''Ruszkik haza!'' (''Russians go home!'') slogan in Budapest
everywhere will always call 'incorrect ideas'. Continuing resistance to
Kadar's government can be gauged from the scale of the repression: the
curfew was not lifted until May 1957; summary justice was not brought to
<nowiki> </nowiki>an end till November 1957; during 1957 and 1958, executions occurred
virtually every day; two years after the revolution, there were some
40,000 political prisoners; in 1959, nine members of the Ujpest Workers'
<nowiki> </nowiki>Council were executed. It was not till January 1960 that death
sentences were officially ended for 'offences' during the revolution
(although one insurgent, Laszlo Hickelburg, was executed in 1961). The
last internment camps were closed in June 1960, but several hundred
rebels were not released from prison till the late 'sixties and early
'seventies.


The workers of Hungary proved once again that freedom comes from
At 06:00, on 4 November,<sup>[156]</sup> in the town of Szolnok, János Kádár
below, not from any leadership ('revolutionary' or otherwise) above
<nowiki> </nowiki>proclaimed the "Hungarian Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government". His
acting on their behalf. To destroy the communist bureaucracy they
<nowiki> </nowiki>statement declared "We must put an end to the excesses of the  
adopted a form of organisation that was democratic, anti-bureaucratic
counter-revolutionary elements. The hour for action has sounded. We are
and included the whole working-class these councils were also
going to defend the interest of the workers and peasants and the
constructive. The workers were able to destroy the old and start
achievements of the people's democracy."<sup>[157]</sup>
building the new within days if not hours. They rejected the official
<nowiki> </nowiki>Later that evening, Kádár called upon "the faithful fighters of the  
concepts of socialism and created their own, workers' self-management
true cause of socialism" to come out of hiding and take up arms.
and direct democracy, a logical development from previous workers'
However, Hungarian support did not materialise; the fighting did not
struggles for a new society.
take on the character of an internally divisive civil war, but rather,  
in the words of a United Nations report, that of "a well-equipped
foreign army crushing by overwhelming force a national movement and
eliminating the Government."<sup>[158]</sup>


The Workers' Councils were never in any way separate from the  
Rubble after end of fighting in Budapest 8th District
working-class. They never betrayed it, and dissolved themselves rather
 
than be recuperated by the authorities they returned to the class from
By 08:00 organised defence of the city evaporated after the radio
whence they came. The Hungarian working-class and their councils
station was seized, and many defenders fell back to fortified positions.<sup>[159]</sup>
reorganised society, ran production, kept their order and united the  
<nowiki> </nowiki>During the same hour, the parliamentary guard laid down their arms, and
rest of the population behind them. They were only defeated by a massive
<nowiki> </nowiki>forces under Major General K. Grebennik captured Parliament and
<nowiki> </nowiki>military force and the passivity of the international working-class.  
liberated captured ministers of the Rákosi–Hegedüs government. Among the liberated were István Dobi and Sándor Rónai, both of whom became members of the re-established socialist Hungarian government.<sup>[150]</sup> As they came under attack even in civilian quarters, Soviet troops were unable to differentiate military from civilian targets.<sup>[160]</sup> For this reason, Soviet tanks often crept along main roads firing indiscriminately into buildings.<sup>[159]</sup>
Given the chance to develop freely along the lines they started out on,  
<nowiki> </nowiki>Hungarian resistance was strongest in the industrial areas of Budapest,
the potential of the councils was the creation of a free human society
<nowiki> </nowiki>with Csepel heavily targeted by Soviet artillery and air strikes.<sup>[161]</sup>
at last. The program of the Hungarian Revolution still remains for the  
 
working-class to carry out.
The longest holdouts against the Soviet assault occurred in Csepel and in Dunaújváros, where fighting lasted until 11 November before the insurgents finally succumbed to the Soviets.<sup>[62][''page needed'']</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>At the end of the fighting, Hungarian casualties totalled around 2,500
dead with an additional 20,000 wounded. Budapest bore the brunt of the  
bloodshed, with 1,569 civilians killed.<sup>[62][''page needed'']</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>Approximately 53 percent of the dead were workers, and about half of  
all the casualties were people younger than thirty. On the Soviet side,
699 men were killed, 1,450 men were wounded, and 51 men were missing in
action. Estimates place around 80 percent of all casualties occurring in
<nowiki> </nowiki>fighting with the insurgents in the eighth and ninth districts of
Budapest.<sup>[62][''page needed''][162][163]</sup>

Revision as of 01:53, 4 November 2020

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the largest anti-Stalinist rebellion in history, with rebels successfully topping the Hungarian government and the revolution was only started by an invasion where the USSR came from. It's also where the term "tankie" comes from, indicating someone who supported the USSR's crushing of the rebellion.

Events

Protests and Statue Toppling

20,000 protesters on 23 October gathered around a statue of József Bem - a national hero of Poland and Hungary as Péter Veres, president of the Writers' Union, read a manifesto to the crowd. Demanding independence, democratic socialism, joining the UN and civil liberties for all people. AfterwardsIts claims were Hungary's independence from all foreign powers; a political system based on democratic socialism (land reform and public ownership in the economy); Hungary joining the United Nations; and all freedom rights for the citizens of Hungary.[46] After reading out the proclamation, the crowd began to chant a censored patriotic poem, the National Song (Hu: Nemzeti dal), with the refrain: "This we swear, this we swear, that we will no longer be slaves." Someone in the crowd cut out the Communist coat of arms from the Hungarian flag, leaving a distinctive hole in the middle of it, and others quickly followed suit.[47][page range too broad]

Afterwards, most of the crowd crossed the River Danube to join demonstrators outside the Parliament Building. By 18:00, the multitude had swollen to more than 200,000 people;[48] the demonstration was spirited, but peaceful.[49]

Placing of Hungarian flag into remains of dismantled Stalin statue

At 20:00, the first secretary of the ruling party, Ernő Gerő broadcast a speech condemning the writers' and students' demands.[49] Angered by Gerő's hard-line rejection, some demonstrators decided to carry out one of their demands, the removal of Stalin's 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze statue that was erected in 1951 on the site of a former church, which was demolished to make room for the monument.[50] By 21:30, the statue was toppled and the crowd celebrated by placing Hungarian flags into Stalin's boots, which was all that was left of the statue.[49]

At about the same time, a large crowd gathered at the headquarters of the Hungarian Radio, which was heavily guarded by the ÁVH. The flash point was reached as a delegation attempting to broadcast their demands was detained. The crowd outside the building grew increasingly unruly as rumours spread that the members of the delegation had been killed. Tear gas was thrown from the upper windows and the ÁVH opened fire on the crowd, killing many.[51] The ÁVH tried to re-supply itself by hiding arms inside an ambulance car, but the crowd detected the ruse and intercepted it. Soldiers were sent to the spot relieving the security forces but they tore off the red stars from their caps and sided with the crowd.[47][page range too broad][51] Provoked by the ÁVH attack, protesters reacted violently. Police cars were set ablaze, guns were seized from military depots and distributed to the mass while symbols of the regime were vandalised.[52]

Fighting spreads, government falls

During the night of 23 October, Hungarian Working People's Party Secretary Ernő Gerő requested Soviet military intervention "to suppress a demonstration that was reaching an ever greater and unprecedented scale".[36] The Soviet leadership had formulated contingency plans for intervention in Hungary several months before.[53] By 02:00 on 24 October, acting in accordance with orders of Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet defence minister, Soviet tanks entered Budapest.[54]

By noon, on 24 October, Soviet tanks were stationed outside the Parliament, and Soviet soldiers guarded key bridges and crossroads. Armed revolutionaries quickly set up barricades to defend Budapest, and were reported to have already captured some Soviet tanks by mid-morning.[47][page range too broad] That day, Imre Nagy replaced András Hegedüs as Prime Minister.[55] On the radio, Nagy called for an end to violence and promised to initiate political reforms that had been shelved three years earlier. The population continued to arm itself as sporadic violence erupted.[56]

March of protesters on 25 October

Armed protesters seized the radio building. At the offices of the Communist newspaper Szabad Nép unarmed demonstrators were fired upon by ÁVH guards who were then driven out as armed demonstrators arrived.[56] At this point, the revolutionaries' wrath focused on the ÁVH;[57] Soviet military units were not yet fully engaged, and there were reports of some Soviet troops showing open sympathy for the demonstrators.[58]

On 25 October, a mass of protesters gathered in front of the Parliament Building. ÁVH units began shooting into the crowd from the rooftops of neighbouring buildings.[59][60] Some Soviet soldiers returned fire on the ÁVH, mistakenly believing that they were the targets of the shooting.[47][page range too broad][61] Supplied by arms taken from the ÁVH or given by Hungarian soldiers who joined the uprising, some in the crowd started shooting back.[47][page range too broad][59]

During this time, the Hungarian Army was divided as the central command structure disintegrated with the rising pressures from the protests on the government. The majority of Hungarian military units in Budapest and the countryside remained uninvolved, as the local commanders generally avoided using force against the protesters and revolutionaries.[62][page needed] From 24 to 29 October, however, there were 71 cases of armed clashes between the army and the populace in fifty communities, ranging from the defence of attacks on civilian and military objectives to fighting with insurgents depending on the commanding officer.[62][page needed]

One example is in the town of Kecskemét on 26 October, where demonstrations in front of the office of State Security and the local jail led to military action by the Third Corps under the orders of Major General Lajos Gyurkó, in which seven protesters were shot and several of the organizers were arrested. In another case, a fighter jet strafed a protest in the town of Tiszakécske, killing 17 people and wounding 117.[62][page needed]

The attacks at the Parliament forced the collapse of the government.[63] Communist First Secretary Ernő Gerő and former Prime Minister András Hegedüs fled to the Soviet Union; Imre Nagy became Prime Minister and János Kádár First Secretary of the Communist Party.[64] Revolutionaries began an aggressive offensive against Soviet troops and the remnants of the ÁVH.

Body of executed Party member at Central Committee of the Communist Party

Units led by Béla Király, after attacking the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, executed dozens of suspected communists, state security members, and military personnel. Photographs showed victims with signs of torture. On 30 October, Király's forces attacked the Central Committee of the Communist Party building.[65] Hungarian Communist politician János Berecz, in his government-sponsored "white book" about the Revolution, claimed that the rebels detained thousands of people, and that thousands more had their names on death lists. According to his book, in the city of Kaposvár 64 persons including 13 army officers were detained on 31 October.[66]

In Budapest and other areas—according to Berecz and other Kádár-era sources—the Hungarian Communist committees organised defence. In Csepel, an area of Budapest, some 250 Communists defended the Csepel Iron and Steel Works. On 27 October, army units were brought in to secure Csepel and restore order. They later withdrew on 29 October, after which the rebels seized control of the area. Communists in Angyalföld, also part of Budapest, led more than 350 armed workers and 380 servicemen from the Láng Factory. Anti-fascist resistance veterans from World War II participated in the offensive through which the offices of the Szabad Nép newspaper were recaptured. In the countryside, defence measures were taken by pro-Communist forces. In the county of Békés County, in and around the town of Szarvas, the armed guards of the Communist Party were in control throughout.[67]

Hungarian revolutionaries, beginning of November 1956

As the Hungarian resistance fought Soviet tanks using Molotov cocktails in the narrow streets of Budapest, revolutionary councils arose nationwide, assumed local governmental authority and called for general strikes. Public Communist symbols such as red stars and Soviet war memorials were removed, and Communist books were burned. Spontaneous revolutionary militias arose, such as the 400-man group loosely led by József Dudás, which attacked or murdered Soviet sympathisers and ÁVH members.[68] Soviet units fought primarily in Budapest; elsewhere the countryside was largely quiet. One armoured division stationed in Budapest, commanded by Pál Maléter, instead opted to join the insurgents. Soviet commanders often negotiated local cease-fires with the revolutionaries.[69]

In some regions, Soviet forces managed to quell revolutionary activity. In Budapest, the Soviets were eventually fought to a stand-still and hostilities began to wane. Hungarian general Béla Király, freed from a life sentence for political offences and acting with the support of the Nagy government, sought to restore order by unifying elements of the police, army and insurgent groups into a National Guard.[70] A ceasefire was arranged on 28 October, and by 30 October most Soviet troops had withdrawn from Budapest to garrisons in the Hungarian countryside.[71]

Interlude

Fighting ceased between 28 October and 4 November, as many Hungarians believed that Soviet military units were withdrawing from Hungary.[72] According to post-revolution Communist sources, there were approximately 213 Hungarian Working People's Party members lynched or executed during this period.[73]

New government

Flyer. Imre Nagy, Head of government – 1956.10.27

The rapid spread of the uprising in the streets of Budapest and the abrupt fall of the Gerő–Hegedüs government left the new national leadership surprised, and at first disorganised. Nagy, a loyal party reformer described as possessing "only modest political skills",[74] initially appealed to the public for calm and a return to the old order. Yet Nagy, the only remaining Hungarian leader with credibility in both the eyes of the public and the Soviets, "at long last concluded that a popular uprising rather than a counter-revolution was taking place".[75] At 13:20 on 28 October, Nagy announced an immediate and general cease-fire over the radio and, on behalf of the new national government, declared the following:

  • that the government would assess the uprising not as counter-revolutionary but as a "great, national and democratic event"
  • an unconditional general ceasefire and amnesty for those who participated in the uprising; negotiations with the insurgents
  • the dissolution of the ÁVH
  • the establishment of a national guard
  • the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest and negotiations for the withdrawal of all Soviet forces from Hungary

On 1 November, in a radio address to the Hungarian people, Nagy formally declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact as well as Hungary's stance of neutrality.[62][page needed][76][77][page needed] Because it held office only ten days, the National Government had little chance to clarify its policies in detail. However, newspaper editorials at the time stressed that Hungary should be a neutral, multi-party social democracy.[78] About 8000 political prisoners were released, most notably Cardinal József Mindszenty.[79][80] Political parties that were previously banned, such as the Independent Smallholders and the National Peasant Party (under the name "Petőfi Party"),[81] reappeared to join the coalition.[82]

Crowd cheers Hungarian troops in Budapest

During this time, in 1,170 communities across Hungary there were 348 cases in which revolutionary councils and protesters dismissed employees of the local administrative councils, 312 cases in which they sacked the persons in charge, and 215 cases in which they burned the local administrative files and records. In addition, in 681 communities demonstrators damaged symbols of Soviet authority such as red stars, Stalin or Lenin statues; 393 in which they damaged Soviet war memorials, and 122 communities in which book burnings took place.[14][62][page needed]

Local revolutionary councils formed throughout Hungary,[83][84][85][86] generally without involvement from the preoccupied National Government in Budapest, and assumed various responsibilities of local government from the defunct Communist party.[87] By 30 October, these councils had been officially sanctioned by the Hungarian Working People's Party, and the Nagy government asked for their support as "autonomous, democratic local organs formed during the Revolution".[87] Likewise, workers' councils were established at industrial plants and mines, and many unpopular regulations such as production norms were eliminated. The workers' councils strove to manage the enterprise while protecting workers' interests, thus establishing a socialist economy free of rigid party control.[88] Local control by the councils was not always bloodless; in Debrecen, Győr, Sopron, Mosonmagyaróvár and other cities, crowds of demonstrators were fired upon by the ÁVH, with many lives lost. The ÁVH were disarmed, often by force, in many cases assisted by the local police.[87]

In total there were approximately 2,100 local revolutionary and workers councils with over 28,000 members. These councils held a combined conference in Budapest, deciding to end the nationwide labour strikes and resume work on 5 November, with the more important councils sending delegates to the Parliament to assure the Nagy government of their support.[62][page needed]

Soviet perspective

On 24 October, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (the Politburo) discussed the political upheavals in Poland and Hungary. A hard-line faction led by Molotov was pushing for intervention, but Khrushchev and Marshal Zhukov were initially opposed. A delegation in Budapest reported that the situation was not as dire as had been portrayed. Khrushchev stated that he believed that Party Secretary Ernő Gerő's request for intervention on 23 October indicated that the Hungarian Party still held the confidence of the Hungarian public. In addition, he saw the protests not as an ideological struggle, but as popular discontent over unresolved basic economic and social issues.[36] The concurrent Suez Crisis was another reason to not intervene; as Khrushchev said on 28 October, it would be a mistake to imitate the "real mess" of the French and British.[89]

After some debate,[90][91] the Presidium on 30 October decided not to remove the new Hungarian government. Even Marshal Georgy Zhukov said: "We should withdraw troops from Budapest, and if necessary withdraw from Hungary as a whole. This is a lesson for us in the military-political sphere." They adopted a Declaration of the Government of the USSR on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist States, which was issued the next day. This document proclaimed: "The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and other members of the Warsaw Treaty on the question of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of Hungary."[92] Thus for a brief moment it looked like there could be a peaceful solution.

Damaged Party headquarters on Köztársaság tér

On 30 October, armed protesters attacked the ÁVH detachment guarding the Budapest Hungarian Working People's Party headquarters on Köztársaság tér (Republic Square), incited by rumours of prisoners held there and the earlier shootings of demonstrators by the ÁVH in the city of Mosonmagyaróvár.[87][93][94] Over 20 ÁVH officers were killed, some of them lynched by the mob. Hungarian army tanks sent to rescue the party headquarters mistakenly bombarded the building.[94] The head of the Budapest party committee, Imre Mező, was wounded and later died.[95][96] Scenes from Republic Square were shown on Soviet newsreels a few hours later.[97] Revolutionary leaders in Hungary condemned the incident and appealed for calm, and the mob violence soon died down,[98] but images of the victims were nevertheless used as propaganda by various Communist organs.[96]

On 31 October the Soviet leaders decided to reverse their decision from the previous day. There is disagreement among historians whether Hungary's declaration to exit the Warsaw Pact caused the second Soviet intervention. Minutes of 31 October meeting of the Presidium record that the decision to intervene militarily was taken one day before Hungary declared its neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.[99] Historians who deny that Hungarian neutrality—or other factors such as Western inaction in Hungary or perceived Western weakness due to the Suez crisis—caused the intervention state that the Soviet decision was based solely on the rapid loss of Communist control in Hungary.[89] However, some Russian historians who are not advocates of the Communist era maintain that the Hungarian declaration of neutrality caused the Kremlin to intervene a second time.[100]

Two days earlier, on 30 October, when Soviet Politburo representatives Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov were in Budapest, Nagy had hinted that neutrality was a long-term objective for Hungary, and that he was hoping to discuss this matter with the leaders in the Kremlin. This information was passed on to Moscow by Mikoyan and Suslov.[101][102] At that time, Khrushchev was in Stalin's dacha, considering his options regarding Hungary. One of his speech writers later said that the declaration of neutrality was an important factor in his subsequent decision to support intervention.[103] In addition, some Hungarian leaders of the revolution as well as students had called for their country's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact much earlier, and this may have influenced Soviet decision making.[104]

Several other key events alarmed the Presidium and cemented the interventionists' position:[105][106]

  • Simultaneous movements towards multi-party parliamentary

democracy, and a democratic national council of workers, which could "lead towards a capitalist state". Both movements challenged the pre-eminence of the Soviet Communist Party in Eastern Europe and perhaps Soviet hegemony itself. Hannah Arendt considered the councils "the only free and acting soviets (councils) in existence anywhere in the world".[107][108]

  • Khrushchev stated that many in the Communist Party would not understand a failure to respond with force in Hungary. Destalinisation

had alienated the more conservative elements of the Party, who were alarmed at threats to Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. On 17 June 1953, workers in East Berlin had staged an uprising, demanding the resignation of the government of the German Democratic Republic. This was quickly and violently put down with the help of the Soviet military, with 84 killed and wounded and 700 arrested.[109] In June 1956, in Poznań, Poland, an anti-government workers' revolt had been suppressed by the Polish security forces with between 57[110] and 78[111][112] deaths and led to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government. Additionally, by late October, unrest was noticed in some regional areas of the Soviet Union: while this unrest was minor, it was intolerable.

  • Hungarian neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact represented a breach in the Soviet defensive buffer zone of satellite nations.[113]
Soviet fear of invasion from the West made a defensive buffer of allied

states in Eastern Europe an essential security objective. Soviet T-54 tanks in Budapest on 31 October

The militants arrived at the conclusion that "the Party is the incarnation of bureaucratic despotism" and that "socialism can develop only on the foundations of direct democracy". For them the struggle of the Hungarian workers was a struggle "for the principle of direct democracy" and "all power should be transferred to the Workers Committees of Hungary".[114] The Presidium decided to break the de facto ceasefire and crush the Hungarian revolution.[115] The plan was to declare a "Provisional Revolutionary Government" under János Kádár, who would appeal for Soviet assistance to restore order. According to witnesses, Kádár was in Moscow in early November,[116] and he was in contact with the Soviet embassy while still a member of the Nagy government.[117] Delegations were sent to other Communist governments in Eastern Europe and China, seeking to avoid a regional conflict, and propaganda messages prepared for broadcast when the second Soviet intervention had begun. To disguise these intentions, Soviet diplomats were to engage the Nagy government in talks discussing the withdrawal of Soviet forces.[99]

According to some sources, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong played an important role in Khrushchev's decision to suppress the Hungarian uprising. Chinese Communist Party Deputy Chairman Liu Shaoqi pressured Khrushchev to send in troops to put down the revolt by force.[118][119] Although the relations between China and the Soviet Union had deteriorated during the recent years, Mao's words still carried great weight in the Kremlin, and they were frequently in contact during the crisis. Initially, Mao opposed a second intervention, and this information was passed on to Khrushchev on 30 October, before the Presidium met and decided against intervention.[120] Mao then changed his mind in favour of intervention but, according to William Taubman, it remains unclear when and how Khrushchev learned of this and thus if it influenced his decision on 31 October.[121]

From 1 to 3 November, Khrushchev left Moscow to meet with his Warsaw Pact allies and inform them of the decision to intervene. At the first such meeting, he met with Władysław Gomułka in Brest. Then, he had talks with the Romanian, Czechoslovak, and Bulgarian leaders in Bucharest. Finally Khrushchev flew with Malenkov to Yugoslavia (Communist but outside Warsaw Pact) where they met Josip Broz Tito on his holiday island Brijuni. The Yugoslavs also persuaded Khrushchev to choose János Kádár instead of Ferenc Münnich as the new leader of Hungary.[122][123] Two months after the Soviet crackdown, Tito confided in Nikolai Firiubin, the Soviet ambassador to Yugoslavia, that "the reaction raised its head, especially in Croatia, where the reactionary elements openly incited the employees of the Yugoslav security organs to violence".[124]

Polish response to the Hungarian uprising

Plaque commemorating Polish-Hungarian solidarity during the Hungarian revolution of 1956, at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street 5, in Warsaw.

The events in Hungary met with a very spontaneous reaction in Poland. Hungarian flags were displayed in many Polish towns and villages. After the Soviet invasion, the help given by the ordinary Poles to Hungarians took on a considerable scale. Citizen organizations were established throughout Poland to distribute aid to the Hungarian population. By 12 November, over 11,000 honorary blood donors had registered throughout Poland. Polish Red Cross statistics show that by air transport alone (15 aircraft), 44 tonnes of medication, blood, and other medical supplies were delivered to Hungary. Assistance sent using road and rail transport was much higher. Polish aid is estimated at a value of approximately US$2 million of 1956 dollars.[125][126][127]

International reaction

Although John Foster Dulles, the United States Secretary of State recommended on 24 October for the United Nations Security Council to convene to discuss the situation in Hungary, little immediate action was taken to introduce a resolution,[128] in part because other world events unfolded the day after the peaceful interlude started, when allied collusion started the Suez Crisis. The problem was not that Suez distracted U.S. attention from Hungary but that it made the condemnation of Soviet actions very difficult. As Vice President Richard Nixon later explained, "We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against [Gamel Abdel] Nasser".[38] Despite his earlier calls for the "rollback" of communism and "liberation" of Eastern Europe, John Foster Dulles sent the Soviet leaders a message: "We do not see these states [Hungary and Poland] as potential military allies."[79]

The United States response was reliant on the CIA to covertly effect change, with both covert agents and Radio Free Europe. However, their Hungarian operations collapsed rapidly and they could not locate any of the weapon caches hidden across Europe, nor be sure to whom they'd send arms. The agency's main source of information were the newspapers and a State Department employee in Budapest called Geza Katona.[40] By 28 October, on the same night that the new Nagy government came to power, RFE was ramping up its broadcasts—encouraging armed struggle, advising on how to combat tanks and signing off with "Freedom or Death!"—on the orders of Frank Wisner. When Nagy did come to power, CIA director Allen Dulles advised the White House that Cardinal Mindszenty would be a better leader (due to Nagy's communist past); he had CIA radio broadcasts run propaganda against Nagy, calling him a traitor who'd invited Soviet troops in. Transmissions continued to broadcast armed response while the CIA mistakenly believed that the Hungarian army was switching sides and the rebels were gaining arms.[129] (Wisner was recorded as having a "nervous breakdown" by William Colby as the uprising was crushed.[130])

March to support Hungary in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 5 November 1956

Responding to the plea by Nagy at the time of the second massive Soviet intervention on 4 November, the Security Council resolution critical of Soviet actions was vetoed by the Soviet Union; instead resolution 120 was adopted to pass the matter onto the General Assembly. The General Assembly, by a vote of 50 in favour, 8 against and 15 abstentions, called on the Soviet Union to end its Hungarian intervention, but the newly constituted Kádár government rejected UN observers.[131]

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware of a detailed study of Hungarian resistance that recommended against U.S. military intervention,[132] and of earlier policy discussions within the National Security Council that focused upon encouraging discontent in Soviet satellite nations only by economic policies and political rhetoric.[38][133] In a 1998 interview, Hungarian Ambassador Géza Jeszenszky was critical of Western inaction in 1956, citing the influence of the United Nations at that time and giving the example of UN intervention in Korea from 1950 to 1953.[134]

However, a Department of Defense study recently declassified by the National Security Archive suggests that one of the main reasons the United States did not intervene was the risk of inadvertently starting a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. These concerns made the Eisenhower Administration take a more cautious approach to the situation.[135]

During the uprising, the Radio Free Europe (RFE) Hungarian-language programs broadcast news of the political and military situation, as well as appealing to Hungarians to fight the Soviet forces, including tactical advice on resistance methods. After the Soviet suppression of the revolution, RFE was criticised for having misled the Hungarian people that NATO or United Nations would intervene if citizens continued to resist.[136] Allen Dulles lied to Eisenhower that RFE had not promised U.S. aid; Eisenhower believed him, as the transcripts of the broadcasts were kept secret.[129]

Soviet intervention of 4 November

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1 November newsreel about the situation in Hungary

On 1 November, Imre Nagy received reports that Soviet forces had entered Hungary from the east and were moving towards Budapest.[137] Nagy sought and received assurances (which proved false) from Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov that the Soviet Union would not invade. The Cabinet, with János Kádár in agreement, declared Hungary's neutrality, withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, and requested assistance from the diplomatic corps in Budapest and Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General, to defend Hungary's neutrality.[138] Ambassador Andropov was asked to inform his government that Hungary would begin negotiations on the removal of Soviet forces immediately.[139][140]

On 3 November, a Hungarian delegation led by the Minister of Defense Pál Maléter was invited to attend negotiations on Soviet withdrawal at the Soviet Military Command at Tököl, near Budapest. At around midnight that evening, General Ivan Serov, Chief of the Soviet Security Police (KGB) ordered the arrest of the Hungarian delegation,[141] and the next day, the Soviet army again attacked Budapest.[142]

A Soviet built armored car burns on a street in Budapest in November

The second Soviet intervention, codenamed "Operation Whirlwind", was launched by Marshal Ivan Konev.[106][143] The five Soviet divisions stationed in Hungary before 23 October were augmented to a total strength of 17 divisions.[144] The 8th Mechanized Army under command of Lieutenant General Hamazasp Babadzhanian and the 38th Army under Lieutenant General Hadzhi-Umar Mamsurov from the nearby Carpathian Military District were deployed to Hungary for the operation.[145] Some rank-and-file Soviet soldiers reportedly believed they were being sent to Berlin to fight German fascists.[146] By 21:30 on 3 November, the Soviet Army had completely encircled Budapest.[147]

At 03:00 on 4 November, Soviet tanks penetrated Budapest along the Pest side of the Danube in two thrusts: one up the Soroksári road from the south and the other down the Váci road from the north. Thus before a single shot was fired, the Soviets had effectively split the city in half, controlled all bridgeheads, and were shielded to the rear by the wide Danube river. Armoured units crossed into Buda and at 04:25 fired the first shots at the army barracks on Budaörsi Road. Soon after, Soviet artillery and tank fire was heard in all districts of Budapest.[147] Operation Whirlwind combined air strikes, artillery, and the co-ordinated tank–infantry action of 17 divisions.[148] The Soviet army deployed T-34-85 medium tanks, as well as the new T-54s, heavy IS-3 tanks, 152mm ISU-152 mobile assault guns and open-top BTR-152 armored personnel carriers.[149]

Two Soviet ISU-152 assault guns positioned in a street in Budapest 8th District. An abandoned T-34/85 stands behind them

Between 4 and 9 November, the Hungarian Army put up sporadic and disorganised resistance, with Marshal Zhukov reporting the disarming of twelve divisions, two armoured regiments, and the entire Hungarian Air Force. The Hungarian Army continued its most formidable resistance in various districts of Budapest and in and around the city of Pécs in the Mecsek Mountains, and in the industrial centre of Dunaújváros (then called Stalintown). Fighting in Budapest consisted of between ten and fifteen thousand resistance fighters, with the heaviest fighting occurring in the working-class stronghold of Csepel on the Danube River.[150][page needed] Although some very senior officers were openly pro-Soviet, the rank and file soldiers were overwhelmingly loyal to the revolution and either fought against the invasion or deserted. The United Nations reported that there were no recorded incidents of Hungarian Army units fighting on the side of the Soviets.[151]

At 05:20 on 4 November, Imre Nagy broadcast his final plea to the nation and the world, announcing that Soviet Forces were attacking Budapest and that the Government remained at its post.[152] The radio station, Free Kossuth Rádió, stopped broadcasting at 08:07.[153] An emergency Cabinet meeting was held in the Parliament but was attended by only three ministers. As Soviet troops arrived to occupy the building, a negotiated evacuation ensued, leaving Minister of State István Bibó as the last representative of the National Government remaining at his post.[154] He wrote For Freedom and Truth, a stirring proclamation to the nation and the world.[155]

Ruszkik haza! (Russians go home!) slogan in Budapest

At 06:00, on 4 November,[156] in the town of Szolnok, János Kádár proclaimed the "Hungarian Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government". His statement declared "We must put an end to the excesses of the counter-revolutionary elements. The hour for action has sounded. We are going to defend the interest of the workers and peasants and the achievements of the people's democracy."[157] Later that evening, Kádár called upon "the faithful fighters of the true cause of socialism" to come out of hiding and take up arms. However, Hungarian support did not materialise; the fighting did not take on the character of an internally divisive civil war, but rather, in the words of a United Nations report, that of "a well-equipped foreign army crushing by overwhelming force a national movement and eliminating the Government."[158]

Rubble after end of fighting in Budapest 8th District

By 08:00 organised defence of the city evaporated after the radio station was seized, and many defenders fell back to fortified positions.[159] During the same hour, the parliamentary guard laid down their arms, and forces under Major General K. Grebennik captured Parliament and liberated captured ministers of the Rákosi–Hegedüs government. Among the liberated were István Dobi and Sándor Rónai, both of whom became members of the re-established socialist Hungarian government.[150] As they came under attack even in civilian quarters, Soviet troops were unable to differentiate military from civilian targets.[160] For this reason, Soviet tanks often crept along main roads firing indiscriminately into buildings.[159] Hungarian resistance was strongest in the industrial areas of Budapest, with Csepel heavily targeted by Soviet artillery and air strikes.[161]

The longest holdouts against the Soviet assault occurred in Csepel and in Dunaújváros, where fighting lasted until 11 November before the insurgents finally succumbed to the Soviets.[62][page needed] At the end of the fighting, Hungarian casualties totalled around 2,500 dead with an additional 20,000 wounded. Budapest bore the brunt of the bloodshed, with 1,569 civilians killed.[62][page needed] Approximately 53 percent of the dead were workers, and about half of all the casualties were people younger than thirty. On the Soviet side, 699 men were killed, 1,450 men were wounded, and 51 men were missing in action. Estimates place around 80 percent of all casualties occurring in fighting with the insurgents in the eighth and ninth districts of Budapest.[62][page needed][162][163]

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