The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 is one of the most influential events of Hungarian history known throughout the world.
Hungary fell under Soviet control after the communist-rigged elections of 1947. The years that followed introduced a system of tyranny under which Hungarians suffered economic deprivation, mass arrests, and a systematically cruel oppression by the communist government. In 1953, following the death of Stalin, signs of economic crisis appeared, caused by a fatally misguided state-controlled agrarian policy. The Hungarian communist hard-liner, Mátyás Rákosi, was suddenly replaced by reformer Imre Nagy, also a communist, but one who believed in “Communism with a human face.”
This welcome “thaw” lasted for only 18 months, to be followed again by a period of repression first under Rákosi, then under his lieutenant, Ernõ Gerő. But Khruschev’s famous speech given at the February 1956 Party Congress, in which he surprisingly criticized Stalin’s personality cult and actions, opened the gate in Hungary to similar criticism against the morally bankrupt Communist system. Dissatisfaction with the system grew: writers, university students and journalists pressed for major changes, until it all erupted in a mass demonstration of support for the striking workers of Poznan, Poland.
On October 23, 1956, university students staged a peaceful demonstration to express their solidarity with the Polish people and have their own demands known (e.g., evacuation of Soviet troops, free elections with all political parties participating). The armed uprising began in the evening when the secret police shot into the crowd gathered to occupy the radio building. Secretary General Ernő Gerő asked the Soviet embassy for the intervention of Soviet troops. Reform-communist Imre Nagy was appointed prime minister by the party leadership to quell the revolutionary movement, but he gradually embraced the protesters’ goals.
The insurgents, recruited from the youth of Budapest, did not retreat at the sight of the line of Soviet tanks arriving in the capital. Several centers of resistance formed. The majority of the insurgents were adolescent or young adult workers and trade school or high school students from the suburbs.
Following sweeping protests across the country, revolutionary councils formed, and workers’ councils were elected. The scenario of the revolutionary events developed similarly everywhere in the rural areas. Mass rallies were held following the demonstration the students initiated. During the symbolic cleansing of the communal spaces, the symbols of the repressive regime (Red Star, Soviet war memorials) were demolished. The new organizations and political forces represented the three-pronged objectives of the revolution: national independence, the establishment of democratic institutions, and the defense of “social achievements” (e.g., they did not intend to re-privatize factories).
On October 23, 1956, university students staged a peaceful demonstration to express their solidarity with the Polish people and have their own demands known (e.g., evacuation of Soviet troops, free elections with all political parties participating). The armed uprising began in the evening when the secret police shot into the crowd gathered to occupy the radio building. Secretary General Ernő Gerő asked the Soviet embassy for the intervention of Soviet troops. Reform-communist Imre Nagy was appointed prime minister by the party leadership to quell the revolutionary movement, but he gradually embraced the protesters’ goals.
The insurgents, recruited from the youth of Budapest, did not retreat at the sight of the line of Soviet tanks arriving in the capital. Several centers of resistance formed. The majority of the insurgents were adolescent or young adult workers and trade school or high school students from the suburbs.
Following sweeping protests across the country, revolutionary councils formed, and workers’ councils were elected. The scenario of the revolutionary events developed similarly everywhere in the rural areas. Mass rallies were held following the demonstration the students initiated. During the symbolic cleansing of the communal spaces, the symbols of the repressive regime (Red Star, Soviet war memorials) were demolished. The new organizations and political forces represented the three-pronged objectives of the revolution: national independence, the establishment of democratic institutions, and the defense of “social achievements” (e.g., they did not intend to re-privatize factories).
On October 31, the Soviet party leadership opted for armed intervention to protect the military-strategic interests of the Soviet empire. On November 4, with the second Soviet intervention, the repression of the revolution began, and János Kádár’s new government came to power. More than 2,500 Hungarian and 700 Soviet soldiers died in the fighting.
After the Soviet Army crushed the Hungarian Revolution, sporadic armed resistance continued in various cities until mid-December. But it was the passive resistance, the silent political struggle, the calls for strikes that continued to present a challenge to the puppet government of Soviet-picked János Kádár. His communist colleagues, especially the Soviets and Romanians, pressured him to hit the revolutionaries hard.
Reprisals began in late November with mass arrests, deportations to Ukraine, special courts and military trials, and the establishment of internment camps. In order to gain legitimacy, Kádár had to destroy the Revolution’s Prime Minister, Imre Nagy, and accordingly, his trial, secret execution and burial took place in June, 1958. General amnesty for most prisoners took place only in 1963.
There is a particular duality in the West’s reaction: the public, well informed by the international press, watched with special sympathy the heroic struggle of the insurgents. The governments, however, were aware of the extremely tight constraints caused by the Cold War and reacted cautiously. Nonetheless, following a call from the UN General Assembly in November 1956, an international relief campaign was launched to accommodate some 200,000 Hungarian refugees who had fled to the West after the repression of the revolution.
Although the governments of the free world watched the Hungarian Revolution with deep admiration, they never seriously considered providing military support, nor condemnation strong enough to stop the brutal actions of the Soviet Union.
However, the heroes of 1956 did not die or suffer in vain. They demonstrated such uncommon bravery, such a universal yearning for freedom from foreign tyranny, that the whole world was forced to see the true face of communism at last. The Revolution’s spirit came full circle in June, 1989, when Imre Nagy and others were finally given the public burial by a grateful Hungarian nation that had waited 33 years to pay homage to their sacrifice.
The 1956 Revolution was the first step in the dissolution of Communism to be followed by the Prague Spring in 1968, the founding of Solidarity in Poland in 1980, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Communist system, that received its first mortal blow in Hungary in 1956, disintegrated across the region in 1989. Soon thereafter the Warsaw Pact dissolved. The last Soviet soldiers left Hungarian soil in June, 1991, and at long last Hungary was free.
