The Looking Glass

HARRIS FELTON (L6) This article was written as part of the History Witold Pilecki Essay Competition 2022. On October 23rd 1956, in Budapest, 20,000 students and workers gathered around the statue of Jozsef Bem, the hero of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. The president of the Writers union, Peter Veres,  read the manifesto outlining the demands of the protestors-  freedom of speech, a more liberal form of socialism, the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Hungarian independence and membership of the United Nations. The Nemzeti Dal, the patriotic poem of Hungary is chanted by the crowds, with the repeating phrase “This we swear, this we swear, that we will no longer be slaves”.  By the evening, the Secretary of the Communist Party of Hungary, Erno Gero, would give a speech rejecting the demands of the intelligentsia and the students. Gero’s statement provoked a dramatic response and later that evening the 8 metre tall bronze statue of Joseph Stalin was torn down and replaced b...