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 by the Hungarian flag.
For Hungary, these acts of defiance would explode into a national uprising against Soviet control. Hungary’s communist government would face major changes in the matter of weeks, before Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev decided to intervene militarily and crush the uprising.
Why did the Hungarian people grow an anti communist sentiment? How did the events in Hungary expose the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union? And in terms of wider history, what was the Hungarian uprising’ significance in highlighting failures of communism and its eventual downfall?
The following factors created the climate for the Hungarian uprising.
- Communism in Hungary was modelled on Stalinism and terror, censorship and oppression became the main tools of the Hungarian communist government. Powerful secret police and surveillance were used in daily life.
- Economic situation was difficult with widespread low standard of living and food shortages
- Hungary was politically unstable and there were significant events within the Soviet Union and its puppet states that encouraged Hungarians to rise up against their government.
State of terror, censorship and oppression modelled on Stalinism
To secure political and economic control over the Soviet occupied countries Joseph Stalin had a policy of appointing communists loyal to Moscow to senior party positions. This control was further strengthened through the policies of Cominform and Comecon.
One such Stalinist loyalist was Mátyás Rákosi. After the Soviet Union occupied Hungary in 1945, he became the General Secretary of the Hungarian communist party which took over the power in 1947 elections. To secure communist party dominance the Soviet troops arrested the rival politicians and expelled 40 of its members. The previously democratically elected prime minister Ferenc Nagy was blackmailed into exile under the fabricated charge of “conspiracy”.
Despite the expulsions, the Communists still did not have an outright majority and to achieve it they forced other parties to either join the communist coalition or be exiled. By summer 1948 Mátyás Rákosi had complete control of all the other parties and 3 years later became Hungary's prime minister.
Rákosi used censorship alongside his “cult of personality” to suppress independent thinking whereby 100,000 intellectuals and officials were imprisoned during his government. The state power was enforced by the secret police, the AVH, short for Allam Vedelmi Hatosag, which was both feared and despised by the Hungarian people.Foreign media was banned and Cardinal Mindszenty, the leader of the Catholic church, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a show trial for showing his opposition to communism. The secret police and army were overseen by Lazlo Rajk, the minister of the interior. Despite Lazlo’s loyalty to the Communist party he too was considered a threat by Rákosi and subjected to his own show trial. He was forced, under duress, to confess to being a Titoist and a western spy and was executed for treason in October 1949.
Economic situation
Stalin’s economic scheme of collectivisation was introduced in Hungary when it joined Comecon in January 1949. The farmers working in collectives were forced to sell produce at state determined prices, which hindered agricultural output. Many farmers lost incentive to work as they had no say in how their produce would be sold.This resulted in low productivity and shortages of basic consumer goods, as the priority for the communist bloc was steel, coal and other heavy industries.
Hungary had already lost 40% of the infrastructure destroyed during World War II and it had to pay reparations to the Soviet Union, estimated to be around 20% of its GDP. Post war Hungary under Soviet control transitioned into a centrally planned economy with the state controlling the production and distribution of goods, eliminating private ownership. The Hungarian government neglected the poorly functioning economy, focusing instead on large military spending. Living standards and wages were low for the average Hungarian.
Political factors
Political events in the Soviet Union had a direct impact on Hungary. After Stalin’s death in 1953, a major power struggle ensued resulting in Kruschev gaining control of the Soviet Union. In February 1956, he gave a speech titled “On the cult of personality and its consequences” which detailed the extent of Stalin’s purges and provided the shocking statistics of number of people murdered. Today this event is known as the “Secret Speech” which marked the beginning of the period known as “Khrushchev thaw” or de-Stalinization. Censorship was peeled back and political prisoners were released and “rehabilitated”. Stalinist politicians were out of favour which undermined Rakosi’s position. He stood down in 1953 and handed the power over to Imre Nagi.
In 1955 Nagy wanted to follow Austria’s lead in announcing its neutrality in the geopolitical cold war. This announcement, accompanied by the launch of the de-Stalinization campaign and the removal of Rakosi emboldened the Hungarians. A further boost came from events of Gomulka, in neighbouring Poland, where workers’ riots in June 1956 led to reduction in Stalinist control, better working conditions and withdrawal of some Soviet troops.Hungarians became more optimistic that a liberal form of socialism was possible for them too.
The Hungarian Uprising 1956
In July 1956 Erno Gero, hardliner, was appointed as a General secretary. This started a period known as “the Gero Interregnum” which would last until October 1956, the same month the students decided to protest.
On October 23rd 1956 Gero delivered a speech in a radio address which would provoke the revolution. A crowd of nationalist dissidents met outside the Magyar Radio building, which was garrisoned by the AVH. Tensions would soon rise as rumours circulated that a group of students were arrested and held for attempting to enter the building to broadcast their demands for reform.To disperse the crowds the AVH used tear gas and fired at the civilians from the windows of the building. The protestors attacked the vehicles supplying the ammunition to AVH. When the Hungarian army arrived, some soldiers tore off the insignia on their uniforms and joined the protestors.
Gero requested Soviet military action, which ensued the next day under the orders of Soviet defence minister , Georgy Zhukov.By noon of the 24th of October both the Red army and Hungarian people had set up the roadblocks in Budapest. Nagy, who had been reappointed as prime minister that same day, urged for a ceasefire between the Hungarian revolutionaries and the occupying Soviets. This plea was ignored as Hungarians continued to attack both Soviet soldiers and contingents of the secret police.In one of these clashes a Soviet tank opened fire on a crowd outside the offices of the Szabad Nep, the main communist newspaper, killing up to 1,000 protestors. Further violence would be carried out against pro Soviet parts of the army and government, with 213 workers party members being executed.
The smoke would clear by the end of October 1956, as the country was stabilised under Nagy’s communist government and ceasefire declared. Soviet forces withdrew on the 31st October, which for US president Dwight D Eisenhower marked the “Dawning of a new day” in communist Eastern Europe.To establish order, Nagy promised to the people he would dissolve the secret police, organise the retreat of Soviet forces from Hungary and give amnesty to the revolutionaries, who would now support a national move to democracy rather than an anti communist insurrection.
The Soviets agreed to hold talks to appease the protestors, but merely as a bluff, a delaying action to buy time, so they could defeat the uprising and re-establish control.There were disagreements in Moscow on how to resolve the Hungarian situation. The hardliners, such as the Minister of Foreign affairs Molotov, favoured military response whilst Khrushchev and Marshal Zhukov argued that Hungary could be reintegrated into the communist bloc through political means. Khruschev assumed,wrongly, that the Hungarian people simply sought better living conditions and economic opportunities rather than the independence of Hungary from Soviet influence.
On the 3rd November 1956 in response to Warsaw pacts troops amassing at the Hungarian border Nagy declared that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact and become neutral.For Khrushchev, Nagy’s decision not only went against the Soviet Union, it also weakened the military strength of the Warsaw Pact, compromising its ability to hold back western expansion.There was also a fear that Hungary may adopt elements of a capitalist economic system as was the case in Yugoslavia, which would further undermine Soviet control.
By the 4th of November, Warsaw Pact troops, with 17 divisions and 1,000 tanks invaded Hungary and surrounded Budapest. Despite the brave resistance from the Hungarians, the overwhelming firepower of the Soviets conquered Budapest. Janos Kadar was appointed as a new leader of the Communist party. The crackdown caused the deaths of 2,000 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops. In the immediate aftermath, Nagy and his supporters fled to the Yugoslav embassy seeking sanctuary, but on the 22nd November, under a false pretence by Kadar that he would be given safe passage, Nagy was arrested by Soviet troops, secretly tried and executed in January 1958.
Hungary would remain under Soviet control until the collapse of Communism. After the uprising, civil liberties were tightened with the result that 200,000 people fled the country. Despite the initial suppression of the Hungarian people, communism in Hungary would not be as austere compared to other states in the Communist bloc, largely due to the reforms of Janos Kadar.
Conclusion - Repercussions
Despite international condemnation and demand from Hungary for Western military intervention the Nato did not intervene in the uprising. The risk of nuclear war between the Nato and Warsaw Pact was one of the main deterrents of Nato-led military intervention as well as West’s preoccupation with the Suez Canal Crisis. The uprising increased tensions between the superpowers, which would solidify with the Cuban missile crisis, the closest point to a full scale nuclear war in all of history.
From today’s perspective, the Hungarian uprising was unprecedented in the history of Eastern Europe. A small poorly armed group of revolutionaries decided to stand against the might of the Soviet Union and presented a significant challenge to Soviet hegemony in Europe. The 1956 rebellion sowed the seed for change and development of a more tolerant form of communism. It stands as a symbol of the failures of Communism and the bravery of individuals who sacrificed their lives in the hope of creating a democracy with individual liberty as the most important principle.