This essay received top of the 'Commended' category in the 2022 Witold Pilecki History Essay Prize, out of more than 150 entries from across the country.
The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 retains a certain sort of infamy in histories of Cold War Europe- indeed, in the history of the 20th Century. A failed attempt to throw off the shackles imposed by the Soviet Union during their ‘Great Patriotic War’, it was a clear demonstration to the world of the seemingly unchanging face of authoritarian communism and the lengths that the new dictator of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, would go in order to keep and consolidate his power. Much talk has been around the fact that none of the Western powers had actively intervened when they had done so a year before NATO’s foundation in the Berlin Airlift, where the commitment had been to be a defence against the USSR and the communist satellite states that formed the Eastern Bloc. The general assertion was that there had been an abject failure in the policy of the United States of America, a nation that would gladly enter amongst United Nations forces five years after the Second World War but gave no help to Hungary, appeared to be an extreme case of double standards in American foreign policy.
However the view of the Hungarian Uprising as a singular failure without any benefit to the Western democracy- repeatedly peddled as one of the defining characteristics that united and distinguished the Western world from the authoritarian communist based dictatorships of the East- is oversimplified and less ideological. While the Hungarian Uprising was a near inevitability with or without the death of Stalin and Khrushchev’s jockeying and seizure for power, to understand how it might have benefited the West in some small way in comparison to the overwhelmingly negative view taken, one has to examine the causes, events, effects and consequences to be able to understand how in the short-term the Hungarian Uprising might have been a failure, but in the long-term was a success for the Western democratic ideal and the triumph of the West over the Communist world.
By the time of Joseph Stalin’s death, a dramatic shift in the perception of the vozhd had occurred in the Western world, although in Russia it remained just as quasi-religious and divine as his cult of personality would make it. The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa caused a break from the Axis for the Union, resulting in an alliance of convenience with the United States and British Empire that meant they had to recant the propaganda spouted about the evils of communism to focus firmly on that of fascism, instead portraying Stalin and his Soviet Union as a warmly-received ally in the Second World War. Propaganda portrayed the Allies and their newfound aid from the East as brothers in arms, but with VE Day slowly returned again the old fear of the Old Bear. As the Soviets rolled through Eastern Europe and remade formerly fascist nations into ‘peoples’ democracies’ in their sphere of influence, coupled with nuclear weaponry, a new enemy had begun to reassert itself in the minds of the post-war generation. The Berlin Blockade from the 24th of June 1948 only helped to solidify the image of Stalin as dictator through the imagery of starving Berliners denied amenities by the great leader’s whim. By the time of his death, ‘Uncle Joe’ and his friendly Russkies were no more in Western media- instead, they were the Red Menace that after World War 1 Europe had feared, an oppressive force that threatened liberty and capitalism in equal measure. It was this image of the Soviet Union that Nikita Khrushchev inherited from Stalin when he came to power after the posthumous power struggle.
From the get-go, Khrushchev was a figure whose style of leadership appeared to be almost as despotic as his predecessor. Through conspiracy with other members of the Politburo to remove Lavrentiy Beria from office (due to the freeing of a million prisoners involved in the Doctors’ Plot on the 27th of March 1953 and his proposal to reunify Germany in exchange for Western compensation), Khrushchev executed one major rival and moved onto the next, accusing Malenkov of involvement with iniquitous incidents such as the Leningrad case in the last paranoid years of Stalin’s life and demoting him, becoming leader of the USSR in January 1955 by having control of both Praesidium and Central Committee. From these origins (as well as his use of his position as General Secretary of the Party to gather support for himself much as Stalin did), it would appear that Khrushchev would go on to do much the same as a leader that Stalin did, but this fear never truly materialised- or at least not in a form that was so literal.
The world began to see what sort of Soviet leader Khrushchev with his speech ‘On the Cult of Personality And Its Consequences’, given in February 1956. The impetus for the ‘Secret Speech’ was the continued investigation into the abuses that prisoners from the Gulag revealed after being released at the end of 1955, which revealed the extent of Stalin’s many crimes against the Soviet people. Khrushchev believed that the stains of Stalinism could be removed so that people might become loyal to the Party rather than a singular leader and so his decrying of Stalin for his Purges and his cult of personality were done with the intention of making the Soviet Union a place ruled less by terror and cult of personality (also signified by his early removal of Beria, formerly head of the NKVD, from power). The effects the speech had upon both the people that had been supportive of Stalinism was catastrophic- there were reports given of people having heart attacks and committing suicide from learning of the extent of the Red Tsar’s atrocities. Communist relations also took a massive hit, with the Sino-Soviet split occurring largely due to the leaking of the speech to the wider world by Shin Bet and relations with Albania also took a nosedive. At the same time, it was an immense success for Soviet relations with the West, as Khrushchev had distanced himself from Stalin and his predecessors more heavily linked to the Purges (like Beria and Malenkov) and ultimately consolidated his power and image as a more open and liberal leader, despite later actions to the contrary. He now seemed like a more friendly leader who the West might peacefully coexist with.
The Khrushchev Thaw culturally arguably began at this time, as with the relaxing of censorship, a flood of foreign exports and goods washed in for the public to enjoy. Khrushchev had decided to get more involved in foreign affairs as a leader to show his greater participation in the global stage. For a time, Soviet relations with the rest of the world (China and Albania notwithstanding) were decidedly on the increase. However, it would soon become apparent that for some parts of the Soviet’s sphere of influence, the desire for these freedoms to become extended was becoming greater and action was to be taken if these demands were not met.
To call the Hungarian Uprising a ‘Revolution’ would be erroneous; revolution implies something that has run its course, rather than strangled in its crib. Hungarian sentiment towards the Soviets was always one of opposition and a desire for greater freedoms than Matyas Rakosi’s government would allow. Arbitrary imprisonment and the hanging of the Foreign Minister Lazlo Rajk for ‘attempting to overthrow the democratic order’ were clear demonstrations of the strength of State apparati such as the secret police and Hungarian Army. However, the tide appeared to turn with the Twentieth Party Congress, where democratisation was encouraged by the Hungarian Workers’ Party in the government, first beginning with Rakosi in March 1956 admitting that the death of Rajk was unlawful, leading to Rakosi’s dismissal and his replacement by Erno Gero. He proved no more popular though, and so the people began to turn to the former premier Imre Nagy, whose policies of liberalisation had lost him Party membership and government involvement. The people wanted change, and they were going to have it through Nagy, especially now that there was precedent from Moscow.
Dissatisfaction began with a few Hungarian authors complaining about the Party’s interference in their work and only grew. The Uprising is commonly said to have begun with a student demonstration on the 22nd of October 1956 of a list of sixteen demands drawn up by students that led to Nagy (readmitted into the Party) briefly addressing the crowd from a balcony of the Parliament building. The trickle of support for reform became a flood as Gero gave a speech that only angered the populace and it was here that the fighting began. The AVH began fighting during the evening of that day and the violence only increased with the appearance of Soviet tanks in Budapest two days later, in a battle for control that would last five days. The police and pro-Revolution parts of the AVH aided the uprising, only adding to the struggle for the Soviets, hampered by poor supply-lines and equipment as they were, but in the end it ended in failure for Nagy and his government. Whilst enough ground had been gained for Nagy to form a government and call for leaving the Warsaw Pact, it was this that spurred Khrushchev to act. He could not tolerate such a satellite state leaving a chink in the Iron Curtain and so sent in greater Soviet forces to support Kadar’s government in its bid for power. Nagy was overthrown and executed and things returned to an uncomfortable status quo, Hungary still remaining in the Warsaw Pact.
The putting-down of the Hungarian Uprising was widely condemned by many nations, souring the beginning two years of the Khrushchev Thaw. However, it had a greater effect by re-solidifying the image of the Soviet Union as an enemy that was unilaterally opposed to liberalisation if it meant a wider move away from state control. Even now in socialist discourse, the colloquialism ‘tankie’ is used for those communists who support the authoritarian tendencies of communism, referring to the Communist Party of Great Britain who supported the Soviet Union’s actions, a clear holdover that shows that communism immediately after the Hungarian Uprising was associated with authoritarianism more clearly than ever after the Second World War.
The Soviet Union as a nation was one that throughout its 70-year lifespan waxed and waned between liberalising periods and conservative regression. The Khrushchev era was no exception, but what made it unique was the abruptness of the transition from democracy to dictatorship. The Soviet suppression of Hungary brought a shock to the world as freedoms previously allowed were rapidly and brutally curtailed in the face of possibly losing power and a crucial millitary buffer. It reasserted Khrushchev’s power and reminded Americans that, as many foreign engagements they could participate in, they would not be able to strike directly at the heartland of communism. Three years later Khrushchev met Eisenhower and although relations were generally cordial, what had happened in Hungary had not been forgotten. Khrushchev had invaded another nation and shown himself to be a dictator similar to, although not as bad as, Stalin, who could be rallied against.
But if we for a moment consider the fact of why the Hungarian Uprising happened- a striving for democracy, for liberal ideas, for freedom of thought and expression. It showed that people in the Eastern Bloc were not so entirely taken in by Marxist doctrine that they would just unthinkingly comply and that they recognised that those in the West had greater freedom than the state ideology claimed to bring. The Hungarian Uprising may have failed, but it was reflected that the wider strain of Marxism utilised by the Soviet Union, was unpopular and crucially did not work. It was proof that Western style democracy and reform worked better and were more satisfactory than dictatorship and so might be regarded as a success for the West, no matter the actual outcome.
Bibliography-
Stalin: Breaker of Nations- Robert Conquest.
Stalin: A Biography- Robert Service.
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era- William Taubman.
Report Of The Special Committee On The Problem of Hungary- United Nations