What the Hungarians wrought: the meaning of October 1956.(THE 20TH CENTURY)(Hungarian Revolution)

IN October 1956, just fifty years ago, Hungarian freedom fighters rose against their Soviet colonizers and oppressors. Their forebears had done the same under Lajos Kossuth in 1848, and the Habsburg and Russian autocracies then combined to suppress them bloodily. The Soviets were even more brutal. Approximately 2,500 freedom fighters were killed in twelve days of fighting, as well as nearly 100 members of the secret police, known as the AVO, and several hundred Soviet soldiers. In the aftermath, about 300 prominent Hungarians were judicially executed, including Imre Nagy, the…