Hungarian Revolution

HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the first major anti-Soviet uprising in Eastern Europe and the first shooting war to occur between socialist states. In contrast to earlier uprisings after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in March 1953, such as the workers' revolt in East Berlin (1953) and the Polish workers' rebellion in Poznan, Poland (October 1956), the incumbent Hungarian leader, Imre Nagy, did not summon Soviet military troops to squelch the revolution. Instead, he attempted to withdraw Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. Hence, the Hungarian revolution symbolizes perhaps the first major "domino" to fall in a process that ultimately resulted in the Soviet Union's loss of hegemony over Eastern Europe in 1989.

When Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, delivered his Secret Speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956, he not only exposed Stalin's crimes, but also presented himself as a proponent of different paths to socialism, a claim that would later prove hard to fulfill. All over Eastern Europe, hardline Stalinist leaders wondered fearfully how far destalinization would go. Meanwhile, their opponents, who criticized Stalinist policies, suddenly gained in popularity. In Hungary, Nagy was one such critic and reformer. He had served as Hungary's prime minister from July 4, 1953, to April 18, 1955. In the spring of 1955, however, Nagy was dislodged by a hard-line Stalinist leader, Mátyás Rákosi, who had been forced to cede that post to Nagy in mid-1953.

Social pressures continued to build in Hungary under the leadership of Rákosi, called Stalin's "best disciple" by some. He had conducted the anti-Yugoslav campaign in 1948 and 1949 more zealously than other East European party leaders. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian communists had been executed or imprisoned after 1949. By late October 1956 the popular unrest in Hungary eluded the control of both the Hungarian government led by Rákosi's successor, Ernõ Gerõ, and the USSR.

On October 23, 1956, several hundred thousand people demonstrated in Budapest, hoping to publicize their sixteen-point resolution and to show solidarity with Poland where, in June, an industrial strike originating in Poznan turned into a national revolt. The Budapest protesters demanded that Nagy replace Gerõ, the Hungarian Communist Party's first secretary from July 18 to October 25, 1956. Fighting broke out in Budapest and other Hungarian cities and continued throughout the night.

It is now known that Soviet leaders decided on October 23 to intervene militarily. Soviet troops executed Plan Volna ("Wave") at 11:00 p.m. that same day. The next morning a radio broadcast announced that Nagy had replaced András Hegedüs as prime minister. On October 25, János Kádár, a younger, centrist official, replaced Gerõ as first secretary. However, this first Soviet intervention did not solve the original political problem in the country. New documents have revealed that the Kremlin initially decided on October 28 against a

second military intervention. But on October 31, they reversed course and launched a more massive intervention (Operation Vikhr, or "Whirlwind"). During the night of November 3, sixteen Soviet divisions entered Hungary. Fighting continued until mid-November, when Soviet forces suppressed the resistance and installed a pro-Soviet government under Kádár.

See also: hungary, relations with; khrushchev, nikita sergeyevich;

bibliography

Békés, Csaba; Rainer, János M.; and Byre, Malcolm. (2003). The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents. Budapest: Central European University Press.

Cox, Terry, ed. (1997). Hungary 1956—Forty Years On. London: Frank Cass.

Granville, Johanna. (2003). The First Domino: International Decision Making in the Hungarian Crisis of 1956. College Station: Texas A & M University Press.

Györkei, Jenõ, and Horváth, Miklós. (1999). The Soviet Military Intervention in Hungary, 1956. Budapest: Central European University Press.

Litván, György, and Bak, János M. (1996). The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Reform, Revolt and Repression, 1953–1963. New York: Longman.

Johanna Granville