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Hungary Revolution of 1956
On October 23, a Budapest student rally in support of
Polish
efforts to win autonomy from the Soviet Union sparked mass
demonstrations. The police attacked, and the demonstrators
fought
back, tearing down symbols of Soviet domination and HWP
rule,
sacking the party newspaper's offices and shouting in
favor of
free elections, national independence, and the return of
Imre
Nagy to power. Gero called out the army, but many soldiers
handed
their weapons to the demonstrators and joined the uprising
(see Historical Background and Traditions
, ch. 5). Soviet
officials in
Budapest summoned Nagy to speak to the crowd, but the
violence
continued. At Gero's request, Soviet troops entered
Budapest on
October 24. The presence of these troops further enraged
the
Hungarians, who battled the troops and state security
police.
Crowds emptied the prisons, freed Cardinal Mindszenty,
sacked
police stations, and summarily hanged some member of the
secret
police. The Central Committee named Nagy prime minister on
October 25 and selected a new Politburo and Secretariat;
one day
later, Kadar replaced Gero as party first secretary.
Nagy enjoyed vast support. He formed a new government
consisting of both communists and noncommunists, dissolved
the
state security police, abolished the one-party system, and
promised free elections and an end to collectivization,
all with
Kadar's support. But Nagy failed to harness the popular
revolt.
Workers' councils threatened a general strike to back
demands for
removal of Soviet troops, elimination of party
interference in
economic affairs, and renegotiation of economic treaties
with the
Soviet Union. On October 30, Nagy called for the formation
of a
new democratic, multiparty system. Noncommunist parties
that had
been suppressed almost a decade before began to
reorganize. A
coalition government emerged that included members of the
Independent Smallholders' Party, Social Democratic Party,
National Peasant Party, and other parties, as well as the
HWP.
After negotiations, Soviet officials agreed to remove
their
troops at the discretion of the Hungarian government, and
Soviet
troops began to leave Budapest. Nagy soon learned,
however, that
new Soviet armored divisions had crossed into Hungary.
In response, on November 1 Nagy announced Hungary's
decision
to withdraw from the
Warsaw Pact (see Glossary) and to
declare
Hungary neutral. He then appealed to the United Nations
and
Western governments for protection of Hungary's
neutrality. The
Western powers, which were involved in the Suez crisis and
were
without contingency plans to deal with a revolution in
Eastern
Europe, did not respond.
The Soviet military responded to Hungarian events with
a
quick strike. On November 3, Soviet troops surrounded
Budapest
and closed the country's borders. Overnight they entered
the
capital and occupied the National Assembly building.
Kadar, who
had fled to the Soviet Union on November 2, assembled the
Temporary Revolutionary Government of Hungary on Soviet
soil just
across the Hungarian border. On November 4, the formation
of the
new government was announced in a radiobroadcast. Kadar
returned
to Budapest in a Soviet armored car; by then, Nagy had
fled to
the Yugoslav embassy, Cardinal Mindszenty had taken refuge
in the
United States embassy, Rakosi was safely across the Soviet
border, and about 200,000 Hungarians had escaped to the
West.
With Soviet support, Kadar struck almost immediately
against
participants in the revolution. Over the next five years,
about
2,000 individuals were executed and about 25,000
imprisoned.
Kadar also reneged on a guarantee of safe conduct granted
to
Nagy, who was arrested on November 23 and deported to
Romania. In
June 1958, the Hungarian government announced that Nagy
and other
government officials who had played key roles in the
revolution
had been secretly tried and executed.
Data as of September 1989
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