Hungarian Revolution
Hungary rose in October 1956, was granted almost everything it demanded, and was crushed by 200,000 Soviet troops in November. The rising began as a student demonstration in Budapest on 23 October in sympathy with Poland, marching to the statue of the 1848 hero Bem with sixteen demands: Soviet troops out, free elections, Nagy as prime minister, an end to the compulsory delivery quotas. The crowd grew to some 200,000, pulled down the Stalin statue leaving the boots, and was fired on outside the radio building. Workers' councils formed across the country within days, the political prisoners were released, and the security police were hunted in the streets. Imre Nagy, a reform communist, was appointed and moved faster than he had intended — a multiparty government by 30 October, the withdrawal of the one-party system, and on 1 November a declaration of neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. That last step is what settled it in Moscow. The Soviet leadership had actually agreed on 30 October to a declaration on relations with the socialist countries and had begun withdrawing; the neutrality announcement and the fear that the bloc would unravel reversed the decision within twenty-four hours. The second intervention began on 4 November and took a week of fighting in which some 2,700 Hungarians and 700 Soviet soldiers died. Around 200,000 people left. Nagy was taken from the Yugoslav embassy under a safe conduct and hanged in 1958. The timing is part of the explanation. The Suez crisis was running in the same fortnight, which occupied Britain and France and gave Moscow a free hand, and the American radio broadcasts that had encouraged Hungarians to expect help were followed by no help of any kind.
- Year: 1956 CE
- Category: Military
