*Ø* Blogmanac November 4, 1956 | USSR crushes people power, Hungary
1956 The Hungarian Revolution was crushed by Soviet troops in Budapest. Two hundred thousand troops attacked the anti-Stalinist uprising in this second invasion of Hungary and a new pro-Russian government was installed. Civilians set up barricades along all the major roads leading to Budapest. Soldiers and Hungarian National Guard troops participated in the resistance. Only Communist Party functionaries and security police fought along with the Russians in the name of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.
The rebellion had begun in October, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. From October,
“Russian tanks, entering Budapest to aid the threatened Government, met furious resistance. Armed only with light weapons and molotov cocktails, thousands fought back. After three days thirty tanks were destroyed and Russian tank crews began siding with the rebels.
“Workers' councils were formed in factories, steel mills, power stations, coal mines and railway depots throughout Hungary. Peasants spontaneously formed their own councils, redistributed land, and supplied the towns with food. From the first day liberated radio stations broadcast the news across the country.” Source
Red Army tanks had pulled out of Hungary, as demanded by the workers' councils. It seemed as if the people had won. However, on this day the tanks returned. Having regrouped beyond the borders, 15 Russian divisions, now with 6,000 tanks, fell upon the Hungarian people. All major cities were pounded by artillery fire. In Budapest, the workers’ districts bore the brunt of the assault. The people fought back as best they could, but the entire city was shelled continuously for four days and soon lay in ruins. Probably 30,000 people were killed and tens of thousands wounded, and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. Tanks dragged round bodies through the streets of Budapest as a warning to others who were still protesting.
After ten days of ferocious fighting, the people finally capitulated. Prime Minister Imre Nagy (who on October 27 had announced Hungary's removal from the Warsaw Pact) was captured shortly afterwards and executed on June 16, 1958, after a secret trial. He was buried along with others in a distant corner of the Municipal Cemetery to which access was not allowed until 1989. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in Latin, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco Mortuo plango Fulgura frango," which is quaintly translated as: I call the living persons, I mourn for the died persons, I chase the lightnings.
After World War II, Hungary had been virtually handed over to Josef Stalin by Franklin D Roosevelt, who apparently failed fully to recognize Soviet Communism’s appalling history and potential. Winston Churchill by the end of the war had realized that Stalin was not all he claimed to be, while Roosevelt did not. Roosevelt's miscalculation allowed Stalin to gain control over the Eastern European nations and reduce them to cruelly oppressed Soviet satellites, with the loss of millions of lives.
Betrayed by the West
The events of November 1956 were echoed decades later in 1992, when the people of Iraq, especially the Kurds, were actively encouraged by President George Bush to rebel against Saddam Hussein, but were not given the expected support when they did so, leading to many massacres when American forces stood by as Hussein’s helicopter gunships crushed the rebellion.
In Hungary in ’56, Voice of America radio broadcasts and speeches by US President Dwight D Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ("To all those suffering under communist slavery, let us say you can count on us.") were suggesting that the United States supported the “liberation” of “captive peoples” in communist nations, and Hungarian pro-democracy revolutionists clearly believed they would be supported. However, as in Iraq in ’92, when the tanks bore down on the rebels the United States did nothing beyond issuing public statements of sympathy for their plight. The ‘Free World’ did no more than cheer the freedom fighters on. Devastated, the rebels soon realized that the promises of Radio Free Europe and VoA were empty and that Hungary was left alone in her confrontation with the mighty Soviet Union.
The sight of the Hungarian massacres helped weaken Communist parties worldwide, but perhaps nothing greater than this example of the crushing of Hungarian spirit, and a sense of betrayal by so called champions of liberty, contributed to the captive nations of Europe remaining captive for another generation.
“Even though Hungary did not gain her independence, the lives of those who died for freedom were not wasted. For their plight showed the world that communism is not what it claims to be. Because of Hungary, the Soviet Union showed its true character to the world: a monster who holds its satellites not by friendship but by brute force. Communists in other countries could no longer claim ‘communism is the friend of man’.” Source
Time Magazine gave the ‘Man of the Year’ honours on its cover to the Unknown Hungarian Freedom Fighter. In reference to the Hungarian Freedom Fighter, Time said: “This man was seen to have shaken history's greatest despotism to its foundations”.
See Peter Fryer, The Hungarian Tragedy; Andy Anderson, Hungary '56; and The Hungarian Workers' Revolution by the Syndicalist Workers' Federation.
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Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
1956 The Hungarian Revolution was crushed by Soviet troops in Budapest. Two hundred thousand troops attacked the anti-Stalinist uprising in this second invasion of Hungary and a new pro-Russian government was installed. Civilians set up barricades along all the major roads leading to Budapest. Soldiers and Hungarian National Guard troops participated in the resistance. Only Communist Party functionaries and security police fought along with the Russians in the name of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.
The rebellion had begun in October, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. From October,
“Russian tanks, entering Budapest to aid the threatened Government, met furious resistance. Armed only with light weapons and molotov cocktails, thousands fought back. After three days thirty tanks were destroyed and Russian tank crews began siding with the rebels.
“Workers' councils were formed in factories, steel mills, power stations, coal mines and railway depots throughout Hungary. Peasants spontaneously formed their own councils, redistributed land, and supplied the towns with food. From the first day liberated radio stations broadcast the news across the country.” Source
Red Army tanks had pulled out of Hungary, as demanded by the workers' councils. It seemed as if the people had won. However, on this day the tanks returned. Having regrouped beyond the borders, 15 Russian divisions, now with 6,000 tanks, fell upon the Hungarian people. All major cities were pounded by artillery fire. In Budapest, the workers’ districts bore the brunt of the assault. The people fought back as best they could, but the entire city was shelled continuously for four days and soon lay in ruins. Probably 30,000 people were killed and tens of thousands wounded, and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. Tanks dragged round bodies through the streets of Budapest as a warning to others who were still protesting.
After ten days of ferocious fighting, the people finally capitulated. Prime Minister Imre Nagy (who on October 27 had announced Hungary's removal from the Warsaw Pact) was captured shortly afterwards and executed on June 16, 1958, after a secret trial. He was buried along with others in a distant corner of the Municipal Cemetery to which access was not allowed until 1989. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in Latin, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco Mortuo plango Fulgura frango," which is quaintly translated as: I call the living persons, I mourn for the died persons, I chase the lightnings.
After World War II, Hungary had been virtually handed over to Josef Stalin by Franklin D Roosevelt, who apparently failed fully to recognize Soviet Communism’s appalling history and potential. Winston Churchill by the end of the war had realized that Stalin was not all he claimed to be, while Roosevelt did not. Roosevelt's miscalculation allowed Stalin to gain control over the Eastern European nations and reduce them to cruelly oppressed Soviet satellites, with the loss of millions of lives.
Betrayed by the West
The events of November 1956 were echoed decades later in 1992, when the people of Iraq, especially the Kurds, were actively encouraged by President George Bush to rebel against Saddam Hussein, but were not given the expected support when they did so, leading to many massacres when American forces stood by as Hussein’s helicopter gunships crushed the rebellion.
In Hungary in ’56, Voice of America radio broadcasts and speeches by US President Dwight D Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ("To all those suffering under communist slavery, let us say you can count on us.") were suggesting that the United States supported the “liberation” of “captive peoples” in communist nations, and Hungarian pro-democracy revolutionists clearly believed they would be supported. However, as in Iraq in ’92, when the tanks bore down on the rebels the United States did nothing beyond issuing public statements of sympathy for their plight. The ‘Free World’ did no more than cheer the freedom fighters on. Devastated, the rebels soon realized that the promises of Radio Free Europe and VoA were empty and that Hungary was left alone in her confrontation with the mighty Soviet Union.
The sight of the Hungarian massacres helped weaken Communist parties worldwide, but perhaps nothing greater than this example of the crushing of Hungarian spirit, and a sense of betrayal by so called champions of liberty, contributed to the captive nations of Europe remaining captive for another generation.
“Even though Hungary did not gain her independence, the lives of those who died for freedom were not wasted. For their plight showed the world that communism is not what it claims to be. Because of Hungary, the Soviet Union showed its true character to the world: a monster who holds its satellites not by friendship but by brute force. Communists in other countries could no longer claim ‘communism is the friend of man’.” Source
Time Magazine gave the ‘Man of the Year’ honours on its cover to the Unknown Hungarian Freedom Fighter. In reference to the Hungarian Freedom Fighter, Time said: “This man was seen to have shaken history's greatest despotism to its foundations”.
See Peter Fryer, The Hungarian Tragedy; Andy Anderson, Hungary '56; and The Hungarian Workers' Revolution by the Syndicalist Workers' Federation.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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