.jpg)
October 23th is the Anniversary of the outbreak of the Hungarina Revolution. At certain points since its outbreak on October 23 the revolt looked like it was on the verge of an amazing triumph. The entire nation appeared to have taken up arms against the regime. Rebels, often armed with nothing more than kitchen implements and gasoline, were disabling Soviet tanks and achieving other -- sometimes small but meaningful -- victories throughout the country. On October 31, the tide seemed to turn overwhelmingly in the revolution's favor when Pravda published a declaration promising greater equality in relations between he USSR and its East European satellites. One sentence was of particular interest. It read: "The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and other members of the Warsaw Treaty on the question of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of Hungary." To outside observers, the Kremlin statement came as a total surprise. CIA Director Allen Dulles called it a "miracle." The crisis seemed on the verge of being resolved in a way no-one in Hungary or the West had dared to hope.
Then, at 4:15 a.m. on November 4, 1956, Soviet forces launched a major attack on Hungary aimed at crushing, once and for all, the spontaneous national uprising that had begun 12 days earlier. At 5:20 a.m., Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy announced the invasion to the nation in a grim, 35-second broadcast, declaring: "Our troops are fighting. The Government is in its place." However, within hours Nagy himself would seek asylum at the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest while his former colleague and imminent replacement, János Kádár, who had been flown secretly from Moscow to the city of Szolnok, 60 miles southeast of the capital, prepared to take power with Moscow's backing. On November 22, after receiving assurances of safe passage from Kádár and the Soviets, Nagy finally agreed to leave the Yugoslav Embassy. But he was immediately arrested by Soviet security officers and flown to a secret location in Romania. By then, the fighting had mostly ended, the Hungarian resistance had essentially been destroyed, and Kádár was entering the next phase of his strategy to neutralize dissent for the long term.
The defeat of the Hungarian revolution was one of the darkest moments of the Cold War. Until 1989 when all the communist system in Eastern Europe, collapsed, ending finally with the dissolution of the URSS.
Found some interesting documents about those days:
1) Study Prepared for U.S. Army Intelligence, "Hungary: Resistance Activities and Potentials," January 1956 (24 pages)
2) Minutes of 290th NSC meeting, July 12, 1956 (5 pages)
3) Report from Anastas Mikoyan on the Situation in the Hungarian Workers' Party, July 14, 1956 (6 pages)
4) National Security Council Report NSC 5608/1, "U.S. Policy toward the Soviet Satellites in Eastern Europe," July 18, 1956 (2 pages)
5) Jan Svoboda's Notes on the CPSU CC Presidium Meeting with Satellite Leaders, October 24, 1956 (6 pages)
6) Working Notes and Attached Extract from the Minutes of the CPSU CC Presidium Meeting, October 31, 1956 (4 pages)
7) Minutes of the Nagy Government's Fourth Cabinet Meeting, November 1, 1956 (2 pages)
8) Report by Soviet Deputy Interior Minister M. N. Holodkov to Interior Minister N. P. Dudorov, November 15, 1956 (4 pages)
9) Situation Report from Malenkov-Suslov-Aristov, November 22, 1956 (8 pages)
10) "Policy Review of Voice for Free Hungary Programming, October 23-November 23, 1956," December 5, 1956 (28 pages)
11) Romanian and Czech Minutes on the Meeting of Five East European States' Leaders in Budapest (with Attached Final Communiqué), January 1-4, 1957 (9 pages)
12) Minutes of the Meeting between the Hungarian and Chinese Delegations in Budapest, January 16, 1957 (9 pages)
Size: 2.19 MB
One Response to "The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Documents"