Hungary,anti-Communist-Uprising October 1956.

October 23, 2021|

12:38 pm
Rod Dreher

To mark the anniversary of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, I’m publishing in this space an essay from Stephen Sholl, an American academic living in Budapest, and a friend I made this summer:

Today will mark the 65-year anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. For many Americans, this anniversary will go unnoticed, yet the lessons that this episode holds are important ones for Americans to understand.

The Hungarian Revolution was the most serious challenge to Soviet Rule in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. In late October 1956, demonstrations, often beginning at universities, erupted throughout Hungary. Within a week, these demonstrations had evolved into an outright popular revolt, with the revolutionaries demanding major reforms and calling for the Soviet Army to leave Hungary.
Initially it appeared to be successful, with previous Prime Minister and reformer Imre Nagy being reinstated and the Russians withdrawing from Budapest. Once Nagy, however, declared his intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, the Soviets quickly returned and crushed the Revolution in Budapest and in Hungary’s other major cities after intense street fighting. By November 10, the Soviets had decisively squashed the Revolution. More than 2,000 Hungarians died in the fighting, and hundreds of thousands fled to the West in the aftermath.

The lesson for Americans, lies not with the defeat of the Hungarian freedom fighters — though their bravery and courage in the face of insurmountable odds is a trait worth emulating — but rather the path that led Hungary to 1956.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Hungary, while war-ravaged, was not decisively on the path to dictatorship. The Soviets appeared to follow through on their promise to establish democracies in their occupied areas, and introduced parliamentary democracy into Hungary. While the Soviet Army intimidated opposing parties and falsified ballots, other parties were allowed to compete, and their votes were recognized. In Hungary’s first election in 1946, the Communists were defeated by an overwhelming number of votes, only earning around 17 percent.

The Independent Smallholders Party, which represented the center-right, secured an outright majority, and was even allowed to form a government. The Communist Party asked only to be allowed into the governing coalition, and was granted the Ministry of the Interior. Unfortunately for the young Hungarian Republic, the ruling party accepted the coalition. Granting the Communists control over the Interior ministry meant they controlled the country’s police.

Using the martial power of police authority, Communists began a systematic takeover of Hungarian institutions — this, despite the fact that a formally “non-Communist” government was in power. The police intimidated political opponents and local leaders into joining the Communist Party; those who refused were labeled ‘fascists’ and forced out of the public sphere. In institutions such as courtrooms, schools, universities, churches, and unions, those expelled would be replaced by loyal Communists, slowly turning these bodies into extensions of the Communist Party. This institutional dominance, by a people and ideology that were not held by the vast majority of Hungarians, eroded any notion of real democracy in Hungary (at the time, the CIA estimated only 10 percent of Hungarians were Communist).

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