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Since the revolutionary changes
in 1989 and the 1990 free
elections in Hungary, the majority of archival sources in Hungary on
the 1956 Hungarian Revolution have become available to scholars.
Similarly, a number of Polish, Czechoslovak and Yugoslav archival
documents have been discovered and released. Although the Soviet
sources, which are of utmost importance, are still largely
unavailable, some helpful clues to Soviet decision-making and
actions have been provided through articles published in the former
Soviet Union in the last few months.
As a result of declassification trends in East-Central Europe, as
well as the release of numerous Western sources on 1956 during the
latter part of the 1980s, members of the Institute for the History of
the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and other scholars in Hungary and
abroad have already produced articles presenting hitherto unknown
data, important evidence and new interpretations. This article will
summarize some of the most significant findings of scholars
concerning 1956.*
Internal Aspects of the Revolution
Many authors in recent years have attempted to define the
character of the revolt. These studies were recently enhanced by
the research of Dr. György Litván, director of the Institute for the
History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution Budapest, who has
identified four basic political trends which emerged during the
revolution: (1) the reform socialism trend, represented primarily by
Imre Nagy and his followers and shared by many intellectuals,
students, and workers; (2) the national democratic trend, represented
by the non-communist politicians of the 1945-48 coalition period
(including István Bibó) who participated in Nagy’s last government
and who were committed to some kind of a reformed socialist
system; (3) the Christian-Conservative trend, based on private
ownership of property, led by Cardinal Josef Mindszenty and
followed by many insurgents; and (4) an extreme right-wing
political trend, which was present mostly on the streets among the
fighters.
Another area in which significant discoveries have been made
concerns the events which took place in the countryside outside of
Budapest during the revolution. To compensate for the dearth of
research in this area, an extensive research project was launched last
year with the participation of archivists from all county archives.
Although the project is in its preliminary stages, a clearer picture of
the revolution in the countryside can now be drawn. For example, it
recently became known that the first demonstration of students took
place on October 23 in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen,
several hours before the well-known demonstration in Budapest.
The project also produced evidence that before the fighting began in
Budapest, there were already casualties in Debrecen during an
exchange of fighting in front of the local secret police building.
The countryside project has also made clear that the
revolutionary events in the countryside were much more extensive
than previously thought, contrary to the propaganda of the Kadar
government, which emphasized the relative calm of the countryside
during 1956. While it is true that there were few casualties and little
fighting outside of the capital, a revolutionary—albeit peaceful—
transformation began to occur in most towns and villages following
the October 23 events in Budapest. After local demonstrations,
most symbols of the Stalinist regime were removed, the political and
administrative leaders of the locality were replaced without
substantial resistance in most cases, and new revolutionary bodies
were set up with the participation of uncompromised and reliable
local personalities. The new “revolutionary” or “national” councils
then organized and directed the locality peacefully, without sparking
any bloodshed. In many cases, the local revolutionary leaders
established agreements of non-intervention with Soviet
commanders; as a result, the Soviets did not intervene in the
countryside before November 4.
Scholars researching the events of 1956 have thus far been
unable to obtain exact data on the number of active participants in
the revolution. Yet the new evidence allows researchers to confirm
that there were 2,100 workers’ councils in the country with 28,000
members, and tens of thousands of local revolutionary committees—
far more than previously known. Several hundred thousand persons
participated in the demonstrations during and after the revolution,
according to the work of M. János Rainer (Institute of History,
Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution,
Budapest).
Scholars interested in further information or conducting
research on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution should contact:
György Litván, Director
H-1014 BUDAPEST
Orszaghdz u. 30. 11. 12
Tel./Fax: 361-1564-967
One of the remaining blank spots of the history of the revolution
concerns the activity of the rebel groups fighting against the Soviet
troops and Hungarian armed police force units in Budapest. The
research in this area, begun just a year ago, requires a delicate
approach, since there is much distortion in the memoirs of the
fighters and in the records of the police and court proceedings.
Despite the discrepancies, sociological examination of the records
has shown that the fighters were not all criminals, as the Kadarist
historians claimed; rather, those who fought were mostly young,
unskilled workers, and, in some cases, students, soldiers and army
officers. It is also clear that the political motivation of the fighters
was weakly defined and stemmed from a unanimous rejection of the
Stalinist regime; similarly, Gábor Kresalek (Budapest Municipal
Archives) has maintained that their decision to take up arms was
actually due to personal motives.
International Aspects of the Revolution
New archival discoveries have shed considerable light on the
individuals responsible for the Soviet decision to intervene in
Hungary. Dr. Tibor Hajdu (Institute of History, Budapest) recently
uncovered a Czechoslovak document in the party archives in Prague
which reveals the decisive roles played by Erno Gero, first secretary
of the Hungarian Workers Party, and Yuri Andropov, then Soviet
Ambassador in Budapest, in encouraging Soviet intervention on
October 23; their support was especially significant in light of
Khrushchev’s initial reluctance to provide armed support. The
document is the minutes of an October 24 meeting of the
Communist Bloc leaders in Moscow taken by Jan Svoboda, an aide
to the Czechoslovak Communist Party leader, Antonin Novotny;
they include Khrushchev’s account of the Polish situation and, as an
unplanned item on the agenda, a discussion of the events in
Budapest on the previous day, including Khrushchev’s telephone
conversations with Gero, Defense Minister Marshal G. Zhukov, and
others.
Until recently, it was uncertain when A. Mikoyan and M.
Suslov, representatives of the Soviet party, came to Budapest; the
research of Tibor Hajdu and V. Muszatov (former deputy head,
International Department, CPSU Central Committee) now proves
that they arrived on October 24, right after the outbreak of the
revolution, and left the country on October 31.
The CPSU Central Committee made two important decisions at
its meeting on October 30-31: (1) it adopted a declaration
concerning reformed relations between the Soviet Union and the
socialist countries; and (2) it instructed Marshal Zhukov, the
Minister of Defense, to develop a plan for resolving the Hungarian
situation (V. Muszatov). As far as the declaration is concerned,
British sources strongly support the assertion that the declaration
was being prepared as early as mid-October, and was only
“updated” after the events in Poland and in Hungary (Csaba Békés).
Details of the Soviet plan to invade Hungary, “Operation
Whirlwind,” have also been uncovered. The plan was launched on
November 1 by its commander-in-chief, Koniev, when he began the
re-deployment of the Soviet troops. While only five Soviet divisions
were stationed in the country during October 23-30, the campaign
which began on November 4 included three army corps consisting
of at least 60,000 Soviet soldiers and officers. According to Soviet
sources, 669 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed in the fighting,
1,450 were wounded and 51 were declared missing. The same
sources claim that there were approximately 4,000 Hungarian
victims—a number somewhat higher than had been estimated by
Hungarian scholars (V. Muszatov).
Another clarification due to newly available documentation
concerns the role of the Yugoslav leaders in the revolution, which
was previously unclear. It now appears that the Yugoslavs
cooperated with the Soviets in eliminating Imre Nagy and his
colleagues from Hungarian political life by offering them asylum in
the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest (László Varga, Budapest
Municipal Archives; Pierre Maurer, Lausanne, Switzerland).
Recently opened Polish sources also provide interesting new
information. They show that the Political Committee of the Polish
United Workers Party condemned the use of Soviet troops in
Hungary on November 1, but modified its position during
subsequent days, presumably because of the Hungarian
government’s unacceptable decision to leave the Warsaw Pact and
declaration of Hungary’s neutrality (János Tischler, Institute for the
History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Budapest).
Western reaction to the revolution is now understood more
clearly because of the recent declassification of Western documents.
Among the most significant releases is a July 1956 policy paper
adopted by the U.S. National Security Council, in which the United
States government disavowed any political and military intervention
in the Soviet satellites. This position was maintained throughout the
events in Poland and Hungary in October-November of the same
year (John C. Campbell, Columbia University). Similarly, newly
available documents disprove Communist allegations that the U.S.,
Great Britain, France, and NATO were responsible for instigating
the revolution. On the contrary, the Western powers were caught by
surprise with news of the revolt in Budapest, and thereafter pursued
a cautious policy of non-intervention to avoid antagonizing the
Soviets.
Recent scholarship has also elucidated the connection (or lack
thereof) between the Hungarian revolt and the Suez Crisis.
Contradicting earlier assumptions, new sources on Suez show that
the Hungarian events did not affect the timing of the secretly
planned Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt.
Similarly, scholars can now better understand the dynamics of
the debates over Hungary in the United Nations. Surprisingly, a
significant behind-the-scenes conflict arose between the United
States on one side, and Great Britain and France on the other. The
documents pertaining to the discussions among the three Western
states prove that after the Suez action began, the British and the
French—against American wishes—endeavored to divert attention
from their Middle East campaign by attempting to bring the
Hungarian issue to the UN spotlight. Their plan was to transfer the
Hungarian question from the UN Security Council agenda to that of
the General Assembly Emergency Session which had convened to
discuss the Suez Crisis. However, the Americans, attempting to end
the fighting in Egypt, blocked this plan by delaying the UN
resolution process concerning Hungary until November 4 (Csaba
Békés).
The Reprisals following the Revolution
Scholars have known for years that the retaliation following the
uprising was massive and brutal, but recent research has uncovered
reliable data. Between 1956 and 1959, 35,000 people were
summoned for their activities during the revolution. Of those,
26,000 were brought to trial and 22,000 were sentenced. From
1957 to 1960, 13,000 people were interned. Between December
1956 and the summer of 1961, 350-400 death sentences were
commuted in Hungary; 280-300 of those sentenced were executed
because of their involvement in the revolution. The retaliation was
mainly aimed at three major groups: (1) the armed insurgents; (2)
the members of the revolutionary and workers’ councils; and (3) the
representatives of the pre-1956 party opposition and intellectuals,
including many writers (M. János Rainer).
The exact role of the Soviets in the reprisals is slowly but
gradually becoming more clear. Recently published factual
information shows that the Soviet security organs operating in
Hungary arrested and handed over 1,326 individuals to the
Hungarian authorities by mid-November 1956 (V. Muszatov). The
new research leads scholars to assign more blame to Hungarian
leaders in this area, especially concerning the fate of revolutionary
prime minister Imre Nagy. The decision to bring Nagy to trial was
made by the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers
Party at its 21 December 1957 session; the decision shows that
Hungarian leader János Kadar and his collaborators wanted to avoid
assuming individual responsibility for decisions involving
forthcoming trials. A few months later, on 14 February 1958, at the
next meeting of the party’s Political Committee, it was noted that
the date set for Imre Nagy’s trial was inconvenient for the Soviets
because of a scheduled East-West summit meeting. Kadar then
offered two alternatives: either to have the trial take place as
scheduled and pass a light sentence, or to postpone the trial and pass
severe sentences as originally planned. The Central Committee
eventually voted, at Kadar’s suggestion, for the latter option
(Charles Gati, Union College; György Litván, M. János Rainer).
*Note: Rather than provide bibliographical references, the author
has indicated the name of the scholar(s) to whom particular
information should be attributed. Scholars interested in more details
on sources should consult the forthcoming 1992 Yearbook of the
Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In
addition to containing several papers on the aforementioned topics,
the Yearbook will include a selected bibliography of publications on
1956 in the last three years. The author thanks M. János Rainer and
György Litván for their useful advise and comments on the draft of
this article.
* * *
Csaba Békés, Ph.D., is a research fellow and research coordinator
of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in
Budapest and a lecturer in history at Szeged University. During the
fall of 1992, he was conducting research in the United States as a
fellow of the Cold War International History Project.
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