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The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was the first tear in the Iron Curtain. Hungarians from all walks of life rose up against insurmountable odds to fight the brutal Soviet-installed Hungarian communist government. Thousands died fighting, others tortured and executed, while 200,000 were forced to flee. 2010 marks the 54th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.



Causes

The basic cause of the Hungarian revolution was that the Hungarians hated Russian communism:

1.Poverty
Hungarians were poor, yet much of the food and industrial goods they produced was sent to Russia.

2.Russian Control
The Hungarians were very patriotic, and they hated Russian control – which included censorship, the vicious secret police (called the AVH after 194😎 and Russian control of what the schools taught.

3.Catholic Church
The Hungarians were religious, but the Communist Party had banned religion, and put the leader of the Catholic Church in prison.

4.Help from the West
Hungarians thought that the United Nations or the new US president, Eisenhower, would help them.

5. Destalinisation
When the Communist Party tried to destalinise Hungary, things got out of control. The Hungarian leader Rakosi asked for permission to arrest 400 trouble-makers, but Khrushchev would not let him.

Events

On 23 October, there were riots of students, workers and soldiers. They smashed up the statue of Stalin, and attacked the AVH and Russian soldiers.

On 24 October, Imre Nagy took over as Prime Minister. He asked Khrushchev to take out the Russian troops.

On 28 October, Khrushchev agreed, and the Russian army pulled out of Budapest.

29 October – 3 November: The new Hungarian government introduced democracy, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion (the leader of the Catholic Church was freed from prison). Nagy also announced that Hungary was going to leave the Warsaw Pact.

On 4 November, at dawn, 1000 Russian tanks rolled into Budapest. By 8.10 am they had destroyed the Hungarian army and captured Hungarian Radio – its last words broadcast were ‘Help! Help! Help”!’ Hungarian people – even children – fought them with machine guns. Some 4000 Hungarians killed fighting the Russians.

Numbers are notoriously hard for historians. Western textbooks published before 1989 said that the Russians killed 30,000 Hungarian people. Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, Russian and Hungarian documents have come to light which have led historians to revise the figure to c.4000 Hungarians killed fighting the Russians, and up to 300 executed afterwards.

Khrushchev put in Janos Kadar, a supporter of Russia, as Prime Minister.

Hungary - Results

1. 200,000 Hungarian refugees fled into Austria.
2. Russia stayed in control behind the Iron Curtain – no other country tried to get rid of Russia troops until Czechoslovakia in 1968.
3. People in the West were horrified – many British Communists left the Communist Party.
4. The West realised it could do nothing about the Iron Curtain countries – but this made Western leaders even more determined to ‘contain’ communism.