On November 1, 1956, the head of the Hungarian government, Imre Nagy, announced the country's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact Organization and appealed to the world community to protect sovereignty. This was followed by the entry of Soviet troops and the bloody suppression of the Hungarian uprising.
February wind of change of the XX Congress of the CPSU
Khrushchev's report caused downright tectonic changes in the socialist camp. Supporters of the forced transition to socialism had to make room at the imperious Olympus. In Poland, the rehabilitated Vladislav Gomulka replaced the local Stalinists in power. This happened on October 19-20 at the plenum of the ruling party and led to an increase in protest sentiments in neighboring countries.
Hoping for changes, on October 23, students of Budapest universities took to the streets of the Hungarian capital, demanding the return to power of the disgraced communist reformer Imre Nagy. He already headed the Hungarian government in 1953-1955, when, after Stalin's death, the Kremlin removed from power the "best student of Stalin" - Matthias Rakosi, who almost ruined the country's economy and unleashed mass repression. In the memoirs of Khrushchev's translator, Vladimir Baykov, published in 2016, there is a story about a meeting in the Kremlin at which Lavrenty Beria, "like a cabman, scolded the "wronged" Hungarian secretary."
The suspension, however, turned out to be very strange, since after removing Rakosi from the government of the country, he was left at the head of the local communists - the Hungarian Party of Labor (VPT). As a result, the "new course" announced by Imre Nadi in the economy was curtailed after the resignation of the head of the Soviet government Georgy Malenkov in early 1955. His Hungarian protege Imre Nagy was accused of "right deviation", removed from all posts and expelled from the party. Rakosi took revenge, and the reforms were consigned to oblivion.
What is there to be surprised at the growth of discontent and protest moods in Hungary. After all, Khrushchev's report at the twentieth Congress of the CPSU criticizing Stalin, despite its secrecy, very quickly became the property of the world community. Hungarian reformers perceived the report as a hope for change and renewal. And the Stalinists were back in power in the country.
Steady movement towards a bloody confrontation
The Kremlin is still betting on the Hungarian Stalinists Matthias Rakosi and Erne Gere, largely thanks to the dispatches of the influential Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov, who recommended strengthening the fight against "hostile elements." Reformist politicians such as Imre Nagy and even Janos Kadar, loyal to the Kremlin, do not inspire confidence in Andropov with their "revisionism" and "right-wing bias."
Only the massive and bloody protests in Poznan, Poland, in July 1956, led the Kremlin to realize that further delay in the overdue reforms could end badly for the entire "world camp of socialist countries."
Anastas Mikoyan, who hastily arrived in Budapest, seeks the resignation of the party leader Rakosi, sending him to the Soviet Union, where he will die in 1971 in Nizhny Novgorod, without seeing the collapse of the socialist system. It would seem that finally, the right decision and the growing crisis can be peacefully overcome. But, right there, instead of Rakosi, another Stalinist Erne Gere is appointed.
But the Hungarian people expected something completely different. Gere did not arouse trust in society and did not have such authority as 60-year-old Imre Nagy or even 44-year-old Janos Kadar. These two politicians were symbols of the renewal of the country, which suffered from repression, went through prison and persecution. If Imre Nagy became famous immediately after the end of the Second World War, by carrying out agrarian reform, handing over land to peasants, then Janos Kadar personified an honest communist, a patriot, ready to serve the Hungarian people.
The return of these two politicians to power could relieve the growing tension in the country and prevent a bloody development of events. But the Kremlin continues to make mistakes, misjudging the situation in the country. Control over the development of events was lost, the stake was placed on the forceful resolution of the situation. Everything is as usual. Typical mistakes of the Kremlin, which we observe today.
Popular discontent resulted in street protests on October 23. The number of protesting students at the Hungarian parliament building was initially small, but after the end of the working day, workers and residents of the Budapest suburbs joined them. By the evening, about 200 thousand people gathered on Kossuth Square. People were waiting for the speech restored in the party of Imre Nagy, but he, fearing provocations, at first refused to come out to the people.
Instead of Imre Nagy, at 8 p.m., party leader Erne Gere addressed the Hungarian people on the radio, calling the demonstration in front of parliament a manifestation of chauvinism and nationalism. After that, the situation in the square began to noticeably heat up, a number of speakers began to call for active action.
Imre Nagy, in an attempt to calm the demonstrators, nevertheless succumbed to persuasion and at about 9 pm went out on the balcony of the parliament, urging the protesters to remain calm and in order. But he failed to extinguish his passions. An aggressive part of the demonstrators rushed to destroy the monumental monument to Stalin at the City Park, while another more organized one took over the seizure of the Radio building and the construction of barricades. Does it remind you of anything? Kiev Maidan, for example. On the same evening, the first blood was shed at the walls of the Radio Committee.
Soviet tanks for "stability"
Erne Gere panicked and began calling Ambassador Andropov and the Kremlin, now demanding, now begging to send troops to quell the unrest. Yuri Andropov was also in favor of the power option. Moscow is making another big mistake. Nikita Khrushchev sends tanks to Budapest without even waiting for an official appeal for help from the Hungarian leadership. This "document" was later issued retroactively and provided to the UN Security Council, which met on October 28 to discuss the "Hungarian question".
11 years after Budapest was liberated from the Nazis, Soviet tanks reappeared on its streets. The troops entered the Hungarian capital early in the morning (at 4 a.m.), acting according to Operation Compass, without encountering any resistance. 5 divisions participated in the pacification - about 30 thousand people, more than 1,500 tanks, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers and about 300 military aircraft.
By this time, Imre Nagy had once again headed the government, and the VPT plenum removed both Gere and Rakosi from the leadership of the party. But the situation is already out of control.
It is clear that the hasty entry of Soviet troops only further added fuel to the fire of confrontation. Yesterday's unarmed demonstrators rushed to arm themselves, and the uprising began to take the form of a national liberation struggle. Even the elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Military-Industrial Complex, Janos Kadar, declared his readiness to fight with Soviet tanks on the streets of Budapest with his bare hands. Public opinion in the country swung sharply to the right, anti-Soviet, anti-communist sentiments were rapidly growing.
Do not forget that Hungary remained a loyal ally of nazi Germany until the very last moment. The actions of Hungarian soldiers on Soviet territory, their atrocities against the civilian population led to the fact that the soldiers of the Red Army did not take them prisoner, destroying them on the spot. And the liberation of Budapest in 1945 from the local Nazis cost the Red Army dearly. Almost a hundred thousand dead Soviet soldiers and destroyed Budapest. So the remnants of the Nazi remnants happily got involved in the rebellion, dreaming of revenge.
Blood is already pouring on the streets of Budapest, Soviet tanks lit by Molotov cocktails are burning like candles, soldiers and participants of the rebellion are dying. In just one day, on October 24, the Soviet army lost several tanks, 20 killed and 48 wounded soldiers.
The situation threatened to escalate into a full-scale civil war and this slightly sobered the Kremlin. At the request of the new Hungarian leadership, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Budapest on October 29. However, the situation in the country continued to deteriorate and the new, reformist authorities hardly controlled it.
Execution on Kossuth Square
Nevertheless, according to researchers of the Hungarian events of 1956, a lot of blood these days in Budapest could still be avoided. But what happened on October 25 dramatically worsened the situation. As already noted above, the day before, during the night session, a plenum of the Central Committee of the VPT was held. Members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov, who arrived from Moscow, achieved a change of leadership - Janos Kadar headed the party, and Imre Nagy was confirmed as prime minister the day before.
By 11 o'clock in the morning, about 30 thousand people gathered on Lajos Kossuth Square in front of the country's Parliament building in order to see and listen to the new leaders of the country. However, instead of speeches by authoritative leaders, the demonstrators received only bullets in their address. Automatic weapons were fired at people from the roofs of houses surrounding the square. The Soviet soldiers who were on the square tried to eliminate the terrorists from the entire available arsenal.
The shootout lasted almost an hour and a half. As a result, hundreds of dead and wounded, modern researchers call the figure of 750 dead.
Who was behind this massacre is not known for sure until now! They tried to lay the blame on Soviet soldiers, then on "mysterious snipers" (very reminiscent of the Ukrainian Maidan) and finally "found" the culprits - militant communists.
Through the active efforts of two women, Edith Carey and Teresa Keremi, a version appeared about the creation of a "military committee" by part of the leadership of the VPT to protect against counter-revolution. This committee allegedly formed armed formations from former partisans and state security officers. Would-be historians even called the names of 210 people who are members of the "military committee". I will not be surprised if these are the names of people who will be brutally murdered, hanged and torn to pieces on the streets of Budapest by the "peaceful heroes of the uprising" against totalitarianism. After all, "heroes" must be whitewashed and justified, and enemies, on the contrary, humiliated and denigrated.
The committee was headed by Antal Apro, who prepared a decree on the introduction of a state of emergency in the country, which was blocked by Imre Nagy. Then, according to the authors of the book, the Apro militants decided to act by climbing with weapons on the roofs of houses located on Kossuth Square. The classic falsification of history and the creation of new false legends about events, with the justification of the "heroes" of the struggle against communism, which we constantly face today. The real heroes of the past are denigrated, and criminals, including Nazi ones, are justified and turned into idols. It is enough to recall the monuments in Armenia to Garegin Nzhdeh, a Nazi and an associate of Hitler. Examples can be continued, but not here.
In fact, it is difficult to imagine a communist leader who went against Moscow's decision, as well as anti-Nazi fighters who decided to shoot at their own people and even at their allies in the person of Soviet soldiers. You have to be a complete simpleton to believe that the "militant" communists decided to blow up the situation in the country, in conditions when Soviet troops were standing in Budapest. It wasn't in their best interest.
But to whom it was beneficial, it is not difficult to guess at all! The proven scheme of killing peaceful demonstrators in order to blow up the situation in the country has been used more than once in other states. This was the case in Yugoslavia in 1992, when the "Demonstration for Peace" in Sarajevo, held under the slogan "We are one people", was shot, and so it was in Ukraine in 2014, when the fading protests on the Maidan were supported by sniper fire on two opposing, but unarmed sides.
Be that as it may, this shooting inflamed the atmosphere to the limit, putting Hungary on the brink of civil war. The rebels began to actively arm themselves, seizing warehouses with weapons. But their curators are well aware of the power of propaganda. Therefore, first of all, the Radio Committee comes under the control of the rebels and the main party newspaper "Szabad Nep" is seized. The riots spread to the whole country. Parts of the Hungarian army support the mutiny. In Budapest, communists and state security officers are being killed by hanging tortured corpses on trees.
The power option in action
The raging crowd, warmed up by the sight of blood, is completely uncontrollable. She is no longer affected by the calls for an end to violence, which are addressed by the head of the church, Jozsef Gres, politicians: Imre Nagy, Janos Kadar, former presidents of the country Zoltan Tild and Arpad Sakasic, as well as cultural figures. All this is no longer valid.
Having failed to prevent the bloody development of events at the time, the Kremlin is trying to find a way out of the crisis. High-ranking security officials headed by the chairman of the KGB of the USSR Ivan Serov are sent to Hungary and on October 29, Soviet troops leave Budapest. The Kremlin is ready to agree even with the creation of a multiparty government for the sake of a peaceful resolution of the situation. But this was not enough for the Hungarian Nazis who came out of hiding, and the bloody orgy continued.
On October 30, militants stormed the Budapest city Committee of the Military-Industrial Complex, brutally torturing and killing about 30 people, including the secretary of the city committee Imre Meze, who left the building to negotiate. Apparently, the "peaceful rebels" remembered their "exploits" during the war on the territory of the USSR. All the victims of the "democratic uprising" were beaten, doused with gasoline and burned, their mutilated bodies were hung from trees by their feet and in the usual way. And the "true heroes of the uprising" went on to repair the massacre of dissenters.
The Kremlin no longer harbored illusions. Then they still tried not to give up their allies. In addition, the frightened Imre Nagy, possibly under pressure, raised the question of the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country. He later announced Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact Organization.
As a result, the Kremlin has only one option left to solve the Hungarian problem - by force. It was decided to entrust the development of the operation codenamed "Whirlwind" to Marshal Zhukov. On October 31 , Nikita Khrushchev said at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU: "If we leave Hungary, it will cheer up the Americans, the British and the French… Our party will not understand us. Then we will add Hungary to Egypt." The Kremlin's determination was supported at secret negotiations by the Communist parties of all countries.
Only one thing remained unclear: who would lead the new Hungarian government in this difficult time. The Kremlin's choice falls on Janos Kadar, who initially does not agree, but the threat of the return to power of Matthias Rakosi, forces him to accept Moscow's offer.
In the early morning of November 4, Operation Whirlwind will enter its active phase and Soviet tank columns will set a course for Budapest. A real army operation, in which 17 divisions and 6 thousand tanks participated. After all, there was a real threat of military intervention from the West, and the 60,000-strong Soviet military group was able to repel any aggression, so Western countries did not dare to intervene.
The entry of Soviet troops into Hungary cannot be called an easy walk. Fierce urban battles in Budapest continued until November 12. According to official figures of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the total losses of the Soviet army amounted to 640 people killed and 1,251 people wounded. According to unofficial data, the losses amounted to up to two thousand killed.
2,652 Hungarians were killed and about 20,000 people were injured. The failed reformer Imre Nagy was arrested and hanged by the verdict of the Hungarian military tribunal in 1958. Quite a harsh decision. It is clear that today Imre Nagy is a national hero of Hungary. And this is fair, because he paid with his life for political mistakes.
Lessons of 1956
The events in Hungary became the bloodiest in the post-war history of twentieth-century Europe. The unrest in East Germany in 1953, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the Polish protests in the 80s are nothing compared in intensity, bitterness and the number of victims with the confrontation in Hungary. Only NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia gathered a much more "generous" bloody harvest, creating a permanent hotbed of tension in the Balkans that could explode at any moment.
As for the Hungarian crisis, it undoubtedly weakened the socialist camp and the world communist movement. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian refugees poured into Western Europe, the United States and even Australia after the Soviet troops entered, with terrible stories about the "atrocities" of Soviet soldiers. It is clear that nothing was reported in the "free" Western media about the vile crimes of the "rebels", but anti-Soviet propaganda flowed in full flow. As a result, disappointed ordinary members of the Western Communist parties began to hand over party cards en masse. The influence of Communist parties around the world has significantly weakened.
But there were also positive changes, including in Hungary itself. The new leader Janos Kadar systematically carried out transformations in the country, which eventually led to the fact that Hungary turned into a showcase of the socialist camp. Small and medium-sized businesses operating legally in the country provided the country with food and consumer goods. The standard of living of the Hungarian population has also significantly increased. It is not surprising that Janos Kadar became one of the few communist leaders who, after the transfer of power to "democratic regimes", retained authority and respect in the country.
These events also affected the USSR, where Nikita Khrushchev soon got rid of the influential pro-Stalin Molotov-Kaganovich group and began timid, but not always successful reforms of the Soviet system. But this is a topic for another article.