"The army will not follow orders..."

[Vrylakas]

Nikita Sergeivich was having a bad year.

It had all seemed to be going so well. Khrushchov had managed in the three years since Stalin’s death to dispatch most of Stalin’s toadies but as well some dangerous competitors; Beria had been strangled, while Molotov and Malenkov were pushed into irrelevance. It was autumn 1956 and Khrushchov was sole ruler of the USSR’s vast empire.

Still, some cracks were beginning to show. On 24. February he had given a secret speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU in which he had attacked the grossest crimes of the Stalinist years, though of course in diluted form. Though secret, this speech rapidly spread around the world and everyone was reading his speech verbatim – including the people of Eastern Europe who had bore the brunt of those very crimes. The full import of his speech was having a massive impact on the Soviet empire, and news poured in from the puppet capitals of unrest. The previous year he had tried to throw the puppet states a bone by granting a general amnesty for prisoners held since World War II, but as hundreds of thousands of Poles, Germans, Hungarians, etc. suddenly and inexplicably flooded back into their home countries with stories of a decade of Siberian gulag horrors, he had heard complaints from the puppet capitals that the amnesty was undermining communist authority. Then in June 1956 spontaneous worker demonstrations broke out in Poznan, Poland and quickly turned violent; the protestors seized police guns and army units sent to suppress them joined them instead. UB (Polish KGB) tanks eventually suppressed the revolt but not before some embarrassing publicity, and the Polish communists were clearly spooked by this incident giving anti-Stalinist reformers political ammunition. There had already been outbreaks of rebellion in 1953 in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, but they were relatively local isolated incidents that were rapidly brought back under control; Eastern Europe in 1956 was aboil.

Then the worst news came: Khrushchov was informed by his agents in Poland that the Polish comrades had called a special plenum of the Polish Workers Party without Soviet consent and it was highly likely that anti-Stalinist reformers would seize control. A small hardcore of dedicated Stalinists was fighting for its political life but the reformers, led by the extremely annoying Wladyslaw Gomulka, had already managed to uproot many of the Stalinists’ stooges from the security apparatus over the previous year. Gomulka was an old-time Polish communist from before the war who was accidentally spared in 1938 when Stalin had the entire Polish Communist Party summoned to Moscow and executed, because he was sitting in a Polish prison at the time, ironically for communist party activities. Gomulka led the party to resistance during the war and emerged afterwards as a power in Poland, but Stalin naturally distrusted the one he’d missed in 1938 so in 1949 Gomulka was imprisoned on trumped-up charges. (This wasn’t so bad, considering that Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania had their first-generation communist leaders executed on Stalin’s orders.) But a year after Stalin’s death Gomulka was released from prison and he slowly began to rebuild his political base, though not openly until 1955. Now here it was October 1956 and Gomulka was on the verge of a comeback.

Well, it wasn’t anything personal against Gomulka of course but Khrushchov couldn’t have his puppets making any independent moves without his express consent, especially with decisions regarding leadership changes. Stalin had a particular distaste and distrust for Poles so in 1944 as the Soviet armies surged across Poland to Germany he installed a reliable regime immediately, with Soviet citizens installed at every level to ensure complete fidelity. No other satellite received this kind of detailed attention. The military in particular was tightly controlled by Soviet officers, led by Konstantin Rokossovsky, a Polish-born communist who had lived in the USSR since he was 17 and could barely speak Polish. Rokossovsky was installed as defense minister, and it was he who was sending increasingly alarming reports to Moscow about the upcoming plenum in Warsaw. Khrushchov decided to nip this little show of Polish insolence in the bud by leading a delegation of the Soviet Politburo himself to Warsaw.

On 19. October the 8th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party began its deliberations over its leadership, with Gomulka the favorite to become First Secretary again, with unusually rancorous debate. The reformers had out-maneuvered the Stalinists in the weeks leading up to the Plenum and even the secret police organs had let it be known whom they favored by refusing to act on a list given to them by the Stalinist camp of those in the reformist camp “suspected of being Western agents”. While the plenum was raging in session however, the delegates were informed that several Soviet military planes were circling above Warsaw and demanding a runway to land at Warsaw’s Okecie Airport. The planes landed and disgorged a company of Soviet paratroopers who seized the runway, allowing another plane to land. From this plane emerged Mikoyan, Molotov, Koganovich and an enraged Khrushchov. Accompanying this delegation was Marshal Konev, the Soviet commander of the recently-formed WTO forces, as if the Polish comrades needed any reminding of who was in charge and what they were willing to do to stay in charge. The Soviet Politburo members were first briefed by Rokossovsky, then Khrushchov demanded an exclusive audience with the Polish Central Committee. On their way to see the Polish leadership the convoy of the Soviet Politburo delegation is said to have passed the statue of Feliks Dzierzynski, the Polish communist who had formed the Cheka for Lenin in 1917 and who directed the first Red Terror, and seen how the Warsaw University students had painted Dzierzynski’s hands blood red.

Khrushchov and Gomulka carried on their “discussions” all night long into the 20th and throughout that day but at one point Gomulka was informed that Marshal Konev had started to mobilize the Soviet army units in Poland, and that several Soviet tank divisions were headed for Warsaw. Reports also came in from Gdansk that the Soviet navy was parading in force outside the harbor menacingly. Gomulka demanded that all Soviet military movements halt, and gave orders for the KBW (military security police) and UB to seize all approaches to Warsaw and set up fortified roadblocks, distributing arms to workers to help defend the city. Also in the midst of this meeting Rokossovsky interrupted to inform Khrushchov that he had tried to mobilize the Polish Army to act against the KBW but he had been told by his Polish general staff that the army will not follow his orders. There were also rumors that the East Germans might lend a hand to the Soviets by invading western Poland, which the Polish general staff informed Rokossovsky the Polish Army would most certainly resist with arms. Given this information Rokossovsky ordered the Polish Army locked down into its barracks. At one point outside Warsaw a KBW unit confronted a Soviet tank unit, which turned back for lack of orders. There was also one report of a Polish air squadron on patrol near Warsaw radioing in for instructions on whether it should start bombing Soviet tank units it saw moving towards the capital. In the midst of the military standoff, in the early hours of the 21st Khrushchov finally reached an agreement with Gomulka. Khrushchov had realized that any attempt to remove Gomulka by force would result in widespread fighting across Poland, which the Soviets would surely win but only after treating the world to the spectacle of the communist homeland violently suppressing one of its supposed allies. Gomulka was allowed to stay in power and the Polish communists were allowed to have a much more independent control over Poland, but in return Gomulka promised to adhere slavishly to Soviet foreign policy goals and remain faithful to Poland’s WTO duties. Gomulka acquiesced, and Khrushchov returned to Moscow. Rokossovsky and his Soviet “advisors” were removed as a part of the deal, following Khrushchov back to Moscow. As Warsaw settled into the final stages of the Plenum (electing Gomulka First Secretary on the 21st), Soviet troops returned to their bases and the KBW dismantled its roadblocks, the crisis seemed over.

The crisis wasn’t over.

On 22. October Hungary was restless and several university student groups in Budapest decided to hold a mass rally the next day at the statue of Józef Bem, the Polish general who had led several Hungarian armies against the Austrians and Russians in the 1848-49 Hungarian War of Independence, in support of the Poles. Anticipating trouble, the Stalinist leadership outlawed all demonstrations the next morning (threatening to fire on any crowds) but the students were not deterred. This demonstration on the 23rd began at the statue of Sándor Petöfi (a poet and hero of the 1848-49 war) at about 1.00 p.m. where demands for political reforms were issued and then the crowd moved slowly in procession form to the statue of Bem. At Bem’s statue the students were joined by several other groups, including the Writers’ Union, and more demands were issued. It was by now 5.00 p.m. and workers returning home from work joined the demonstrations. As the crowd grew to immense proportions it became increasingly radical and unruly; protesters began tearing the Soviet star out of the middle of the many Hungarian flags carried by the procession with roars of approval from the crowd. Soldiers from a nearby Hungarian army barracks showed up and for a few tense moments the soldiers and crowd eyed one another but then the cadets began tearing the stars off their caps and uniforms and throwing them into the crowd, again with roars of approval. This was when it became clear whose side the Hungarian Army was on. The large crowd, now numbering an estimated 200,000, began to file towards Parliament Square to demand the resignation of the country’s Stalinist leadership and the instatement of the reformer Imre Nagy in power. It was approaching evening and several government ministers tried to address the crowd or demand the protesters disperse but they were shouted down with loud demands to see Nagy.

Nagy was rounded up from his home in Budapest’s suburbs and fumbled a speech from a Parliamentary balcony that was badly received by the crowd (being particularly booed when he addressed the crowd first as “comrades”). What happened next exactly is in dispute; some report shots being fired into the crowd from the AVO (Hungarian KGB), others report shots being fired by gathering Soviet units summoned by a panicking Stalinist leadership. In any event what is sure is the crowd began to split up with some heading towards the radio station and others towards the 20 m/60 ft. high bronze statue of Stalin. At the radio station the AVO men guarding it greeted the protesters’ demands for airtime with gunfire, and after a bloody battle joined by soldiers and armed workers on the protesters’ side the building was stormed. Any AVO men caught inside were executed instantly, without mercy. At the statue of Stalin crowds worked all night long to dismantle it until by dawn the next morning Stalin’s decapitated bronze head sat abandoned and abused in the middle of the street. The Hungarian Revolution had started.

Part II a'comin':

 

[Vrylakas]

Part II:

Wladyslaw Gomulka was a consummate politician and a major driving force behind the events of October 1956 in Poland; Imre Nagy was more of a professor personality type who spent most of the crisis reacting desperately to events in Hungary beyond his control. Gomulka wanted power, while Nagy just wanted to be able to have good dinners with friends and bury himself in inane statistics about farming production. On the first day of the Revolution, Nagy was at a wine festival at Lake Balaton about 150 km southwest of Budapest and he refused to leave the festival despite the increasingly alarming news pouring in from Budapest about the growing demonstrations. Only reluctantly did he return to the city that evening, and then he remained secluded in his home and had to be virtually kidnapped by friends to address the crowd at Parliament Square. The jovial Nagy had been a victim of the late 1940s purges in Hungary and spent several years in seclusion until the country was near the revolutionary boiling point in 1953, when he was summoned back to lead the country. Nagy tried to enact stringent anti-Stalinist measures but within a year and a half of his rehabilitation the Stalinists were able to stage a come-back and oust Nagy in 1955. In the months prior to the Revolution Moscow had realized what a mistake it made reinstating the arch-Stalinist Máttyás Rákosi and had him ousted. Unfortunately Moscow replaced Rákosi with a Stalinist as fervent as Rákosi, Ernô Gerô, which meant he was as hated in Hungary as Rákosi had been. This was the situation on 23. October when Nagy had destiny shoved upon him, as at midnight a panicked Central Committee summoned Nagy and declared him the prime minister.

By dawn the next day Soviet tanks had appeared on the streets and were fighting street battles all over the city, while support poured in from the rest of the country. Until now the Army had remained largely neutral, with only scattered units joining in but the scene of Soviet tanks and soldiers fighting Hungarians changed things and the Army joined the battle. All across the country crowds began to cut the stars out of Hungarian flags, tear down Soviet and communist monuments and portraits, burn Soviet literature, burn and hang effigies of Ernô and Rákosi, and dismantle communist statues. A Budapest revolution had now become a national revolution. Nagy issued repeated calls for the fighting to stop, but he was unheeded.

Over the next five days fighting intensified throughout Budapest while Nagy formed a coalition government that included non-communist parties, and Nagy started negotiations with Moscow to stop the fighting. The latter bore fruit and on 29. October the Soviets began to disengage from the battles and withdrawal from Budapest to an airport just outside the city. While fierce battles raged between the rebels and army on the one hand and the Soviets and AVO on the other, the population began to vent a decade’s worth of frustration against the Party by hanging, mauling and torturing any AVO or high-ranking Party members crowds could get their hands on, and the country was faced with the grisly scene of corpses and body parts tied or nailed to trees in the streets. Something ominous happened on the 29th though that put the Hungarian Revolution in particular danger; early that morning Israeli forces launched an invasion of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, creating a distraction for the world and knocking Hungary out of the news headlines. This lack of focus on the world’s part allowed Khrushchov some time to re-organize and send re-enforcements to Hungary. On the 30th Britain and France issued their ultimatum to Egypt and Israel to halt all fighting and withdrawal ten miles from the Suez Canal, while Budapest enjoyed its first quiet day since the Revolution began. The Roman Catholic Cardinal József Mindszenty was released from seven years of imprisonment. The next day, the 31st, saw the widespread release of political prisoners while the new army head, Pál Maleter declared the army formally on the side of the rebels but the world’s attention was focused on the Anglo-French bombing raids against Egyptian airfields.

On 01. November, as British forces seized Gaza, Nagy was awakened with the news that a massive invasion of Hungary had been launched by the USSR as 3000 Soviet tanks surged into the country from Soviet and Romanian territory. Nagy responded by declaring Hungary was leaving the WTO and appealing to the United Nations for help. Hungary was declared a neutral country, in the wishful hope that Moscow would accept a Finnish or Austrian solution for Hungary. The next day Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov told Nagy the tanks were only replacements for those leaving Budapest, and offered to start negotiations for a time table for a complete Soviet military withdrawal from Hungary. Meanwhile Soviet troops marched across the country and seized strategic points. Nagy seemed to hope against hope the situation could be salvaged and he refused to order the army to resist the Soviets, even when on the 3rd the Soviets arrested the military delegation Nagy had sent them for negotiations. Also on the 3rd, as the British and French finally accepted the cease fire in Egypt under immense American pressure, two members of Nagy’s government went missing and were presumed either arrested or killed. In reality, János Kádár and Ferenc Münnich had switched sides and flown to Uzhhorod (formerly Hungarian Ungvár) just across the Soviet border to form the nucleus of a new Hungarian post-revolutionary government.

The beginning of the end came on 04. November as Soviet artillery opened up on Budapest at 5.00 a.m. Within three days, after fierce fighting that included Soviet aerial bombardment and strafing of the city, the rebels were crushed and Nagy’s government fled to the protection of the Yugoslav Embassy. Desperate radio broadcasts begging for help from anywhere in the world continued for days afterwards until the Soviets hunted each down and extinguished them, and fighting in the counties didn’t die down until 14. November. Kádár promised safe passage for Nagy and his colleagues if they left the Embassy but as soon as they boarded a bus with two Yugoslav consular officials it was surrounded by Soviet troops and Nagy was arrested. Nagy was whisked off to Romania for imprisonment, and most Hungarians found out about his fate when a small article in the back of the Hungarian communist daily Népszabadság mentioned that Nagy had been executed by firing squad on 16. June, 1958; nearly two years after the Revolution. Nagy’s remains were for some reason spirited back to Budapest and secretly buried in an unmarked grave in Kerepesi Cemetery. Another generation of communist reformers would, on the anniversary of Nagy’s execution in 1989, exhume Nagy’s remains and hold a formal national funeral for Nagy with full honors, beginning the process of the communist government’s final death throes in Hungary.

In his memoirs written some 15 years after the events of 1956 Khrushchov claimed that he consulted with the Chinese about what to do, and Mao’s advice was to let the Poles go because they were simply anti-Russian, but that he should crush the Hungarians because they were genuinely anti-communist. Other evidence since then suggests the Chinese were against the Hungarian invasion too, at least until the last moment, but a surprising endorsement came from Belgrade where Tito worried about the effects of a free former communist country on his borders. What is ironic about this tragic year, 1956, was that while Poland seemingly triumphed and was allowed to develop its own communist path, in reality Gomulka became one of Moscow’s most faithful servants throughout the 1960s. He cracked down on dissent and the free press that had supported him so strongly during the October crisis, and true to his word Gomulka never strayed from supporting Soviet policies. He was finally ousted from power in December 1970 when he ordered the army to shoot down peaceful protestors who were protesting a dramatic increase in the price of basic foodstuffs just days before Christmas – Poland’s biggest culinary holiday. The traitor Kádár in Hungary however, while he unleashed the AVO after the Revolution to take its evil revenge against the country, had fully understood his country’s frustrations and after a period of repression he cut a deal with his people; stay out of politics and the government will create the freest communist state (as free as a communist state can get, anyway) allowing travel, popular music and popular consumer goods. By 1970 the contrast between Poland and Hungary was stark, with Poland languishing under a collapsing economy and an increasingly repressive dictatorship while Hungary enjoyed freedoms that even Yugoslavs envied. Kádár also granted his people another gift by purposely leaving Hungary’s western border with Austria only lightly watched for months after the crushing of the Revolution, allowing hundreds of thousands of Hungarians to escape to the West. When Gomulka left office in 1970 he left as a hated man who will always be rued by Poles, but when the by-then senile old man Kádár was ousted by an alliance of reformers in 1988, his passing was met with a grudging gratitude and respect. Poland’s freedom from communism came at the price of the violence of 1970, 1976 and 1981; Kádár’s Hungary however was able to reform its way out of dictatorship. The events of 17 days in autumn 1956, between 19. October and 04. November, had an immense impact on the history of the region and was a watershed for the Cold War.

 

[Vrylakas]

In a shameless and naked act of thread-bumping, I'll point out that today, 23. October, is the 47th anniversary of the official start of the Hungarian Revolution in Hungary, and a national holiday.

 

[zippy]

Interesting read Vrylakas, thanks for posting it.

 

[mrtn]

I agree with zippy.

 

[Yago]

Kádár also granted his people another gift by purposely leaving Hungary’s western border with Austria only lightly watched for months after the crushing of the Revolution, allowing hundreds of thousands of Hungarians to escape to the West.

That is actually a still visible population strata and must have been an enormous brain-drain, because a huge part of them were academics.

 

[Vrylakas]

It could be called a Mexican Strategy; let the worst malcontents go and as they go relieve some of the pressures within the country. The numbers of those who left are astounding if one considers that Hungary's population hovered around 10 million at the time (which it still does today).

The West was wholly unprepared for the huge wave of Hungarians escaping Kádár's Hungary, and set up corraling camps in Austria from where they were screened for agents then dispersed to Germany, France, UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, etc. In the U.S. an old military base in New Jersey was used as a temporary settlement for them until they could be processed bureaucratically, and for that reason the New Brunswick area of NJ today still has a large Hungarian population, though by now most have dispersed into the American interior. Cities like Toronto and London quite suddenly in 1957 developed a large Hungarian community. A Hungarian rock group, Hobo Blues Band, wrote a particularly nasty song about these "'56ers" in the 1980s, showing how ambiguous the relationship between Eastern Europeans and their emigré communities can be.

You're right that it was an enormous brain drain (which is why Kádár left the western gates open, so to speak, only long enough for the most ambitious of dissidents to escape). And BTW while Kádár left the border with Austria as porous as he could, he had no control over the Soviet troops patrolling that same border so there was still considerable risk for those trying to flee westward. There is a habit among Eastern Europeans of glorifying their emigré communities' achievements abroad, extolling the successes of famous Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, etc. living in the U.S., U.K., France, Australia, etc. The reality of course is that if all these talented people had been able to stay home in the first place, Eastern Europe might be a better place to live today than it is. Woopie-doo that Edvard Teller was Hungarian or Andrzej Bartkowiak, one of the leading cinematographers in Hollywood, is a Pole; what good does that do Hungary and Poland? Some positive PR maybe, but that's about it. Yes it's true that as Eastern Europe was largely occupied and annexed to the Soviet empire for much of the 2nd half of the 20th century there was ample reason for many to leave the region - that's why I'm writing you from the U.S. currently in fact - but Hungary's largest period of emigration to the West (especially the U.S.) was not in 1956-57 but in 1890-1910 when about a million people emigrated from Hungary for economic reasons. The deathgrip the landed aristocracy had on available land in Hungary at the turn of the 20th century proved a greater compulsion for mass emigration than a despotic foreign dictatorship in 1956.

This is an important point because it goes to the heart of what Eastern Europe is now and more importantly what it wants to be. The end of the Soviet empire in 1989-90 in Eastern Europe opened up the possibilities for what we could become, and the elections all revealed the many competing visions of the future for the region, ranging from hyper-nationalist themelands to Swedish-style nursemaid states. One of the best compliments I've ever received abut Poland came from a girl I met on a Vienna streetcar who, when she found out I was Polish, said simply, "O, I was in Warsaw last year. Seems like a nice place to live." THAT for me is the goal, to make Eastern Europe a place that is livable and secure - the kinds of conditions that do not inspire occasional waves of economic or political refugees swarming westward.

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by Vrylakas
...Swedish-style nursemaid states...

Have you ever been here?

 

[Vrylakas]

I wasn't commenting on the Scandinavean social/economic models, just listing them as one of many options available today.

 

[raiderbob]

And the role of “America”, specifically the CIA, in the 1956 slaughter? Yet another betrayal , while most Americans still wonder ‘why do they hate us?” Could you shed some light on this from a Hungarian point of view? You can e me if you wish. I enjoy dialogue with other nationalities.

Other than that “omission”, I found your article to be historically factual, paralleling my recollections of limited research done decades ago.

 

[Vrylakas]

The CIA role in the Hungarian Revolution has been greatly exaggerated. The U.S. did broadcast radio encouragement to the rebels and may have fostered unrealistic hopes among Hungarians that the West was coming to their aid, but if you read the impromptu newspapers from the Revolution and what survives of Nagy's government records you see that they were already bound up in their own unrealistic beliefs.

1. The revolution was not sparked or caused by the CIA. It was a genuine groundswell of grassroots outburst over a decade of Stalinist oppression and economic mismanagement. The confusion and lack of coordination of revolutionary events in Hungary is indicative of how ad hoc and spontaneous events were.

2. Another argument against CIA involvement is the weakness of the CIA in Eastern Europe at the time. Somehow in the West in the 1960s an image of the CIA arose of an ultra-secret, omnipotent stealth organization that knew all and influenced all, but the reality is the CIA never got anywhere near the abilities of the KGB though the CIA's electronic data collection abilities were more sophisticated. With a few notable exceptions, the KGB generally ran circles around the CIA and in particular was far more successful with "HUMINT", recruiting individual spies to collect information. In the 1950s in particular the CIA had an ugly time trying to infiltrate Eastern Europe, simply because it is much simpler for dictators in a totalitarian society to exercise greater control over and awareness of each individual citizen. With the relaxation of Stalinist controls in the 1960s the CIA had more success, but in 1956 Langley was just as shocked by the events unfolding in Hungary as Moscow was, if not moreso.

3. While the Hungarian Revolution represented an interesting sideshow in Europe and a wonderful PR coup for the West as Moscow had to publically beat the crap out of a supposed ally, its success or failure did not really have any major impact on European geopolitics at the time or represent any threat (or significant gain) to/for the West. Simply said, aside from the PR value, Hungary had little value or danger for the West. There would be little reason therefore to stir up trouble in Hungary, even assuming the West had that capability. Keep in mind how surprised the CIA was by the events unfolding in Egypt, and that involved allies.

4. If you're going to argue CIA meddling in Eastern European revolts, the Hungarian Revolution is not the place to look; think Poland in 1980. It came out in the past few years that Reagan actively sent equipment (faxes, computers, printers, paper, etc.) to the Solidarnosc underground after 1981 that allowed members to keep in contact and distribute independent news. Also, the CIA had recruited (or rather been approached by) a highly-placed Polish colonel, Ryszard Kuklinski, who provided them with valuable information about Soviet intentions in Poland and Europe throughout the 1980s.

 

[raiderbob]

Thank you for your prompt and informative reply.
I was remembering a book I’d read decades ago that detailed things like the radio broadcasts, “fliers”, and something in “balloons” (coins?) being dropped continuously while the revolution was ongoing. Maybe the promises didn’t have time to make the papers? Wasn’t the promise support by a certain date that came and went? More pronounced than bush I’s betrayal of the Iraqi’s?
Of course I was not at either place or time, but then I wasn’t in Germany either, however I believe the holocaust happened.

Just looking for the truth

peace