The Hungarian Uprising

Published on 21 January 2024 at 14:09

The Hungarian Uprising of 1956

In a glorious response to a wave of Soviet-inspired brutality across Hungary, citizens erupted in protest. Being confined to the control of remarkably authoritarian Matyas Rakosi and his secret police was no longer acceptable to the people of Hungary. To a vastly significant degree, economic problems hampered the ability of Rakosi to administrate in such a Stalin-esque fashion, and simply added fuel to the revolutionary fire sweeping across Hungary. Naturally, the uprising was crushed under the boots of the Red Army, but such a response represented a fundamental weakness in the foundations of the Eastern Bloc: opposition.

Matyas Rakosi, often dubbed ‘Little Stalin’, ruled with an iron fist more resembling of Stalin’s than any other European leader. He deployed his secret police, called the Allamvelmi Hatosag (AVH), to an extent similar to that of its Soviet counterpart. Its sole aim was defined in a single message: to do away with supposed ‘enemies of the people’, a message echoed by 50,000 members of an entity representing the most significant extent of authoritarianism. Around 300,000 Hungarians were being arrested each year, and the AVH imprisoned the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church for life, for treason. There existed a wide range of crimes that the AVH had remit over; farmers who complained about collectivisation policies, and, almost extraordinarily, communists who supported Stalin’s abandoner, Tito. It cannot be doubted that the AVH was a vastly significant weapon at the hands of Rakosi. Clearly, in Stalin’s lifetime, Hungary’s leadership aimed to move towards a furiously Stalinist polity; a Stalinist polity that would become unacceptable to many Hungarians. This form of total repression would ultimately go too far in antagonising Hungary’s revolutionaries.

Post-war economic problems posed significant challenges to the Stalinist government. It was agreed that Hungary would pay $300m in reparations to the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Participation in Comecon excluded Hungary from receiving any Marshall Aid from the US, and, by 1952, real disposable incomes were at just 2/3 of their 1938 levels. Therefore, there existed no argument that Rakosi, for all of his dictatorial flaws, had managed to maintain the Hungarian standard of living. Not only were the Hungarian people living under the thumb of one of the most repressive dictators in Europe, and his ruthless secret police, they had to contend with comparatively awful standards of living combined with the weight of the Second World War on their collective shoulders. These were exceptionally fertile conditions for a rebellion.

Rakosi’s resignation in July of 1956 gave power to critics of the regime. Political activity was encouraged. Reformist Imre Nagy was rehabilitated in October of 1956 and students in Szeged re-established the formerly banned Union of Hungarian University and Academy Students (MEFESZ), which was a democratic alternative to the official communist student union. A clamour for democracy had taken over.

The first shots of the uprising took place on the 23rd of October 1956. They came armed with a series of demands to the radio building for the Hungarian state-owned radio station. They demanded free elections, and, crucially, Imre Nagy to be restored to power. These students were promptly arrested, but unrest was far from complete. By 6 P.M., 200,000 demonstrators gathered and, later that night, toppled Stalin’s 10-metre-high statue, outraged by First Secretary Erno Gero’s dismissal of the students as a reactionary mob. The ‘mob’ had certainly caused the communist government great concern. On the 4th of November, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest and swiftly, yet powerfully, crushed the protests, and crushed dissent. The USSR implemented a new, obedient government led by Janos Kadar, who remained in place until 1988. All forms of political dissent were virtually suppressed by January of 1957. The Soviet Union tightened its forceful grip on Eastern Europe as a result of their actions in Hungary, but in the process, fragmented its relationship with Western Marxists. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, was critical of the response of the Soviet Union to the rebellion. Emmanuel La Roy Ladurie of the French Communist Party resigned in response to the support of the party to the USSR. Pietro Nenni of the Italian Socialist Party opposed Soviet policy. Thousands left the Communist Party of Great Britain. Clearly, Soviet brutality came at a dear price.

Soviet violence didn’t necessarily empower the United States; the opposite occurred. Hungarians were disappointed with Eisenhower’s inaction. Despite its admittance of 30,000 Hungarian refugees, the best that the US could offer was platitudes of sympathy that had no impact on governance in Hungary. The West, however, came out of the crisis relatively unscathed. They weren’t shown to be the ‘evil empire’ and foreign attitudes to the West didn’t deteriorate. The USSR clearly valued Hungary, but the price, to many, appeared to be too much.

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