Freedom's Battle Once Begun: 58th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

So I'm pretty bad at getting posts out on actual anniversaries, but alright at remembering sometime around the actual date I'm looking for.

Anyway, not long after WWII Hungary became part of the communist bloc. In an election after WWII the communists won 17% of the vote. But the allies let Stalin impose communism on Eastern Europe, “behind the back of the nation” as the official Hungarian history likes to say. Hungary’s communist government[1] was widely considered to be the harshest outside of the Soviet Union; the Hungarian leader, Mátyás Rákosi, was derisively referred to as “Stalin’s best pupil”.

Preach

58 years ago, on October 23rd, a bunch of students in Budapest started a protest against the puppet government in Hungary. The protest started at the statue of a hero of the 1848 rebellion against Austria, and proceeded to the state radio building, increasing into the hundreds of thousands as the day went on. The students demanded to have their demands and grievances broadcast. The state secret police, the ÁVH, opened fire on the crowd, and the protest soon turned violent. Protesters tore down an eight meter high statue of Stalin, and symbolically severed his head.

Meanwhile, the ÁVH officers in the state radio building, plainly outnumbered[2] called on the Hungarian military for help. The military showed up, refused to attack the crowd, and soon joined/armed the protesters. This was not a uniform phenomenon: command and control disintegrated, many units sat out the conflict, some fought the rebels, and others joined them. But the military did not intentionally fire on unarmed civilians as the ÁVH did. 

I like this picture because of the people going about their day in the background

Anyway, back to chronological order. Other protesters in front of the parliament building were again fired on by the ÁVH, by this time the crowd could return fire. Overnight Soviet forces crossed into Hungary to put down the protests. Hungarians put up barricades and were even able to capture some Soviet tanks and canon.  By the end of the day the protests were a full rebellion, and had spread throughout the country. The leadership fled to the Soviet Union. 

Move along, nothing to see here but a dead commie

A general strike was called, and revolutionary militias formed and fought the ÁVH and Soviets. At one point they captured ÁVH headquarters, freeing the prisoners and lynching the police. Other militias rounded up and executed communist politicians, ÁVH officers, and those suspected of being so. 

Rebels continued to battle Soviet troops, making frequent use of Molotov cocktails against Soviet armor, as well as captured artillery pieces. The rebels buried their own, while Soviets and Hungarian Communists[3] were left out in the street in disrespect. To cut down on the stench, lye was dumped on the bodies, highlighting the dead in the black and white photographs taken during the conflict. 


The communist party installed new leaders from its moderate wing. They tried to regain control of the military and called for a cease-fire of all parties. By October 28th a ceasefire took hold, and Soviet forces withdrew from Budapest. The government released political prisoners, announced it was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact, and declared neutrality. The ÁVH was disbanded, though in some areas they had to be disarmed by force. The general strike was scheduled to end, and by and large revolutionary councils decided to back the new government, or at least to wait and see before fighting it. The execution of suspected communists continued throughout the rebellion, including the days of the ceasefire[4]. 

Celebrating the ceasefire by a captured tank

On November 3rd, a Hungarian delegation met with a Soviet delegation to negotiate the withdraw of remaining Soviet forces in Hungary. The meeting was a trap and the delegation was arrested. Soviet reinforcements poured into Hungary. The outnumbered Hungarian military and rebels again fought the Soviets in running street battles. This time there were no known instances of the army fighting against rebels. By the end of November 4th the Hungarian government and organized military resistance had fallen apart. The civilians-turned-rebels held out in some areas until November 11th. For the second time in just over 10 years, Budapest lay in ruin. It is estimated that more than 2,500 Hungarian combatants were killed, and around 3,000 civilians. 722 Soviet troops were killed.

The Hungarian freedom fighters had no hope of winning against Soviet communism, and they had to have known that. But Hungarian history is full of unsuccessful rebellions that arose as matters of principle rather than sure victory. These men and women fought and died rather than acquiesce to injustice, and they won 20 days of freedom for it. As Ronald Reagan put it, they “gave the lie to communism's claims to represent the people”. 

The communists returned to power, but the former leaders remained in exile, and their replacements were moderates. In Hungary it is referred to as the era of “goulash”, or soft, communism. The economy began to grow somewhat, and the typical backdoors and corruption of a just-for-show communist state allowed circumvention of rigid ideology. Not a single image or statue of Stalin was replaced. So to Hungarians the rebellion had a practical benefit as well: it toppled a government and brought about a less bad one.

JFK did a better job eulogizing the 1956 revolution on its first anniversary:

"No other day since nations were first instituted... has shown more conclusively, to oppressed and oppressor alike, the utter, inevitable futility of despotic rule. No other day has shown more clearly the eternal unquenchability of man’s desire to be free, whatever the odds against success, whatever the sacrifice required of him.

…the world may rightfully ask whether we who enjoy the greatest quantity of freedom do not appreciate its quality the least 

…So long as the memory…burns within our minds, let us hear no more about the prestige of the Soviet system or the advantages of the Soviet way.

…the very students in whom the false Gods of Communism had been thoroughly and repeatedly dinned were the first to fight for a liberty they had never known. Workers wooed by the pledge of a ruling proletariat preferred a hero’s grave to a seat on the oppressor’s council.

...We all know, in the words of Byron, as he fought and fell for Greek freedom in the rain at Missolonghi, that: 

'Freedom’s battle, once begun

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son 

Tho baffled oft, is ever won.'[5]"

The World's Reaction to Ebola

People from all over the world have left behind lives of relative comfort and safety in the fight to stop the largest Ebola outbreak in history. But the governments of the rich world have not followed their example. Also here is a good video to watch.

The graphic below shows how unprecedented the current outbreak has been. It quickly infected, and killed, more people than in the rest of recorded history. That it was the largest outbreak ever was know months ago, not long after it started in March. For background: Africa is the 2nd largest continent, the current outbreak is taking place in a region of the world, West Africa, that has never dealt with Ebola before. The closest previous outbreak was at least 1300 miles away.

Despite it being obvious this is the largest outbreak ever a while ago, it was only last month that the US announced it was going to help. As NPR has been reporting, what aid the US has offered - training of health workers and building of hospitals - has been making slow progress so far, and not for no reason.

So why wasn't this started sooner? The scale was obvious. This is not charity, as the fact that an Ebola infected man made it to the US, and a Spanish nurse caught Ebola from a patient shows. The outbreak is centered on three of West Africa's poorest countries. It is in the interest of those with a greater ability to pay to help stop the spread, because if they don't, Ebola will spread, do more damage to more people in more places and cost more money to stop.

My initial feeling was that the slow response could only be down to three things: a callous indifference, inexcusable ignorance, or incompetence. But because it is a problem the whole world should be involved in to keep Ebola from spreading in the world, indifference is only possible with ignorance. And there is no way that US officials, and their rich country counterparts, weren't aware of the situation.

It is true that Ebola, having killed over 4000 so far, is rather low on the list of diseases killing West Africans. But the world need only give the disease time to potentially become a major contender. Given the high fatality, and danger posed to health care workers, and that there are too few of them in the region to begin with, the detrimental effect on health systems is large. The most efficient way to prevent a larger disaster was to act aggressively in the early stages a while back. Don't be incompetent; helping isn't charity[1], this is basic.

August/September Jobs Report

Why not make this a bi-monthly doodle? The August jobs report was initially terrible given the trend, but was adjusted to less terrible. The September jobs report was ok but adjusted to even better, as in 180,000 jobs added in August, and 248,000 in September. The 12 month moving average continues to get better, at 222,000 per month it is the best since the economy started adding jobs again. 

The New York Times has a doodle about sampling error in the jobs report that is worth looking at. Yes there is error, especially in the initial report, which is why watching the adjustments is important.