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”.
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| Preach |
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.
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| 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.
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| Move along, nothing to see here but a dead commie |
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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].
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| 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]"
More Pictures:
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| Captured AVH officer. When I say lynched, I mean lynched |
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| Dead AVH officer with a picture of Rakosi by his head |
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| Even more dead AVH |
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| Swag |
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| Got em |
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| Captured tank, Stalin's head |
1. This was actually Hungary’s second communist government. The first one came to power shortly after WWI. It invaded Hungary’s neighbors to try to get land back that it lost in WWI, mismanaged just about everything, was defeated militarily, and fell after a few months. Basically your typical communist competency. The leader fled to the Soviet Union and was executed in one of Stalin's purges.
2. And stupid to fire on a huge crowd they had no hope of escaping from.
3. Traitors is a more succinct word for it.
4. So yeah this is a bit problematic for the image of freedom fighters that the western world placed on the rebels. But only so far as they must have killed innocent people; and by innocent I mean non-communists. I base this on basic probability; the US manages to occasionally kill innocent people even after going through jury trials. So that’s an unfortunate complication to the rebels’ saintly image. But all conflict has innocent victims; and these were not saints, just normal people pushed to a breaking point. While the whole eye for an eye thing isn’t a good excuse, the communists imposed a terror state, imprisoning, torturing, and murdering innocent people. How do you expect them to react to such treatment? While executions happened, the much larger story is that of a popular rebellion of subjugated people against a terror state in the name of freedom and self-determination. Most civilian casualties were victims of the more heavily armed Soviet and communist forces. And every member of the ÁVH had it coming.
5. A lot of gendered speech but hey it was the 50s, and, if you want to be a nerd about it, man is a term for the human race, but has been gendered by context. Not excusing it, but that is how the English language was/unfortunately still officially is. And that’s the meaning JFK was going for. Also 'he/him' is the ~proper English singular; I prefer 'yo', and singular 'they' has been used for centuries. But that Byron quote, maybe leave out the middle line next time, plenty of women died fighting the communists in 1956 too.
6. This wasn’t a footnote in the above text, but whatever. Notice how it’s typically the youth who are the first to stand up and give everything, same as in Tiananmen Square, same as in the Arab Spring, same as in communist Poland and Czechoslovakia, same as in numerous Latin American protest movements and rebellions. Basically if you’re some old chump who looks down on the young (for example, millennials are the least liked generation in the US by other generations) you can shut the fuck up. If you aren't a member of the Greatest Generation (by which I obviously mean the generation that suffered through the Great Depression only to fight WWII, thus deserving the title), then shut up. Especially if all your generation did was grow up in the US after WWII when the rest of the world’s manufacturing capacity was bombed out, elect politicians who consistently spent more on you than they taxed, and are about to retire and get unsustainable entitlement benefits just in time to leave others to pay the debt. Sorry I’m not sorry. Feel free to judge the present day youth on what they accomplish by the time they’re old, but that won’t invalidate what I said.
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