Soviet invasion of Hungary

Within the former Eastern European bloc (associated with the USSR), two events of great importance took place: one was the revolution Hungarian from 1956, and another the so-called Spring of Prague, 1968. This is the story of the first.

The Soviet invasion of Hungary follows popular protests in the country in 1956, the riots that accompanied them, and the subsequent popular revolution that it became, and which threatened to drive communism out of Hungary.

The Hungarian revolution, like the French one in 1789, did not start premeditated, but was the product of the escalation of a series of popular demonstrations and protests.

The one that started it all was a march called by students on October 23, 56 which, as it passed through Budapest, was adding participants who were not students, thus increasing its volume.

The reason for the protest was to demand political freedom and freedom of opinion in Hungary.

In the public radio building, a group of students wanted to broadcast a manifesto with their demands, but they were arrested. Then the first shots of the revolution were fired.

Probably members of the police politics state (in Hungarian, ÁVH, Államvédelmi Hatóság) who were stationed in the radio building, feared an attempt to occupy the building and for their own lives and, therefore, fired on the crowd, causing several deaths.

In any case, the disgust of the people against the ÁVH, which had a deserved reputation for being a harsh repressor of the Hungarian people, made the spirits and the environment will get even hotter.

The government sent the army to control the situation, but the troops sided with the people.

As in so many other revolutions, the soldiers - who, after all, do not stop training as well part of the people - not only did they refuse to shoot at their fellow citizens, but they began to join they.

Some of the protesters had the idea of ​​cutting the communist shield of the People's Republic of Hungary from the flag, leaving a circle in the place it occupied. This clipped flag became the emblem of the revolution.

In 1989 the revolution that overthrew Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania also used the flag with the communist shield cut out as symbol.

But returning to Hungary in 1956, the revolution broke out in all the streets of Budapest, and as a result of the troops also began to change sides, the crowd began to count with weapons personal.

Fearing for her life and his positions, the Hungarian communist government of Ernő Gerő appealed to the Soviet Union for help.

By virtue of the pacts signed between the two states, the USSR kept troops permanently stationed in Hungary, in addition to being able to intervene in the country.

On the same night of October 23, Soviet troops present in Hungary began to deploy through the streets of Budapest, while the revolutionaries and the Hungarian troops that supported them mounted barricades to slow them down.

The following day, Prime Minister András Hegedüs was replaced by the more reformist Imre Nagy, who quickly broadcast a speech calling for the cessation of the violence and promising liberalizing reforms in the political arena. Nagy would eventually become one of the great icons of the revolution.

On the 25th the crisis worsened; the ÁVH shot protesters outside the parliament, finding the answer to its fire in Soviet soldiers, who believed that they were the target of the attack. Armed protesters joined the shooting, further aggravating the situation.

Gerő and Hegedűs then fled to the Soviet Union, leaving the country without government, assuming their role Nagy and János Kádár.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian revolutionaries were already openly attacking the Soviet troops and the remnants of the ÁVH. The bullet holes produced in those fateful days are still visible in many places in Budapest today.

On October 28, Nagy managed to reach a ceasefire.

This was used by both sides to rebuild themselves; While the Hungarians mounted a kind of national guard with armed protesters, elements of the army and the police, the Soviets temporarily withdrew.

The main historiographic currents are inclined to indicate that the Soviet leaders did not wish to intervene a second time nor did they wish to do so, hoping that it was the same Hungarian communists who would control the situation.

Between October 28 and November 4, they were days of political movements, of which the Soviets would take more advantage. They had János Kádár as head of a government that would "request" the intervention Soviet to pacify the country.

Although the events had taken place mainly in Budapest, in other parts of the country there were also revolutionary movements, in some parts successful, and in other places smothered by the troops of the USSR.

When the final intervention in Hungary was decided by the Soviet Union, new Soviet troops began to enter the country from the east.

The Kádár government declared Hungary's neutrality, its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and requested international support from the UN.

The next day, and as was to be expected, the Soviets launched, after having a larger number of troops, the operation to definitively "clean" Budapest and take control of the country.

The Soviet military operation was not limited to penetrating Budapest as barricades and resisters were removed. It also included artillery and air strikes.

The makeshift national guard and units of the Hungarian regular army could do nothing to stop the Soviet offensive, despite putting up a fierce resistance, with more desire than means and organization, but fighting with the heart and for his country.

On the same day, November 4, 1956, the resistance ended in Budapest. Soviet troops had passed street by street like a steamroller, largely failing to distinguish between military targets and defenseless civilians.

Although the Hungarian population had thanked the Soviets for liberating their country in 1945, that feeling of gratitude turned into open hatred after their repressive intervention in 1956.

Thousands of Hungarians fled the country, as many were arrested and tried. Imre Nagy himself was caught treacherously (when he had been promised safe conduct to leave the refuge of the Yugoslav embassy and leave the country) and subsequently executed.

By betraying his people, János Kádár maintained control of Hungary as head of government, a control that he would reassert in the following years. A control based on the Soviet presence and on political indoctrination that was also controlled by the Soviets themselves, who did not want a revival of the Hungarian national will.

The Hungarian revolution, viewed romantically in hindsight, at the time caused tensions within the communist parties of many countries of the capitalist bloc, since some Leaders and militants supported the revolutionaries (whom they did not see as anti-revolutionaries), while others branded them precisely as such, remaining faithful to the orthodoxy of Moscow.

Photo: Fotolia - ink drop

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