Hungarian Revolution of 1956

In the autumn of 1956, a student demonstration in Budapest grew within hours into a nationwide uprising against Hungary's Soviet-backed communist regime. For about twelve days a reform government under Imre Nagy appeared to be winning concessions, until Soviet forces returned in strength on 4 November and crushed the revolt. Thousands died, some 200,000 people fled abroad, and the episode became one of the defining crises of the Cold War.

After the Second World War, Hungary fell within the Soviet sphere. The communists, though they had won only about 17 per cent of the vote in 1945, gradually squeezed out their coalition partners, and a People's Republic was proclaimed in August 1949. Under Mátyás Rákosi, the secret police, the ÁVH, imprisoned and tortured opponents, staged show trials and deported thousands from their homes. Forced industrialisation, war reparations and shortages left workers poorer than before the war. After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the reformer Imre Nagy briefly served as prime minister, but Rákosi engineered his removal in 1955. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in February 1956 and concessions won by Poland that October encouraged Hungarians to hope for change.

Students in Szeged, and then in Budapest, drew up lists of demands that included free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. On 23 October a march in solidarity with Poland drew about 20,000 people to the statue of General Bem. That evening the party leader Ernő Gerő gave a defiant radio speech; crowds pulled down the huge Stalin statue, and outside the radio building, where a student delegation had been detained, the ÁVH opened fire. Soldiers sent to support the police sometimes joined the protesters, and the fighting spread.

Gerő asked Moscow for help, and Soviet tanks entered Budapest on 24 October. Nagy was reappointed prime minister the same day, and János Kádár replaced Gerő as party leader on the 25th. That morning, shooting at a crowd in Kossuth Square outside parliament killed somewhere between 75 and perhaps 1,000 people; who fired first is still disputed. Across the country, workers' councils and revolutionary committees took over local government. Some insurgents also killed ÁVH members and communist officials, notably in an attack on party headquarters on Republic Square on 30 October. Nagy announced a ceasefire on 28 October, dissolved the ÁVH, released political prisoners including Cardinal Mindszenty, and allowed banned parties to return. Soviet troops pulled back from the capital.

The Soviet leadership briefly considered withdrawing, but changed course. On 1 November, as reports came in of fresh Soviet troops crossing the border, Nagy declared Hungary neutral and announced its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Western powers, divided by the simultaneous Suez Crisis, offered no military help. On the night of 3 November the Hungarian defence minister, Pál Maléter, was arrested while negotiating at Tököl. At dawn on 4 November Marshal Konev's forces, eventually some 17 divisions, attacked Budapest, and Kádár announced a new government from Szolnok. Resistance was fiercest in working-class districts such as Csepel and in Dunaújváros, where fighting lasted until about 11 November. Around 2,500 Hungarians and about 700 Soviet soldiers were killed.

Kádár's government arrested many thousands; according to one count 26,000 were tried and 229 executed, though other estimates of executions run higher. About 200,000 Hungarians fled, most of them first into Austria. Nagy, who had sheltered in the Yugoslav embassy, was seized on 22 November despite a promise of safe conduct, secretly tried, and executed with Maléter in June 1958. A United Nations committee condemned the Soviet occupation in 1957, but no further action followed.

For three decades the regime called the events a counter-revolution and discussion was suppressed. In June 1989 Nagy was reburied with honours, and on 23 October that year, the anniversary of the uprising, the Republic of Hungary was proclaimed during the Revolutions of 1989. The date is now a national holiday.

Our 1945 and 1960 maps show Hungary as a separate state within the bloc dominated by the Soviet Union; the uprising changed no borders.