Soviet Tanks Return to Budapest and Crush the Hungarian Revolution

Twelve Days of Hope

The revolution began on October 23, 1956, when students marched in Budapest to demand reforms and a withdrawal of Soviet troops. The protest grew, a large statue of Stalin was pulled down, and fighting broke out with the security police and Soviet tanks. Imre Nagy, a reform-minded communist, was named prime minister. Over the next days the fighting died down and Soviet units pulled out of the capital. Workers’ councils, newspapers, and political parties came back to life, and for a short time many Hungarians believed that their country could change its course.

Neutrality and a Decision in Moscow

On November 1 Nagy went further and announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact and declare itself neutral, and he appealed to the United Nations for support. Soviet leaders, who had at first been ready to compromise, decided that the loss of Hungary was unacceptable. They planned a large operation, code-named Whirlwind. The world’s attention was divided by the Suez Crisis, in which Britain, France, and Israel were attacking Egypt, and Western governments were unwilling to risk a confrontation with the Soviet Union over Hungary.

The Attack of November 4

Before dawn on November 4, Soviet troops and armor entered Budapest in great numbers. Nagy announced the attack on the radio and said that the government remained at its post, and shortly afterwards the station went off the air. János Kádár, a former member of Nagy’s government, announced a rival government that was ready to work with Moscow. Hungarian fighters, many of them young, resisted in the working-class districts of the city for days, but they were overwhelmed. Strikes by workers’ councils went on into the following weeks.

The Aftermath

Hungarian deaths are commonly estimated at between two and three thousand, and Soviet losses were also heavy. About two hundred thousand people left the country, many of them to the West. Nagy sought refuge in the Yugoslav embassy, left it under a promise of safe conduct, and was arrested. He was tried in secret and executed in June 1958. In 1989, as communist rule ended, he was given a public reburial. The revolution made clear that the Soviet Union would use force to keep its alliance together, and it left a lasting mark on the memory of the Cold War.

The World Responds

The Western powers protested but did not intervene. The United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the Soviet action, and a special committee later reported on the events, but it could not change them. American radio stations aimed at Eastern Europe, such as Radio Free Europe, had encouraged hope of outside help, and afterwards they were criticized for it. For the countries of the Soviet bloc the lesson was a harsh one, and for many people in the West the revolution turned sympathy for the Hungarian people into a deeper distrust of Soviet communism.