1. Prelude (communism in Hungary and the forces behind the revolution)
2. Outbreak (the turbulent events of 23 October)
3. Turmoil (the hectic events in the next twelve days)
4. Fighting (the final losing battle against the Soviet tanks and its background)
24. Personal Memories (eyewitness accounts from my relatives)
5. Aftermath (what happened to the country and the people, and what role did its memory play later)

The route to war had elements of a Greek tragedy.

As detailed in the last episode, Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership continued to grant approval to the reforms of the government led by reformist communist Imre Nagy for over a week, even if with clinched teeth. The Khrushchevite wing of the Party sought a peaceful solution. But by 31 October 1956, three factors made their position untenable.

One was the nature of reports home from Soviet troops in Hungary. In the chaos of the revolution's first weeks, information channels broke down and rumours spread -- along the chain of command of the Soviet Army, too.

While apparently little was relayed to them (or believed) about the examples of protesters fraternising with Soviet troops or people helping wounded Red Army soldiers (see last diary), magnified or false stories about atrocities against captured soldiers made full impact -- and were relayed to Moscow. One story that may have been crucial all alone was the lynching of the captured defenders of a building of the Hungarian Workers' Party on 28 October (see last diary), but reports didn't tell that this atrocity was denounced by organised revolutionaries. The Red Army commanders also sent statistics of destroyed Soviet memorials and such.

The second problem was that the Soviet Party leadership lagged behind the Hungarian one.

It took one week for Imre Nagy and colleagues to abandon fears of a conservative restoration, to grasp that the overwhelming majority of the revolutionaries aren't in complete rejection of their beliefs, and start a consolidation. But three days later the Soviet leadership was still scared by their own version of the Domino Theory.

On 30 October, Khrushchev gave consent to Imre Nagy's 28 October reform programme. He did so with the understanding that it will be the basis of consolidating the situation, that there will be no further concessions, as further concessions would mean there will be no end to it. But events on the ground already moved further, for example, on the demand of full and immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops (which Khrushchev thought a suicidal move for the Hungarian communists). So Khrushchev decided Imre Nagy failed to gain control of the situation just when he actually started to do so!

Now the decision for armed intervention was made on 31 October, and not a day earlier, when a peaceful route was endorsed in detail. Beyond the arrival of more delayed news, the factor that may have been the final impetus, the reason for this swing was that the leadership position of Khrushchev and his supporters within the Party wasn't firm.

As Imre Nagy was expected to prove himself an able leader to Khrushchev, Khrushchev himself felt the need to prove himself before a Stalinist old guard that might yet boot him from power. The Soviet imperialists already witnessed the lessening of Soviet power in the form of withdrawals from Austria and Finland, a Korean War that wasn't seen as success, accepting a reform communist government in Poland, and the Suez War against friendly Egypt just broke out. As I said, there was a Domino Theory at work.

The West's Role

After the revolution in Hungary, there was a very strong sense that the Soviet tanks came with the West's approval, a strong sense of betrayal. There were enough circumstances for both right-wing and left-wing readings to denounce the USA and its allies.

My own reading, however, is that while the West's role wasn't glorious, it was not so much a result of informed decisions by Western leaders: because the role of Hungarian exiles may have been more important in forming Western policy.

In the US leadership, there were two schools of thought. The Cold Warriors obsessing about geopolitical dominance, mainly in the State Department, wanted Hungary to not just pull away from the Soviet Union but become part of the USA's military alliance system. The realist chess-players however, above all President Eisenhower, favored passivity for now: they thought that in the current situation, any overt or covert move by the West to get Hungary as an ally would incite a violent Soviet reply, from invasion of Hungary to nuclear war, which is not favorable for either the USA or Hungary.

The latter view prevailed, and thus it came to be that on 29 October, the US ambassador in Moscow delivered a message that 'the USA doesn't view Hungary as a potential new military ally', which Eisenhower himself reinforced two days later. One version of the West-betrayed-us theory is based on interpreting this as implicit approval for the Soviet invasion (some going as far as making it the basis for the Soviet decision), although it seems more probable to me that the aim was the opposite, lessening Soviet paranoia.

US strategic decisions however were influenced by advice decision-makers got. In this light, a barely known yet rather important element was a special hearing the (in)famous and influential House Un-American Activities Committee held on the Hungarian situation. Especially the testimony of one prominent exile, Béla Varga. Varga, a learned priest, was a leader of the more conservative wing of the Smallholders' Party (see first diary in series), who stayed abroad when the communists instigated the arrest of some of his colleagues on charge of a conspiracy. Varga took the witness stand of the HUAC on 1 November 1956, simultaneously with the Hungarian government's declaration of leaving the Warshaw Pact.

There is something called magyar virtus, which could be translated as "Hungarian attitude". It's not really (just) Hungarian, but anyway: it involves sticking to positions with emotion, stubbornness, and little regard for details or consequences. Béla Varga exhibited it at the hearing: apparently oblivious to the fact that his words will go through the minds of calculating strategists and become the basis of a superpower's policy, he gave off-hand comments about everything. He made judgements about things he could not know about, being an exile for long years. Some of these irresponsible and ill-informed comments implied a total dismissal of the Nagy government, like this sentence:

"It is entirely obvious that before the eyes of Hungarians, Imre Nagy is just one communist like any other."

The second version of the backstabbing theory has the Americans refusing support because they deemed the Socialist elements of the revolution and the revolutionaries' demand for nonalignment (instead of a Western alignment, as desired in the State Department) as not in line with their schemes. In a way, that has been true, though the main culprit seems not intel information from Hungary but the blather of an unwitting politician. Not the fear of basis-democratic socialism (which they must have had little live information about anyway) but of a government that is wolf in sheep's clothing.

In the end, US 'help' was limited to sending coal (as proposed by Varga in another off-hand comment) and denouncements at the UN. No diplomatic recognition of the Nagy government, no granting of the asked-for guarantee for neutrality, no direct diplomacy, no sending of a UN delegation, no talks about (previously considered) mutual troop reductions in Europe to ease a Soviet withdrawal from Europe.

In fact, as remembered by Irish UN delegate Connor O'Brien, from 1 November, the US diplomats at the UN lobbied other Western delegations intensively against showing much sympathy towards the Nagy government, as it consists of "dangerous communists". And the State Department cabled this up-dated version of declaring non-involvement to Tito on 2 November (when Tito was visited by Khrushchev):

The government of the United States does not look with favor upon governments unfriendly to the Soviet Union on the border of the Soviet Union.

All this shows that the West played a rather negative role. Though, it is doubtful that doing any or all that was omitted would have stopped Khrushchev, with the decision already made by 1 November.

There was one more, not insignificant role the West played: Radio Free Europe. In the days when danger loomed and still when fighting broke out, its speakers said that the fighters must only hold out until the West intervenes, suggesting that such an intervention will come at any moment. This was completely disconnected from reality. Yet it gave a false confidence to a lot of people taking part in the hopeless fight. But it is a question how much of the speakers' rhetoric was authorised from above, and how much was due to the circumstance that the Radio Free Europe speakers themselves were Hungarian exiles practising wishful thinking.

Preparations

Once armed intervention was decided on, all efforts were focused on preparing the ground.

On one hand, with allies/vassals. In the first days of November, Khrushchev conducted a diplomatic tour: first to Poland, then to Romania (where he also met the Czechoslovak and Bulgarian leaders), finally to Yugoslavia. Tito, whom Khrushchev brought back to the fold after Tito's fallout with Stalin, was key to the effort, especially the deception effort -- giving false assurances to the Nagy government. Which worked: the government first believed that the Soviets' real intention is to block an invasion by the West, and later on, sought diplomatic protection from the ambassador of supposedly friendly Yugoslavia, but the invitation turned out to be a trap (more in the last diary).

Meanwhile in Moscow, the post-conflict order was prepared. Defector János Kádár, who flew to Moscow on 1/2 November, despite his protests, was made head of only a puppet government, as it was Soviet delegates who really called the shots (more on the sad figure of traitor Kádár in the next episode). Kádár could at least get a promise that the Hungarian Stalinists (see first diary) won't be allowed back to power from their exile in Moscow.

Meanwhile in Hungary, the Red Army turned around its troop movements. While marching up, they didn't engage in battle, just took up positions and closed down some vital transport routes (roads to Austria, airfields). The top general of the Warshaw Pact was flown in to conduct the operation, and also the KGB's leader to organise the first purges.

The Soviet fighters

That the Red Army's second attempt to crush armed rebellion was successful had multiple reasons:

• this time there was a much bigger force (17 instead of 5 battalions),
  
• they had new T-54s rather than WWII-model tanks,
  
• they had commanders more mindful of the partisan-tactics force they faced,
  
• the rules of engagement were more ruthless,
  
• they had a loyal paramilitary rather than disintegrating and deserting regular forces as local ally (more in the last diary in series).

The new troops weren't people who lived for years among Hungarians, and knew them. The largest part came from Central Asia, and had little knowledge of where they are going, and whom they will be really facing. A relative of mine was asked by a Red Army post whether he is in Bucharest. Others were told nothing, and believed their troop carrier trains are en route to Suez. Most were told they will be facing fascists, some were told they are to crush resurgent German Nazis.

The last-ditch Hungarian revolutionaries

As I explained in the last two diaries, armed people on Budapest's streets were very heterogeneous and decentralised. There were students, workers who got guns from factories, deserters from police and army, full army units, and by November, members of the freshly organised National Guards; and all of these organised in a hodge-podge of loosely or not at all coordinated fighting cells.

The fighters were also ideologically diverse. At one end, I introduced group leader István Angyal in the last diary, a true proletarian and a non-Party-member communist, who even wanted Kádár to replace Nagy until he learnt of Kádár's treason, and who for days believed the Soviet assault must be some mistake (on 7 November, the day of the October Revolution, he even raised the Soviet flag on his barricade, but that was completely misunderstood). At the other end, some ugly elements joined the ranks of some groups (especially some National Guard units) -- former gendarmes, arrowcrossers [Hungarian fascists], common criminals who escaped prisons people stormed to free political prisoners [also happened when the Bastille was stormed].

A worrying element of the revolution from day one were teenagers with guns, who together with students and young workers formed the much-vaunted "lads of Pest" [Pest is the East-bank, flat and workers-class half of the capital].

It would be easy to just morally reject fighting by children, but these kids weren't forced to fight (or even drugged, as in Africa), and the nasty truth is that child participation in national liberation movements didn't start in Iraq (just think of the famous chapter in Les Miserables, Gavroche's death). Teenagers with guns on Budapest's barricades were on one hand a reason for success: these kids were the least mindful of dangers, weren't under the impression of the WWII Red Army steamroller, and knew how to fight tanks from Soviet war movies about partisans. On the other hand, they were irresponsible, trigger-happy, even drunk, and many were street kids just in it for the thrill.

Lads of Pest

It wasn't just boys

Unfortunately but predictably, when the second Soviet invasion neared, and even more when it went on, the weight of the worse elements among those who kept on fighting increased. This was also reflected in organisation and popular support. For example, some say that Gergely Pongrátz, the famous new leader of the group defending Corvin köz in Budapest from the first days of November, wasn't elected but declared himself boss, while many of the original fighters left.

The Battle

By the evening of 3 November 1956, the Soviet tank battalions encircled Budapest. At 4:15 on 4 November, the invasion began. At 5 pm, via a Soviet radio at the Hungarian border, János Kádár's new "Hungarian Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government" is declared.

Imre Nagy reacted by going on the radio at 5:20, reading a dramatic last declaration that troops are in combat order.

Imre Nagy reads a radio address. This is the most famous photo of him, often associated with the last speech, though it was made on 28 October.

My aunts remember how my grandparents listened shell-shocked, uttering "this means war", obviously thinking of WWII. As the tanks would then roll right in front of their outer district house towards the inner city and a nearby weapons factory, they had every reason to be afraid.

Imre Nagy and his government, who wouldn't resign, would seek protection at the Yugoslav embassy. The last government member to stay in Parliament, political scientist István Bibó, issued an appeal to the nation, the UN and the world.

The fighting was like twelve days earlier but on steroids.

The Red Army first took upon orderly military units, quickly forcing their surrender in most places. (Remember from the last episode that in the evening of 3 November, the KGB's head personally arrested new defense minister Pál Maléter and his entourage, thus decapitating the army.)

Revolutionaries tried and succeeded in stopping orderly advance of tank columns with makeshift barricades (made up of rubbish, torn-up pavement, overthrown trams, burned-out military and civilian vehicles) and hit-and-run attacks. Machine-gun bearers tried to hit weak spots in tank armour, from above or from a low angle. Tanks answered small-arms fire with shells, causing similar damage to house fronts like in WWII.

Damaged building at Móritz Zsigmond tér, a square in the Buda half of the capital

Revolutionaries (mostly the youngest) ran up to tanks, and if they survived machine guns, threw Molotov cocktails down the tank driver's visors, burning the tank crews alive. Ex-Hungarian-army field guns and tank mines were also employed. Squads of ground troops from both sides set out to hunt cut-off soldiers of the other side across gangways and roofs and flats of apartment buildings.

As savage as this was, rumours spread of even worse atrocities (not to mention casualty numbers). Two I heard many times but which to my knowledge had no basis in reality:

• that Red Army ground troops or Hungarian paramilitaries lined up a number of bodies (dead or wounded) and a Soviet tank rolled over them [though tanks did crush Soviet soldiers photo not for those easily shocked],
  
• that the Red Army installed great mincers on the shore of the Danube, and threw thousands of corpses from the streets of Budapest into it to eliminate evidence.

Burned-out Soviet tanks and rubble from shelled building on Üllői út (main road passing near Corvin köz)

Corvin köz was place of one of the biggest battles, half of the group continuing to throw back attack after attack, the other, intent on emigration, fighting all the way towards the Austrian border. (From the two groups, 500 were captured altogether.) Still, within four days, the Red Army seized control of most locations, and the last major sqirmishes were over a week later. The latter have been a few places that on one hand have been ignored by the first assault, on the other had regular army units that didn't gave up, thus could prepare better. Port-and-iron-works quarter Csepel (also see previous diary) held out until 10 November, also using anti-aircraft guns against tanks.

Csepel's oil refinery burns in the distance

The total registered casualty of the revolution (according to statistics made public in 1993) was 2652 Hungarians and 669 (+51 missing) Soviet soldiers killed, and 19,226 vs. 1,940 wounded. This is much less than the 100,000 according to rumours even believed at the UN, though the list was probaly not complete.

Corpse of Soviet soldier next to a burned-out military transporter -- one of hundreds of unburied dead on the streets

János Kádár began to establish his government by taking up much of the revolutionary demands -- they went as far as making 7 November a workday, ending the compulsory Russian at schools, and announcing amnesty. But that didn't exactly worked out. Only armed resistance was yet broken.

What further betrayals were needed for Kádár to gain power? How did 1956 influence the conduct of the post-1956 dictatorship? What role did 1956 play in the changes of 1989? How is it remembered in Hungary today? Find out in the last regular episode of the series. Note though: next I'll post an extra, a compilation of personal memories, chiefly of one specific relative who was witness to a lot of the central events.