Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Uprising Against Soviet Rule

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide uprising against Hungary’s communist government and Soviet control, lasting from 23 October to about 10 November 1956. What began as a peaceful student march in Budapest turned into armed resistance, brought the reformer Imre Nagy to power and briefly won Hungary a promise of free elections and neutrality, before a massive Soviet attack crushed it. It was the most serious challenge to Soviet rule in Eastern Europe until 1989, and its defeat sent some 200,000 refugees to the West.

Background: Stalinism in Hungary

Hungary came under Soviet influence when the Red Army drove out German forces in 1944–45. By 1949 the Hungarian Working People’s Party, led by Mátyás Rákosi, had eliminated its rivals and turned the country into a one-party state. Rákosi, who liked to be called “Stalin’s best Hungarian disciple”, presided over forced collectivisation, show trials such as that of the former interior minister László Rajk in 1949, and a feared secret police, the ÁVH (State Protection Authority).

After Stalin’s death in 1953, Moscow pushed Rákosi to share power. Imre Nagy became prime minister and launched a “New Course” that eased pressure on farmers, released many political prisoners and promised more consumer goods. Rákosi fought back, and in 1955 Nagy was removed and expelled from the party. Nagy, however, remained popular, and his dismissal made him a symbol of reform.

Causes of the uprising

In February 1956 Nikita Khrushchev’s Secret Speech denounced Stalin’s crimes, shaking the authority of Stalinist leaders across the bloc. In Hungary the Petőfi Circle, a discussion club of young intellectuals, held packed debates criticising the regime. In July 1956 Moscow replaced Rákosi with his close associate Ernő Gerő, a change that satisfied few.

On 6 October 1956 more than 100,000 people attended the ceremonial reburial of László Rajk, rehabilitated victim of the 1949 show trial. Events in Poland raised hopes further: in October the reform communist Władysław Gomułka took power in Warsaw despite Soviet pressure. Students at Budapest’s Technical University drew up a list of 16 demands, including the withdrawal of Soviet troops, free elections, freedom of the press, the return of Nagy and the removal of the Stalin statue.

What happened: from protest to revolution

On the afternoon of 23 October, students marched in solidarity with Poland, gathering at the statue of the 1848 hero General Józef Bem. By evening some 200,000 people had filled the square in front of Parliament. A crowd pulled down the giant bronze statue of Stalin in the city park, leaving only his boots on the plinth. Gerő’s radio speech that evening, which condemned the demonstrators, inflamed the mood.

At the Hungarian Radio building, where students tried to broadcast their demands, ÁVH guards opened fire. Soldiers and workers handed weapons to the crowd, and the protest became an armed uprising. During the night the party leadership appointed Nagy prime minister and asked for Soviet help, and Soviet tanks entered Budapest in the early hours of 24 October.

Fighting spread across the capital. Young insurgents, many of them teenagers and factory workers, fought from strongholds such as the Corvin Passage, using petrol bombs against tanks in the narrow streets. On 25 October security forces and Soviet tanks fired on an unarmed crowd in Kossuth Square outside Parliament; estimates of the dead range from several dozen to more than a hundred. That day János Kádár replaced Gerő as party leader.

Across the country, revolutionary committees and workers’ councils took over local administration. On 28 October Nagy announced a ceasefire, recognised the uprising as a national democratic movement and promised to dissolve the ÁVH. Soviet troops began leaving Budapest, and by 30 October Nagy had announced the end of one-party rule and formed a coalition government including non-communist parties. That same day crowds stormed the party headquarters on Republic Square, and several defenders and ÁVH men were lynched, scenes later used by communist propaganda.

The Soviet decision and the second intervention

For a moment Moscow seemed ready to accept the change. On 30 October the Soviet government issued a declaration promising to review its relations with socialist states. But on 31 October the Soviet leadership reversed course and decided to crush the revolution, fearing that Hungary would leave the bloc and that the unrest could spread. The Anglo-French attack on Egypt during the Suez Crisis, launched that same day, divided the West and made intervention easier.

As fresh Soviet divisions crossed the border, Nagy declared Hungary’s neutrality and its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact on 1 November and appealed to the United Nations. Kádár secretly left for Moscow and agreed to head a new government. On 3 November the Hungarian defence minister, Pál Maléter, was arrested by the Soviets during supposed negotiations on troop withdrawal.

At dawn on 4 November Soviet forces launched Operation Whirlwind, attacking Budapest and other centres with tanks, artillery and aircraft. Nagy made a final radio appeal and took refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. Kádár’s new government was announced the same day. Armed resistance continued for about a week, longest in working-class districts such as Csepel and in the industrial town of Dunaújváros, before ending around 10–11 November. Workers’ councils kept up strikes into December, but they too were broken.

Key people

• Imre Nagy (1896–1958), reform communist and prime minister during the revolution, executed in 1958.
• János Kádár (1912–1989), communist leader who sided with Moscow and ruled Hungary until 1988.
• Ernő Gerő (1898–1980), Stalinist party leader whose policies and speech of 23 October fuelled the crisis.
• Pál Maléter (1917–1958), army officer who joined the insurgents, became defence minister and was executed with Nagy.
• Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), Soviet leader who ordered the decisive second intervention.

The revolution was followed closely abroad. Western journalists reported from Budapest, and Hungarian radio stations broadcast appeals for help. On 4 November, as Soviet troops attacked, a Soviet veto blocked action in the UN Security Council, and an emergency session of the General Assembly called for the withdrawal of Soviet forces, a call Moscow ignored. The United States, which regarded Hungary as within the Soviet sphere, offered sympathy and refugee aid but no military support.

Consequences and reprisals

The human cost was heavy. Commonly cited estimates put Hungarian deaths at about 2,500–3,000, most of them in Budapest, with around 13,000 wounded; Soviet forces lost roughly 700 killed. Large parts of central Budapest were damaged by shelling.

About 200,000 Hungarians, roughly 2 per cent of the population, fled the country, mostly across the Austrian border, where the bridge at Andau became a famous crossing point. Western countries accepted them in large numbers; the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, West Germany and Switzerland took many of the refugees.

Kádár’s government carried out harsh reprisals. Tens of thousands were arrested, about 22,000 were sentenced to prison, and estimates of those executed range from about 230 to more than 300. Nagy left the Yugoslav embassy on 22 November under a promise of safe conduct, was immediately seized by Soviet forces and taken to Romania. After a secret trial he was hanged in Budapest on 16 June 1958 together with Maléter and the journalist Miklós Gimes, and buried in an unmarked grave.

Internationally, the UN General Assembly condemned the Soviet intervention, and a UN special committee reported in 1957, but no action followed. Many Western communists left their parties in protest. In the longer term Kádár, after the repression, pursued a more cautious policy from the 1960s, later called “goulash communism”, which allowed limited private enterprise and more consumer goods in exchange for political quiet.

Myths and facts

• Myth: The United States promised to send help. No official promise was made. Radio Free Europe, a US-funded station, was criticised afterwards for broadcasts that some listeners understood as encouragement to keep fighting, but Washington had decided not to intervene militarily in the Soviet sphere.
• Myth: The revolution aimed to restore the pre-war order. Most of the insurgents’ programmes called for democratic socialism, neutrality and national independence rather than a return to the conservative regime of the interwar years.
• Fact: The “Blood in the Water” match was real. At the Melbourne Olympics on 6 December 1956 Hungary beat the Soviet Union 4–0 in a violent water polo semi-final, a result celebrated by Hungarian exiles.

Timeline

• 1956, 6 October: More than 100,000 people attend the reburial of László Rajk.
• 1956, 23 October: Student march in Budapest; the Stalin statue falls; shooting at the radio building.
• 1956, 24 October: Soviet tanks enter Budapest; Imre Nagy becomes prime minister.
• 1956, 25 October: Shooting in Kossuth Square; Kádár replaces Gerő.
• 1956, 28 October: Nagy announces a ceasefire; Soviet troops begin to leave Budapest.
• 1956, 1 November: Hungary declares neutrality and leaves the Warsaw Pact.
• 1956, 4 November: Soviet forces launch Operation Whirlwind; Kádár government announced.
• 1956, c. 10–11 November: The last armed resistance ends.
• 1958, 16 June: Imre Nagy and Pál Maléter are executed.
• 1989, 16 June: Nagy is reburied with honour in Budapest before a huge crowd.

Legacy

For more than 30 years the official line in Hungary called 1956 a “counter-revolution”. The subject could not be discussed openly until the late 1980s. The reburial of Imre Nagy on 16 June 1989 became a turning point in Hungary’s peaceful transition from communism, and on 23 October 1989, the anniversary of the uprising, the Hungarian Republic was proclaimed. The date is now a national holiday.

Why it matters

The Hungarian Revolution showed that Soviet power in Eastern Europe rested on force, and that Moscow would use it even against a communist government. It also showed the limits of Western support for the peoples of the bloc. Its memory shaped later reform movements in Czechoslovakia and Poland and helped inspire the peaceful changes of 1989.