Who won the Hungarian Revolution of 1956?
The Soviet Union won militarily. The revolution began on 23 October 1956 and drove Soviet troops out of Budapest, but on 4 November a far larger Soviet force returned, overthrew Imre Nagy's government and installed János Kádár; fighting in Budapest ended around 10 November.1
On 23 October 1956 a student march in Budapest turned into a national uprising against Hungary's communist regime and the Soviet troops that kept it in power. For twelve days the revolution seemed to win: the Soviet army pulled out of the capital and Imre Nagy's government declared neutrality. On 4 November Soviet forces returned in overwhelming strength and crushed it within a week.2
Background: Stalinism, the thaw and the Polish example
Under Mátyás Rákosi, Hungary's Stalinist leader after 1948, the regime grew steadily more oppressive. Soviet troops had been in the country since the Red Army's 1944 advance on the Eastern Front. In February 1956, at the Soviet party's 20th Congress, Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin; that summer Rákosi was removed and replaced by Ernő Gerő.3
Király's chronology lists the workers' revolt in Poznań on 28 June, and on 21 October Władysław Gomułka became Polish party leader.4
23 October: from the Bem statue to the Radio
On 22 October students at the Technical University adopted sixteen demands, among them the withdrawal of Soviet troops, independence, free elections and economic reform. Next day they marched to the statue of Józef Bem, the Polish general who fought for Hungary in 1848, in solidarity with Poland. Tischler recalls the slogan: "We will follow the Poles!" About 200,000 people marched, filling the square before Parliament, and one group pulled down the giant bronze statue of Stalin.5
At the Radio building, where demonstrators demanded that the sixteen points be broadcast, the state security police (ÁVH) opened fire, according to Béla Király, later commander of the revolution's National Guard. Protest became armed revolt.6
24 to 28 October: the first Soviet intervention
Soviet troops were ordered into Budapest that night and fighting began at dawn on 24 October. Soviet figures cited by Király put the force at five divisions with 31,500 men and 1,130 tanks and self-propelled guns. The party reappointed Nagy as prime minister.7
The insurgents, many of them very young, held strongholds at Széna tér, Móricz Zsigmond körtér, Baross tér, Csepel and the Corvin Passage. Some soldiers, Király writes, handed over their weapons or joined them. The Institute for the Research of Communism counts over 20 Soviet armored vehicles destroyed at the Corvin alone.8
On 25 October a crowd that had been fraternizing with Soviet tank crews at Parliament was fired on in Kossuth Square. Király puts the toll at about a hundred victims and notes it is still disputed who fired first; Radio Svoboda counts about 100 killed or wounded.9
The free days: ceasefire and neutrality
On 28 October Nagy announced a ceasefire and Soviet forces began to leave Budapest; by Király's account the pullout ran from the evening of 30 October to midday on 31 October. On 30 October insurgents stormed the Budapest party headquarters on Republic Square; about 30 people died there and some ÁVH men were lynched. That day Nagy also announced the end of one-party rule, and a multi-party coalition cabinet followed.10
On 31 October Pravda published a Soviet declaration promising more equal relations with the socialist countries, but that same day the Soviet leaders reversed course and chose force. Seeing new Soviet columns, Nagy announced on 1 November that Hungary was leaving the Warsaw Pact, declared neutrality and appealed to the United Nations.11
Why did the Soviets invade Hungary?
Moscow invaded because the revolution was going beyond reform. By 31 October Hungary had a multi-party government and was moving toward neutrality and leaving the Warsaw Pact, so the Soviet leaders feared losing a country of their bloc and decided to restore communist rule by force, with János Kádár at its head.12
4 November: Operation Whirlwind
According to the historian Jiří Fidler, the second intervention was led by Marshal Ivan Konev, commander of the Warsaw Pact forces, who crushed the uprising. Horváth counts 17 divisions and, from the Soviet defense ministry's own list, 7,349 officers and 51,472 other ranks; Király and Radio Svoboda give 16 divisions, and Radio Svoboda over 60,000 men. On the night of 3 to 4 November Defense Minister Pál Maléter and his delegation, negotiating at the Soviet headquarters in Tököl, were arrested.13
The attack began at about 4 a.m. At 5:20 Nagy told the nation by radio: "Our troops are fighting. The Government is in its place." He then took refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. Most Hungarian army units did not resist; the insurgent groups fought on. By Radio Svoboda's account the last large stronghold in Budapest, the Corvin cinema, fell on 8 November, and small groups fought on at Csepel. PAP dates the end of the Budapest fighting to 10 November.14
Who won, and when did it end?
The Soviet Union won militarily: the revolution that began on 23 October 1956 lost its government on 4 November, and armed resistance in Budapest ended around 10 November.15
How many died in the Hungarian Revolution?
Estimates of Hungarian dead run from about 2,500 to 3,000, with about 20,000 wounded. Király gives over 2,500 dead, 1,945 of them in Budapest, including 428 members of the army, police, border guard and interior ministry forces. The Institute for the Research of Communism notes that about 750 of the dead were minors. Soviet losses, by the Soviet defense ministry's figures, were 669 killed and 51 missing, with about 700 dead in most counts.16
Polish solidarity: blood for Budapest
Poland answered at once. According to the IPN, the Institute of Haematology in Warsaw sent the first plasma on 25 October, and on 28 October Polish Radio broadcast the Hungarian Red Cross appeal for blood. By mid December 795 liters of blood had gone to Budapest by air, from roughly 4,000 to 6,000 donors by the IPN's estimate. The IPN exhibition catalog cited by PAP adds 415 liters of plasma and 312 metric tons of medicines, food and building materials sent by land. Tischler values the aid sent through the Polish Red Cross by 19 November at two million dollars. It belongs to the tradition of fighting "for your freedom and ours".17
How each side saw it
For Hungarians it was a revolution and war of independence. Moscow and the Kádár government called it a counter-revolution by reactionary elements and said Soviet troops had come at Hungary's request. In 1992 the Russian president Boris Yeltsin told the Hungarian parliament that 1956 was an indelible stain on the Soviet system, as Király records. In Poland, Tischler writes, the communists chose silence over talk of counter-revolution, since many Poles saw the rising's ideas as their own.18
Aftermath: Kádár, exile and reprisals
János Kádár's new government was proclaimed from Szolnok; on 7 November he reached Budapest behind Soviet troops and took the oath in Parliament. About 200,000 Hungarians fled abroad. Nagy left the Yugoslav embassy in late November on a promise of safe passage and was seized and taken to Romania. After a trial, Nagy, Maléter and the journalist Miklós Gimes were executed on 16 June 1958. The Institute for the Research of Communism counts 229 people executed after trials, 26,000 sentenced and 860 deported to the USSR; PAP gives over 220 executions and over 22,000 jailed.19
Myths and the West
Many insurgents hoped for American help; Origins notes that Radio Free Europe broadcasts encouraged them. None came. Eisenhower, backed by internal studies published by the National Security Archive, concluded that little could be done short of risking global war, and the British, French and Israeli attack on Suez, begun on 29 October, divided Western attention.20
Memory and the places today
Nagy was reburied with honor on 16 June 1989, and PAP reports that about 250,000 people attended. Since 1989, 23 October has been a national holiday in Hungary. Visitors can see the 1956 monument where the Stalin statue stood, the underground memorial on Kossuth Square and the House of Terror museum.21
