The defeat of the Hungarian revolution was one of
the darkest moments of the Cold War. At certain points
since its outbreak on October 23 the revolt looked like
it was on the verge of an amazing triumph. The entire
nation appeared to have taken up arms against the regime.
Rebels, often armed with nothing more than kitchen implements
and gasoline, were disabling Soviet tanks and achieving
other -- sometimes small but meaningful -- victories
throughout the country. On October 31, the tide seemed
to turn overwhelmingly in the revolution's favor when
Pravda published a declaration promising greater
equality in relations between the USSR and its East
European satellites. One sentence was of particular
interest. It read: "[T]he Soviet Government is
prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations
with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic
and other members of the Warsaw Treaty on the question
of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of
Hungary." To outside observers, the Kremlin statement
came as a total surprise. CIA Director Allen Dulles
called it a "miracle." The crisis seemed on
the verge of being resolved in a way no-one in Hungary
or the West had dared to hope.
But tragically, and unbeknownst to anyone outside
the Kremlin, the very day the declaration appeared in
Pravda the Soviet leadership completely reversed
itself and decided to put a final, violent end to the
rebellion. From declassified documents, it is now clear
that several factors influenced their decision, including:
the belief that the rebellion directly threatened Communist
rule in Hungary (unlike the challenge posed by Wladyslaw
Gomulka and the Polish Communists just days before,
which had targeted Kremlin rule but not the Communist
system); that the West would see a lack of response
by Moscow as a sign of weakness, especially after the
British, French and Israeli strike against Suez that
had begun on October 29; that the spread of anti-Communist
feelings in Hungary threatened the rule of neighboring
satellite leaders; and that members of the Soviet party
would not understand a failure to respond with force
in Hungary.
Developments within the Hungarian leadership also
undoubtedly played a part in Moscow's decision. Imre
Nagy, who had suddently been thrust into the leadership
role after it became clear that the old Stalinist leaders
had been completely discredited, had stumbled at first.
He failed to connect with the crowds that had massed
in front of the Parliament building beginning on October
23 and seemed himself to be on the verge of being swept
aside by popular currents that were entirely beyond
the authorities' control. But over the course of the
next week, Nagy apparently underwent a remarkable transformation,
from a more or less dutiful pro-Moscow Communist to
a politician willing to sanction unprecedented political,
economic and social reform, including the establishment
of a multi-party state in Hungary, and insistent on
the withdrawal of all Soviet forces from the country.
By November 1, Nagy took the dramatic step of declaring
Hungary's rejection of the Warsaw Pact and appealing
to the United Nations for help in establishing the country's
neutrality.
Meanwhile, in Washington, U.S. officials observed
the tidal wave of events with shock and no small degree
of ambivalence as to how to respond. The main line of
President Eisenhower's policy was to promote the independence
of the so-called captive nations, but only over the
longer-term. There is little doubt that he was deeply
upset by the crushing of the revolt, and he was not
deaf to public pressure or the emotional lobbying of
activists within his own administration. But he had
also determined, and internal studies backed him up,
that there was little the United States could do short
of risking global war to help the rebels. And he was
not prepared to go that far, nor even, for that matter,
to jeopardize the atmosphere of improving relations
with Moscow that had characterized the previous period.
Yet Washington's role in the Hungarian revolution
soon became mired in controversy. One of the most successful
weapons in the East-West battle for the hearts and minds
of Eastern Europe was the CIA-administered Radio Free
Europe. But in the wake of the uprising, RFE's broadcasts
into Hungary sometimes took on a much more aggressive
tone, encouraging the rebels to believe that Western
support was imminent, and even giving tactical advice
on how to fight the Soviets. The hopes that were raised,
then dashed, by these broadcasts cast an even darker
shadow over the Hungarian tragedy that leaves many Hungarians
embittered to this day.
Once the Soviets made up their minds to eliminate
the revolution, it took only a few days to complete
the main military phase of the operation. By November
7 -- coincidentally, the anniversary of the Bolshevik
revolution -- Soviet forces were firmly enough in control
of the country that Kádár could take the
oath of office in the Parliament building (even though
the Nagy government had never formally resigned). Pockets
of resistance remained, but Kádár was
able to begin the long process of "normalization"
that featured suppressing dissent of any meaningful
kind and otherwise coopting Hungarian society into going
along with the new regime.
For the next three decades, as a consequence of the
crushing of the revolution, the history of the events
of 1956 was effectively sealed to Hungarians. Even to
mention the name of Imre Nagy in public was to risk
punishment. Only after the collapse of the Communist
regimes in Hungary and the region in 1989 did it become
possible to begin to excavate the archival records and
bring out the facts. Since then, previously inaccessible
records of the Soviet leadership as well as of other
Warsaw Pact member states has beome available that give
a much clearer picture than was ever imagined possible
of what happened in the corridors of power in Moscow,
Budapest and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Even in the
United States, government records have recently been
re-reviewed and released in more complete form, and
personal archives have produced documentation on RFE
and other topics that help throw light on the U.S. response
and the role of Hungary in the superpower conflict.
Now, through the collaboration of scholars and archivists
operating under the umbrella of the Openness in Russia
and Eastern Europe Project, many of the most important
of these new records have been collected for the first
time into one, English-language publication. Some of
these materials were introduced by scholars at the 40th
anniversary conference "Hungary and the World 1956:
The New Archival Evidence," organized in Budapest
by the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian
Revolution (Budapest), the National Security Archive
and others. Other materials were published in their
original languages in various Hungarian, Russian and
other scholarly volumes and journals. In the United
States, The Cold War International History Project Bulletin
has reproduced a substantial number of items for a specialized
English-language audience.
But The 1956 Hungarian Revolution is the first
attempt to put together a major collection of these
new materials, in addition to the significant number
of items that appear here for the first time in any
language, in a single volume. In all, the book consists
of 120 documents and totals 598 pages. Each item is
introduced by a brief "headnote" that describes
its context and significance. In addition, the editors
have written introductory essays for each of the three
main chapters that give readers a narrative account
of the events leading up to, during and after the uprising.
A detailed chronology, glossaries, a bibliography and
hundreds of footnotes flesh out the materials even further.
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution is the third
in the "National Security Archive Cold War Reader"
series published by Central European University Press.
The first two titles were Prague Spring '68,
edited by Jaromír Navrátil et al (1998),
and Uprising in East Germany, 1953, edited by
Christian Ostermann (2001). Future volumes will focus
on the Solidarity crisis in Poland in 1980-1981, and
the collapse of Communism in 1989, with separate volumes
on the U.S. and Soviet response and the specific experiences
of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. Those collections
are expected in 2003-2004.
Generous funding for the Openness Project, of which
this publication is one outcome, has come from the Open
Society Institute, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation and the German Marshal Fund of the United
States.
Readers are encouraged to visit the National Security
Archive's reading room at George Washington University's
Gelman Library (Suite 701) to view the original versions
of these documents, and the many related materials that
are also available. Questions about the series or any
of the materials included in the volumes may be addressed
to Malcolm Byrne.
Publication or sales inquiries may be made directly
to CEU
Press.
Documents in the Briefing Book
[Note: these documents were transcribed for the
book for space reasons. Although they are numbered here
from 1 - 12, the headnotes often refer to other documents
by number. Those numbers are the ones used in the book,
not in this selection.]
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