V o L u m e I : a d

One effect of the failure of the Hungarian Revolution

was a loss of faith in the West. Hungarians genuinely

thought that they had been promised assistance, and many

Hungarians and Western observers believed that the United

States prolonged the fighting because Hungarian-language

broadcasts over Radio Free Europe, then covertly financed

by the U.S. government, encouraged Hungarians to believe

that either the United States or the UN would send troops

to safeguard their proclaimed neutrality. Hungarians repeat-

edly asked Western journalists covering the revolution

when UN troops would be arriving. President Dwight

Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

had talked about “liberating” Eastern Europe and “rolling

back communism,” but this had been intended largely for

domestic U.S. political consumption rather than for the

East Europeans. U.S. inactivity over the Hungarian situ-

ation, however, indicated tacit acceptance of the Soviet

domination of their part of the world.

The UN Security Council discussed the Hungarian

situation but adjourned the meeting because the Soviets

appeared to be withdrawing. Then, in a matter of a few

hours, the UN was faced with the fait accompli of 4 No-

vember. At the same time, however, UN attention was

focused on the Anglo-French Suez invasion. This and the

split between the United States and its two major allies

effectively prevented any concrete action against the inva-

sion of Hungary. In December 1956 the UN censured the

Kádár regime, but this did not in any way change the situ-

ation in Hungary.

There was another point worth considering. No matter how the West

might have felt about intervening in Hungary, there was no way to get to that

country militarily without violating Austrian neutrality. Nonetheless, the

West did not come off well in Hungary.

The effects of the Hungarian Revolution were particularly pronounced

in Eastern Europe. Any thought that the people of the region might have

had of escaping Moscow’s grip by violent revolution was discouraged by the

example of Soviet willingness to use force in defiance of world opinion. Never-

theless, open rebellion by the very groups upon which the communists were

supposedly building their new society was shattering from a propaganda

standpoint, as was the crushing of free workers’ councils (soviets) that had

sprung up in Hungary during the 1956 revolution nearly four decades after

the victory of Russian soviets in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The

Soviet military intervention did have a considerable impact on West Euro-

pean communist parties. They suffered mass resignations, including some

illustrious intellectuals.

The Hungarian Revolution ultimately led to changes in Soviet policy

toward Eastern Europe. Moscow allowed some modifications in economic

944

Hungarian Revolution

Hungarian refugees leave Budapest following the failed

1956 Revolution. (National Archives and Records

Administration)

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planning within the East European bloc to meet the needs of individual

countries, including more attention to consumer goods and agriculture and a

slowed pace of industrialization. For the time being, however, an opportunity

to begin the liberation of Eastern Europe had led to a heavy-handed reasser-

tion of Soviet mastery.

By June 1957 Kádár had stabilized the situation and secured his position

as the most prominent Hungarian political leader of the Cold War era. For

the next thirty-two years in Hungary, the 1956 revolution was officially

referred to as a counterrevolution. It was not until 1989, after the Velvet Rev-

olution began in Czechoslovakia, that it was officially called an uprising. On

23 October 1989 the Hungarian Republic was formally declared. That same

year witnessed the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Hungary. In 1991

the Hungarian Parliament declared 23 October a national holiday.

Anna Boros-McGee and Spencer C. Tucker

See also

Antall, József; Dulles, John Foster; Eisenhower, Dwight David; GeroP, ErnoP; Hun-

gary; Kádár, János; Khrushchev, Nikita; Kovács, Béla; Mikoyan, Anastas Ivano-

vich; Mindszenty, József; Nagy, Imre; Rákosi, Mátyás; Soviet Union; Stalin,

Josef; Suez Crisis; Suslov, Mikhail Andreyevich; Tildy, Zoltán; Warsaw Pact

References

Barber, Noel. Seven Days of Freedom: The Hungarian Uprising, 1956. New York: Stein

and Day, 1974.

Granville, Johanna C. In the Line of Fire: The Soviet Crackdown on Hungary, 1956–1958.

Pittsburgh, PA: Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of

Pittsburgh, 1998.

Litván, György, ed. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Reform, Revolt, and Repression,

1953–1963. London and New York: Longmans, 1996.

Central European nation with a 1945 population of approximately 9 million

people. Hungary covers 35,919 square miles, about the size of the U.S. state

of Indiana. It is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Croatia and Serbia to the

south, Austria to the west, and Romania and Ukraine to the east.

In April 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Hungary from German occupa-

tion. As Hungary was on the side of the vanquished powers, its future

depended on the terms of the cease-fire agreement as well as the peace

treaty negotiated among the victorious powers. In an October 1944 meeting

in Moscow between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet

leader Josef Stalin, the two men had agreed over spheres of influence, with

Hungary split 50/50 between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. But

the Red Army occupied Hungary, and the political, economic, social, and

military development of Hungary in the postwar era was to be largely influ-

enced by the Soviet Union.

Hungary

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Hungary

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