The Belgrade Declaration, in which the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia recognized each other’s right to follow their own socialist systems and Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” to the 20th Communist Party Congress, in which he condemned Stalin and endorsed a policy of destalinization, which would allow flexibility within the communist system, damaged Rakosi’s attempt to gain stability because he was anti-Tito and had carried out political purges. The Hungarian people were more confounded everyday and were growing desperate for change. The breaking point came when the Hungarian Workers’ Party forced Rakosi to take credit for his abuses of power and he attempted to blame the state security police instead. Subsequently, the Writers Association, the Petofi Circle, a group of intellectuals, liberals, and communists that represented the Hungarian’s desire for freedom, and student associations demanded Rakosi’s resignation. When the Petofi Circle was forcefully dissolved, general discontent further escalated and Rakosi was finally forced to resign on July 17th. By that point, tensions had exploded in Poland with the Poznan worker riots and disruptions continued to occur. On October 19th, the Polish Communist Party elected Wladsylaw Gomulka as their leader, despite Khrushchev’s deployment of troops towards Warsaw. On October 21st, Khrushchev opted to end the Polish rebellion diplomatically because he was confident that Poland would still remain loyal to the Soviet Union, a feeling that was confirmed when on October 24th, Gomulka declared his allegiance to the Soviet Union and to the Warsaw Pact. However, on October 23rd, a student rally held in Budapest in support of the Polish revolution sparked mass anti-Soviet demonstrations, leading the police to attack the protestors. The demonstrators retaliated and toppled a statue of Stalin, demanding the re-instatement of Nagy as Prime Minister and government compliance with their Sixteen Points, which included personal freedom, more food, the removal of the secret police, the removal of Russian control, and more. The Hungarian revolution had begun.
Many soldiers stationed in Hungary refused to fight and laid down their arms, prompting Yuri Andropov, the Soviet ambassador to Hungary, to appeal to Khrushchev for troops, an appeal that he initially ignored but reluctantly agreed to. Khrushchev also sent Anastas Mikoyan and Ivan Serov with the intent of negotiating a settlement, as was done in Poland. The Soviet government still believed that a peaceful compromise could be reached in which Nagy, like Gomulka in Poland, would declare his country’s loyalty to the Soviet Union. The arrival of Soviet troops only served to further enrage the rioters who began to fight the troops, as well as release political prisoners and ransack police stations. On October 25th, Nagy became Prime Minister while insurrections continued to occur. On the 26th, Janos Kadar, a former political prisoner, was named foreign minister as negotiations continued between Nagy and the Soviet delegation. Eager to avoid more bloodshed, Mikoyan offered to make some concessions and pull back the Soviet troops but nothing was agreed upon until the 28th, when a cease-fire was reached. As a sign that it was committed to peaceful co-existence with its satellite states and the world, on October 30th the Soviet Union released the “Declaration on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the USSR and Other Socialist Countries,” which recognized that the Soviet Union had committed grave mistakes concerning its past treatment of other socialist countries, suggested the removal of Soviet troops form Warsaw Pact countries and promised to respect each country’s autonomy.
At the same time, Nagy constructed a new government with both communists and non-communists, disbanded the state secret police, discarded the one-party system, and promised free elections to the Hungarian people. He failed though, to convince his people to stop revolting. On the 30th, Nagy began to assemble a new, democratic, multiparty system and the Soviet delegation agreed to remove the troops from Hungary. However, early on the morning of the 31st, the rebels successfully attacked the Communist Party headquarters in Budapest. This surprise attack, coupled with the diplomats’ increasingly frantic reports of deterioration convinced Khrushchev to refuse Nagy’s demands because the Soviet Union never intended to allow Hungary to leave the Eastern bloc and restore a parliamentary system. Meanwhile, Nagy discovered that instead of the current Soviet troops leaving Hungary, new divisions of troops were crossing into Hungary. In response, on November 1st, Nagy announced Hungary’s intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and declare neutrality and appealed to the United Nations and Western governments for protection of Hungary's neutrality but to no avail because they were pre-occupied with the Suez Crisis. Khrushchev would not tolerate this under any circumstance because it would mean the loss of a satellite state, a potentially crippling occurrence. He immediately retaliated by ordering 60,000 soldiers to carry out Operation Whirlwind. By the night of the 3rd, the Red Army had surrounded Budapest and closed off Hungary’s borders. Kadar had fled to the Soviet Union on the 2nd, where he established the Temporary Revolutionary Government of Hungary, and returned to Hungary on the 4th, where he proceeded to take control immediately and ordered the arrest of thousands of rebels. On the morning of the 4th, the Soviet troops swiftly moved through Hungary, gaining control of the situation through a brutal repression that left nearly 4,000 Hungarians dead within a day. The Hungarian Revolution was over, snuffed by a vicious military display that contradicted in every way, Khrushchev’s peaceful policy of destalinization.
This shocked not only the Hungarian people, but the rest of the world because Khrushchev had emphasized peace as a cornerstone for his policies and days before he had reached an amiable agreement with the Poles. Why had he responded differently to the Hungarian Revolution? While there were numerous factors affecting his decision making, the catalyst for the Soviet military response was Nagy’s declaration of Hungary’s neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev was willing to negotiate reforms but he was adamant about maintaining the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe. Hungary’s threat to remove itself from the Warsaw Pact posed numerous problems for Khrushchev, particularly his personal stability. Many Communist leaders believed that Stalin’s procurement of satellite states was one his greatest achievements and they blamed the insurrections of Eastern Europe on Khrushchev’s policy of destalinization. He realized that while Stalin ruled, no one protested or complained and that if he lost Hungary, his political career would disintegrate so he had to intervene so as to show his loyalty to the communist system. Another important reason for Khrushchev’s order of military action was his fear of the “Domino Theory.” Yugoslavia’s successful split from the Soviet Union spurred many anti-Soviet movements through the Eastern states and Poland had attained far-reaching concessions that had inspired the Hungarians to revolt. If Hungary successfully withdrew itself from the Warsaw Pact, the potential for revolutions throughout the remaining satellite states would have been tremendous. A third major reason for ordering Operation Whirlwind was the possibility of American troops or United Nations troops occupying a newly-liberated Hungary. The United States was constantly broadcasting anti-Soviet propaganda into Hungary and it was assumed that Hungary would need support of some kind once it seceded because its economy was in shambles. The possibility of American troops intruding into the Soviet sphere of influence was on Khrushchev was unwilling to bear. The difference between Poland and Hungary was that Gomulka, unlike Nagy, never intended to withdraw form the Warsaw Pact. He simply wanted to reform the Polish government and domestic policies. That’s why the threat posed by the Polish Revolution was nowhere near as great as that posed by the Hungarian Revolution. Before Gomulka publicly declared his loyalty to the Soviet Union, Khrushchev had sent troops towards Warsaw. However, the moment Gomulka clarified his objectives and declared his allegiance to Moscow, the troops were pulled out. This is where Poland and Hungary differ, and why Hungary’s revolution was met with such brutal force.
Khrushchev’s policy of destalinization appeared to be the solution to all the social unrest that arose after Stalin’s death. It was meant to distance Khrushchev’s government from that of Stalin and provide an alternative manner of dealing with the Soviet Union’s “allies.” However, it was this very policy of reform that led to the Polish and Hungarian Revolutions of 1956. While Khrushchev succeeded in negotiating with the Poles, he initially underestimated the Hungarians’ desires for autonomy, which were so great that Nagy attempted to declare his country neutral and withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. This proved to be the key point in the Hungarian Revolution because at that point there ceased to be any similarity to the Polish situation and Khrushchev interpreted Nagy’s actions as hostile to the Soviet Union. Desperate to prove himself and stabilize the Soviet Union, Khrushchev had no ultimatum but to order the massive and brutal repression of the Hungarian insurrectionists.
Works Consulted
Bekes, Csaba and Janos M. Rainer. “The 1956 Hungarian Revolution.” <.> (23 Oct., 2003)
Fuchs, Sybille. “Hungary 1956: A Revolution Against Stalinsim.” (10 Feb., 1997) <> (24 Oct., 2003)
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford, 1997.
Kramer, Mark. “The Malin Notes On The Crises in Hungary & Poland, 1956.” George Washington U. > (20 Oct., 2003)
Rainer, Janos M. “The Yeltsin Dossier: Soviet Documents On Hungary.” George Washington U. <.>
(20 Oct., 2003)
