It started in February 1956. The occasion was the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union’s XXth Congress, the first such party meeting to be held after
Joseph Stalin’s death. On the last day
of the congress [February 25th], Nikita Khrushchev delivered the
Secret Speech. In this six-hour
marathon, Khrushchev detailed Stalin’s crimes – a criticism of his dictatorial
methods, the terror of the 1930s, the relocation of entire populations, and his
incompetence that nearly brought the Soviet Union to ruin in World War II. He conveniently left out his own role in Stalin’s
reign of terror. He was careful to
praise Communism while criticizing Stalin.
But he took the opportunity to club the dead guy and those who supported
him as a way to affirm his own grip on power.
No foreigners were allowed to hear the speech, but transcriptions of the
speech were subsequently distributed to the Soviet Union’s satellites in
Eastern Europe. Once the speech hit the
streets in Poland, the fun and games began.
Poland
Prior to 1956, however, Poland was implementing
Soviet-style central planning via its First Six-Year Plan. Polish United Workers’ Party chief Boleslaw
Bierut executed plays from the Stalinist playbook of the Soviets’ first Five
Year Plan. Emphasis was on accelerating
development of heavy industry, collectivizing agriculture by force, and a rigid
command economy. Communist Poland became
a mirror of the Soviet Union – a police state with rigid ideological
regimentation that persecuted the Roman Catholic Church. The Communists imprisoned Polish Prelate
Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski and eight other high Polish Catholics. Like the Soviet Union, collectivization of
Polish agriculture met with strong peasant resistance. But unlike the Soviets, the Polish Communists
didn’t instigate a terror-famine to bring the peasants to heel.
Two weeks after Khrushchev’s speech, Bierut died. In 1948 Bierut had won a power struggle with
Wladyslaw Gomulka. At that time Stalin
thought of Gomulka as a Titoist because Gomulka had disagreed with him about
the “Polish way to socialism.” For
Stalin, his way – the Soviet way - was the only way. Gomulka, like Tito in Yugoslavia, disagreed
with the “one size fits all” approach.
This line of thinking got Gomulka stripped of power and thrown in
jail. But Gomulka was a rare thing – he
was a Communist who was popular. Gomulka
was a Polish Communist who fought the Nazis in the Polish Underground – Bierut
fled to Soviet-occupied Poland after the Nazis attacked in 1939 so he could
avoid military service. He spent four
years in the Soviet Union during the war.
He was Stalin’s man. After Stalin
died, he was seen as an enemy of the Polish people, and Bierut was guilty by
association. After Bierut’s death, he
was succeeded by Edward Ochab, but a schism between reformers and conservatives
in the Polish United Workers’ Party [PZPR] showed itself.
Polish attitudes toward the Soviet Union were shaped by
events of World War II. One event that
fed Polish antagonism toward the Soviets was the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. While the Polish Home Army and the Nazis
fought in Warsaw, the Red Army sat on the banks of the Vistula River. They didn’t lift a finger to help the Polish
uprising. That left the Nazis a free
hand to destroy the outmanned and outgunned Polish Home Army. The Soviets had also perpetrated the Katyń massacre. As part of the Secret Protocol of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the Soviet Union occupied the eastern half of
Poland. During the occupation, Stalin’s
NKVD executed over 10,000 Polish officers in the Katyń Forest. Russian officers of Polish descent served in
the Polish Army, most notably Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin
Rokossovsky. At Moscow’s insistence,
Rokossovsky was Poland’s Minister of Defense.
Stalinism was felt in Poland in several ways: the state security apparatus was large,
political dissidents were imprisoned, and there was an iron-fisted rule that
was heavily reliant on fear. And there
was the Six-Year Plan…
During the implementation of the Six-Year Plan, the
standard of living started falling. The workers
were overworked and underpaid, denied
bonuses, and saw their benefits cut. Working conditions deteriorated and there
were shortages of food and popular consumer goods. Farmers who owned medium and large farms
found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy – such was the intended effect of
collectivization. The farmers didn’t
produce as much, resulting in the food shortages in cities like Poznań. The proletariat had enough. Workers from the Joseph Stalin Poznań Metal
Works walked off the job on June 28, 1956.
They were joined by workers from other factories in Poznań until their
ranks swelled into the thousands. This
evolved into a general strike. Quietly,
they marched toward the city center.
Their intent was to force the PZPR and the city council to negotiate
better living and working conditions.
But the character of this huge demonstration turned from economic to
political. The mood was anti-Communist
and anti-Soviet. They shouted
slogans: "We
want bread ", "We are hungry", "Away with workforce
exploitation!", "We want a free Poland", "Freedom",
"Away with Bolshevism", "—we demand free elections under the UN
control!", "Away with Russkis", "Away with the
Russians!", "Away with communists", "Away with the red
bourgeoisie!", "We want God".
They forced their way into the local party headquarters. Rumors spread that a delegation
of workers sent to negotiate with the authorities was detained, and the crowd
broke into a local prison to free them.
In the process, they liberated small arms and ammunition. Some protesters headed to the local office
for Public Security. Then things got
really ugly when gunfire was exchanged between the protesters and the
police. More groups of armed protesters
seized and disarmed local police stations in Poznań. The strike spread to Luboń,
Swarzędz and Kostrzyn. Then the
authorities called in the army – two armored divisions and two infantry
divisions [approximately 10,000 troops and 360 tanks]. It took them two days to restore order. Casualty totals vary from source to
source. Some say 70 protesters were killed,
others say 57 or 58. Between 600-700
protesters were wounded. The casualty
totals were relatively low, but the party bosses in Warsaw were shaken by the
workers’ protest against the self-proclaimed workers’ state.
Word of the events in Poznań
spread across the country. Poles across
the country began to voice their dissatisfaction with the state of their
lives. They too wanted higher wages and
better working conditions. They too
wanted more food. The Communist
leadership in Poland realized much change was needed to avoid another
Poznań. In August 1956, Wladyslaw
Gomulka was rehabilitated and readmitted to the PZPR. People across the country were hopeful that
Gomulka would return to power. The
thinking was if Gomulka was in power, the events in Poznań
wouldn’t have happened. There was hope
that the man who was imprisoned for his defiance of Stalin would restore the
Polish nation. But Gomulka was not
restored to power just yet. Those
arrested in Poznań were put on trial in late-September 1956. Unlike in Stalin’s time, these trials were
not held in secret. The treatment of
those arrested was discussed openly. People across the country followed the
trials closely. The mood across the
country was one of apprehension – Poznań could happen again, only this time on
a national scale.
On October 12, Gomulka expressed
the need for a more equal relationship between Poland and the Soviet
Union. He wanted Russian troops out of
Poland and wanted to end the forced export of goods to the Soviet Union. Though he wanted Russian troops to be gone,
Gomulka wanted to reform the system, not abolish it. He wanted more independence for Poland, but
didn’t want to sever links with Moscow.
Several days later Gomulka met with the PZPR Politburo, and the press
announced he would participate in the 8th Plenum of the PZPR. On October 19th Poland received
some uninvited guests from Moscow – Khrushchev, Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan and
Lazar Kaganovich. These Soviet leaders
wanted to prevent the Plenum from happening, but they failed. The following day Gomulka was unanimously
elected the First Secretary of the PZPR – he was back in charge. Khrushchev had told Gomulka that he would use
Soviet troops to restore order in Poland.
Gomulka invited him to try, but also told him that Russian moves would
be met with armed resistance by the Polish army. Units from the Group of Soviet
Forces in western Poland were advancing on Warsaw. But a funny thing happened – Khrushchev
blinked. Gomulka assured him he wanted to
maintain the Communist system in Poland.
Marshal Konev’s troops were ordered back to their barracks and
Khrushchev’s delegation went home.
The Red Army didn’t go home, but changes to Poland’s
leadership did come. Rokossovsky was sent packing, as well as 32 Soviet
generals and colonels serving in the Polish army. Conservatives were purged from the
Politburo. Cardinal Wyszynski was
released from jail. Workers in some
sectors of the economy were given higher wages.
Compulsory exports to the Soviet Union weren’t eliminated, but they were
reduced. Taxes on farmers were reduced,
and collectivization of agriculture was reversed. There was tangible progress on the social and
economic fronts, although it wasn’t to last very long. The big takeaway from what has been called
the Polish October was that the citizenry complained, and instead of a massive
nationwide crackdown, those who were in charge listened. People in Hungary who were chafing under the
Soviet yoke followed the events in Poland closely. They hoped they get a similar deal with the
Soviets as the Poles got. Things didn’t
turn out that way.
Hungary
The parallels between what occurred in Poland and what
would happen in Hungary shortly thereafter are uncanny. Like in Poland, the Soviet Red Army liberated
Hungary from the Nazis. And like their
compatriots in Poland, Soviet troops in Hungary didn’t go home after World War
II ended. Like Poland, there was an
intense drive to collectivize agriculture and industrialize that nearly left
the country in ruin. Hungary had its own
version of Boleslaw Bierut – his name was Mátyás Rákosi. After the Communists solidified their grip on
power by 1949, the self-styled ‘Stalin’s best pupil’ had over 300,000
Hungarians purged – they were either exiled, locked up, or killed. Shortly after Stalin’s death in March 1953,
Rákosi was replaced by the kinder, gentler Imre Nagy. Nagy released political prisoners, there was
stuff in stores for people to buy, and life improved. But after two years, Nagy was too popular for
Kremlin tastes. Rákosi made a comeback. Repression returned, but the deposed Nagy was
still popular. Nobody liked Rákosi, so
after a year he was replaced [again] by a guy who was equally hard-line as
Rákosi, Erno Gero. The face of the
Communist party changed, but the policies didn’t. Hungary’s version of the KGB [the AVO, or AVH
depending on which translation you subscribe to] continued to arrest and jail
people.
Here’s where the parallels between Poland and Hungary
stop. In Hungary, dissent against the
ruling class came from university students, not the industrial workers as had
been the case in Poland. On October 23,
1956 students who were inspired by what happened in Poland staged a peaceful
protest. They had a list of sixteen
demands. Among those demands:
-
a new government led by Imre Nagy;
-
all leaders of the Stalin-Rákosi era be immediately
relieved of their duties;
-
multi-party elections for a new National Assembly;
-
abolishing the compulsory teaching of Russian in
schools;
-
removal of Soviet troops from Hungary
When the protest began it numbered about 20,000
people. Later that evening the number
was 200,000. They tore red stars from
buildings, and pulled down a statue of Stalin [leaving only the boots]. They were chanting “Russians go home!” Police opened fire and killed several
people. Then Gero sent in the Army, but
the troops wouldn’t fire on their own people.
Faced with this development, Gero declared martial law and asked for
Soviet “assistance.” The Soviet tanks
arrived early the next morning. The Soviets
put Imre Nagy back in charge of the government.
The sight of Soviet tanks killing Hungarians shocked the Communisty party
Central Committee, and they replaced Gero with János Kádár, a Nagy ally. Khrushchev
thought it best to kill the Hungarians with kindness rather than with
tanks. This didn’t last long.
On October 28, Soviet troops left Hungary. Political parties that had been banned before
now reformed [Smallholders Party, the Social
Democratic Party and the Petofi Peasants Party]. People lynched hundreds of AVO. The citizens of Budapest took over radio
stations. Here’s where things began to
go wrong for Hungary. Nagy promised
multi-party elections and a coalition government. In Poland, Gomulka convinced his Soviet
masters that Poland would remain a one-party state. In Hungary, Nagy was promising to share power
with others. He also declared Hungarian
neutrality [like Austria in 1955], promised withdrawal for the Warsaw Pact, and
wanted Soviet troops gone. This was the
bridge too far for the Kremlin. Operation
Whirlwind combined air strikes, artillery, and the coordinated tank-infantry
action of 17 divisions. Soviet artillery and tank fire was heard in all
districts of Budapest. The Hungarian
Army put up sporadic and uncoordinated resistance. On November 4th, the Soviet
tanks [about 1000 of them] came back to Budapest. At 5:20 a.m. on November 4, Nagy broadcast
his final plea to the nation and the world, announcing that Soviet Forces were
attacking Budapest and that the Government remained at its post:
‘This is Imre Nagy speaking. Today at daybreak Soviet
forces started an attack against our capital, obviously with the intention to
overthrow the legal Hungarian democratic government. Our troops are still
fighting; the Government is still in its place. I notify the people of our
country and the entire world of this fact.’
That was the last anyone heard from Imre Nagy. The ‘entire
world’ that Nagy had appealed to, ignored him. On the afternoon of the 4th,
Nagy sought refuge in the Yugoslav embassy.
About 4,000 Hungarians were killed, and approximately 200,000 fled to
Austria. After Nagy fled, the Soviets
replaced him with János Kádár. Thousands
were executed or imprisoned by Kadar’s regime in reprisal. Nagy, lured out of the embassy by a promise
of safe passage to Belgrade, a promise written by Kádár himself, was arrested
and taken to Romania. Later, he was smuggled back into Hungary, charged with
treason, tried and was hung on 16 June 1958. He was buried in an unmarked grave
within the prison yard where he was held.
Kádár ruled Hungary with an iron fist until May 1988.
U.S. Reaction
How did the United States react to the events in
Hungary? Not well. The Eisenhower Administration paid lip
service to the Hungarian struggle against the Soviets, but as far as any
tangible aid was concerned, none was forthcoming. US actions didn’t match its rhetoric. During the 1952 presidential campaign, John
Foster Dulles and other Republicans denounced the Truman strategy of
containment. Republicans favored a
strategy of rollback, the policy of
pressuring the Soviets out of Eastern Europe, possibly through military means,
and, in effect, liberating the “captive nations” that had previously been
“liberated” by the Soviets at the end of the Second World War. While Dulles’ rhetoric about rollback was
meant to satisfy the McCarthys of the Republican party, the Hungarians truly believed
it. Unbeknownst to them, rollback was
more a slogan than official policy. Hungarian
émigré journalists at Radio Free Europe’s Voice of Free Hungary in Munich fed
Dulles’s liberation and rollback propaganda to Eastern Europe for years. During the revolution, RFE Hungarian language
programs not only broadcast news of the situation, it also appealed to
Hungarians to fight the Soviets. In an
internal review of RFE after the revolution, one broadcast ["Special
Short World Press Review" #1 of November 4th] was singled out
as having violated policy against raising false hope for those in captive
nations. This broadcast hinted that
‘help was on the way’:
"If the Soviet troops really attack Hungary, if
our expectations should hold true and Hungarians hold-out for three or four
days, then the pressure upon the government of the United States to send
military help to the Freedom Fighters will become irresistible!"
Other broadcasts gave Hungarians instructions on how to
make Molotov Cocktails, how to sabotage railroads and telephone lines, and they
clearly implied foreign aid was coming.
Where the Voice of Free Poland had urged restraint by protesters during
the Polish October, the Voice of Free Hungary went the other way in encouraging
resistance. A Hungarian fighter named Aniko
Vajda said the following:
"Radio Free Europe, they were saying, "hang
on for three weeks. Three more weeks, we come in. We help you." So we
fight for the last drop of blood we were holding onto. And what happened was,
it was lying to us. Nobody came."
RFE didn’t do Imre Nagy any favors. Without real actionable intelligence, RFE
Hungarian émigré broadcasters made
defamatory statements about him. One
broadcaster, Janos Olvedi, stated:
"Instead of introducing real reforms, the [Nagy]
regime tried to solve every problem by introducing only half-measures. They
ignore the will of the people. Instead of setting up a popular representation,
they continued to govern by way of a sham parliament."
Another broadcaster, Andor Gellert, said:
"Imre Nagy agreed to the invasion of Soviet
troops. Already on this very day this step of his is put down as one of the
greatest acts of treachery in Hungary's history. And this will be remembered
forever. Imre Nagy, who covered his hands in Hungarian blood ... where are the
traitors ... who are the murderers? Imre Nagy and his government ... only
Cardinal Mindszenty has spoken out fearlessly."
These broadcasts [and others] reflected the US
government’s loss of faith in Nagy, discrediting Nagy’s ability to control the
public and doubting his popularity.
Hungary was a victim of other concurrent events. On October 29, the UK, France and Israel
invaded Egypt. Months earlier, Gamel
Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.
The British and the French wanted it back. The Israelis were more than willing to
help. All three countries are American
allies. The Americans found it difficult
to criticize Soviet actions in Hungary while their own allies were doing the same
thing in Egypt. The Eisenhower
Administration was more engaged in the Suez Crisis, proving that it couldn’t
walk and chew gum at the same time.
Adding to the Hungarians’ woes was the 1956 American presidential
election. While Eisenhower’s advisors were
dealing with Suez, there was an election to be won. Hungary was not on the back burner – it
wasn’t even on the same stove as the Suez Crisis.
Eisenhower knew there was no way the US could help
Hungary militarily, and he said as much.
Hungary is a landlocked country, then surrounded by Soviet satellites
and Austria, which had declared its permanent neutrality in 1955. There was no way to get American and/or NATO
troops to Hungary without starting a war with the Soviets. But that was no consolation to the
Hungarians. The Soviets had their
Eastern European buffer zone and were in no mood to lose it. The Chinese Communists pressured the Soviets
into not giving in, and so they didn’t.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was not the United
States’ finest hour. It was here that
policymakers were given a heavy dose of reality, that words alone can’t change
the behavior of brutal regimes. They
were also taught [I’m not sure the lesson was ‘learned’] that words have
consequences. To raise expectations of a
captive people and not follow up the rhetoric with action is a very quick way
to lose credibility in the eyes of those captive peoples. The Cold War continued until the Soviet Union
dissolved in 1991. Hungary was stuck
with János Kádár until 1988. On the 31st
anniversary of his execution, Imre Nagy was given a hero’s burial in a ceremony
attended by more than 100,000 people.
Later that year, the People’s Republic of Hungary ceased to exist,
replaced by the Republic of Hungary. As
fate would have it, this momentous occasion happened on October 23, 1989 – the
33rd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.
