It’s not an easy task these days to commemorate, as the world around us has accelerated. Everything and everyone rushes. For many, the only thing that matters is to seize and experience something instantly: a bite and a sip, a selfie and a post, a tweet and a share. Before you know it, before you could actually enjoy it, it’s already there, and the next one is right on the production line: the newer, the better; the faster, the trendier.
But recalling the memories and values of 1956 offers an opportunity to pause for a moment and reflect: there are things that are stronger than the passage of time and that resist being buried beneath it. These are, for instance, the heroes, their great deeds, or memory itself. Be it a 150, 100, or even 68 years, truly great heroes and feats must be commemorated. Because where heroes are remembered, there will always be new ones! For us Hungarians, 23 October 1956 is one such day in our memory, the cornerstone of our nation.
In the battle of ’56, the people became a nation. The country united. Young and old, man and woman, worker and intellectual, peasant and soldier shared the very same wish: freedom for Hungary, because Hungarians cannot live without freedom. No matter how many times we were deprived of it, sooner or later we regained it. If needed, we fought for it; if forced, we died for it. In October 1956, the freedom we reclaimed brought an end to the fear. If we take a look at the photographs and film footage taken in those late October days, and gaze at one of the faces for a longer time, we might picture what his life must have been like, what his aspirations were, what he hoped for. We shall recognize him as a fellow compatriot longing for freedom, one who has taken the hand of the person standing next to him, clinging to a stranger. He trusted the others, because he knew that they too wanted to be free.
Sixty-eight years ago, these Hungarian youngsters wrote their names not only in Hungarian, but in global history forever. Young people had witnessed the Second World War, the air strikes, the rage of the Arrow Cross, the sight of their Jewish compatriots shot into the Danube, the invasion of the country by Soviet troops and, right behind them, the total occupation of the country by the Hungarian communists. They saw the capital destroyed and blasted to pieces, and they rebuilt their city from the ruins with their parents. After 1945, they rightly believed that there was hope for a new country: a free one. But they were wrong. They had to watch how the Soviet army, together with the treacherous Hungarian communists, constructed an institution of total terror. By 1950, in barely five years, a police state had been established in our country, overseeing and controlling all walks of life. In 1945, the political police force of just over 500 was transformed into the State Protection Authority, and its number was increased to 28,000. 40,000 snitches were employed. Between 1945 and 1956, in 11 years, 400 people were executed for political reasons, and almost one in three adults were subjected to official proceedings. There was not a single family in the country where one or another member was not abused, imprisoned or interned, or subjected to some sort of administrative measure.
On Tuesday, 23 October 1956, a sympathy demonstration originally planned for a few hundred students sparked a decade of despair. Under the ashes, the coals of resistance kept smoldering. The entire society was suffocated by the dictatorship: the factory worker as well as the humiliated peasants and the citizens deprived of their property and their future. On that Tuesday, students from the Technical University were joined by students from the Agricultural, and then the Horticultural University. They were soon followed by military and medical students. More and more protesters were joining. The tram traffic stopped and, by the time they reached Kossuth Lajos Square, the main square of the capital, there were hundreds of thousands of people already present.
In contrast to the Berlin uprising of 1953 and the Poznań revolt of 1956, the Hungarians took to the streets on this day not because of ‘abuses’ and deprivation, but because of the communist system of terror and foreign occupation that stole our freedom and attempted to enslave our nation. The uprising was spontaneous, daring, enthusiastic, and of astonishing strength. The nation shared one will and was fuelled by an elemental desire for freedom. The people themselves revolted against the regime they despised, without distinction of religion, class, or politics. For they were sick of utopian promises; the fantasy of heaven on earth; the terror that stained everything; the hopelessness and the constant harassment; and the relentless, full-court attacks on our national and cultural identity. Hungarian people wished for a normal life: one that suited their roots, their customs, their characteristics. The ones they stood up against were the communist governors of Moscow. Their moral void, their hypocritical exercise of power, and their anti-nationalism provoked disgust and contempt in all Hungarians. That is why, when Imre Nagy in his speech at the parliament called the demonstrators “comrades,” they shouted as one: we are not comrades, only to find out in the hour of lighting the torches of the Free People communist newspaper that either the demands or the system remains. Afterwards, the demolition of the Stalin statue was no longer just a symbolic act of the revolution, which then erupted in an armed response to the volley of gunfire in front of the Radio building. Raymond Aron put it in 1957 as follows: “In this century, we have not yet seen a popular revolution against a commanding state that begins with an uprising and ends with the conquest of the state.”
They shared one will, and this made them so cheerful, friendly, and indeed happy. Because there, in those 13 days, things were so simple: whoever was Hungarian joined them. Those who wanted freedom and independence joined them.
The events of 23 October and the days that followed showed clearly what the Hungarian nation wanted! By 3 November, all the important demands seemed to be fulfilled: the Rákosi-Gerő clique was squeezed out of power; the State Protection Authority was abolished; Soviet troops seemed to be withdrawing; the multi-party system was about to revive. The country declared its neutrality and the overall strike ended. “People started participating in politics,” announced the first freely printed newspaper of the revolution.
The joint, inseparable fight for national independence and political freedom is all more self-evident given that the overthrow of 1956 could only have been achieved if both were destroyed. The intervention of the communist, treacherous Kádár group and the world’s largest land army was therefore intended both to combat those achievements that harmed Soviet interests and those that aimed to abolish dictatorship. As the revolution could not win as long as the invasion persisted, so the revolution could not be defeated without an invasion.
At dawn on the 4th of November 1956, the Soviet military machinery marched against our country with 2,500 tanks, 800 armored fighting vehicles, and 600 anti-aircraft guns. The armed resistance lasted for another week, but the revolution did not end there: demonstrations, passive resistance, silent protests, anti-systemic graffiti, illegally distributed newspapers, and pamphlets all spread the word. Between 23 October and 11 November 1956, however, the Soviet army suffered enormous losses in Hungary, especially in Budapest. In two weeks, nearly 700 Soviet soldiers were killed, another thousand were wounded, and half a hundred were missing. For the invaders, the gravest losses were inflicted by the lads of Pest in the VIII and IX districts: 80% of all their losses in the capital were caused here. These two areas were the epicenter of the battles. Between 24 October and 5 November, more than twenty tanks, self-propelled guns, and armored transport vehicles were destroyed by the insurgents in the Corvin alone. Half of the Soviets’ armored losses in Budapest occurred here.
The revolutionary war was carried out according to the rules of classical guerrilla warfare; it was self-defensive all along. Rebels looted arms from the enemy. As one of Corvin’s commanders said: “If you don’t have arms, the enemy will bring you some.” They used all the techniques of urban guerrilla warfare in the course of their battle: petrol cans were thrown at armored units lured into narrow streets, upturned plates were made to look like mines, road surfaces were swept with soap, hand grenades were rolled to blow the caterpillar tracks off heavy tanks, a barricade of trains was constructed, another one was made out of cobblestones.
And, more importantly, “The people were on their side,” as another leader of the rebels said, adding that there was no home where they entered and got no assistance. According to a joke, inspired by the reality of the revolution, young boys rang the bell of a third-floor apartment on the boulevard, asking if they could shoot out of the window. The housewife let them in on one condition: that they wiped their feet neatly at the door. These young people—all jokes aside—could often barely carry a rifle, but they fought with the stubbornness of teenagers for their country and freedom, for a life lacking fear and anxiety. One of them was Erika Szeles, a 15-year-old girl who was killed in action. Her photograph, showing Erika gazing fiercely while holding a Russian rifle, made headlines in the West during the October Revolution.
However, Hungarian losses were grave. Nearly 20,000 rebels were wounded, around 2,700 people were killed in national territory (including 1,945 in Budapest), and 200,000 were forcibly displaced. The youngest age group accounted for about 44% of the casualties during the clashes: roughly 750 minors lost their lives in this war. The two weeks of freedom in 1956 were followed by seven years of oppression from the end of 1956 until the partial amnesty declared in the spring of 1963. Hungarian society paid for each day of revolution with half a year of terror. During the reprisals that persisted until 1961, 229 people were executed on the basis of court verdicts, 860 were deported to the Soviet Union, 26,000 were sentenced, and 25,000 were imprisoned or interned. Between December 1956 and January 1957, at least 80 people were killed in the volleys. This was the most severe political reprisal in Hungarian history. Those who escaped the gallows were doomed to be second-class citizens and marginalized for decades. One such person was Mária Wittner, who was sentenced to death in the first court after the revolution was suppressed and then imprisoned until 1970. And a little more than ten years after the Second World War, Budapest was ruined once again.
But what was the goal and reason for this disproportionate reprisal? Why did Moscow react to the Hungarian Revolution of 23 October to 4 November 1956 with such excessive, unbridled brutality? The explanation of the global historical significance of our 1956 revolution lies in the answer.
Moscow launched such a brutal attack and retaliation against Hungary because the Revolution and Freedom Fight in 1956 did not demand better living conditions, better care, or better standards. It rejected the communist system as such and the occupation that it imposed on us; in other words, it was openly anti-communist and anti-Soviet. Hungarians were seeking freedom and independence without class distinction: be they workers, peasants, students, citizens or intellectuals—in short, everyone. The nation overwrote class, which was a striking disproof of the Marxist doctrine. In 1956, Hungarians demanded freedom, national independence, and free elections without Soviet advisors and Soviet tanks. This was the origin of its identification with all the freedom-loving people around the world, from the United States of America to South Africa, from Korea to Turkey. Everyone saw that our fight of life and death against a terribly overwhelming force was one for human dignity, for the survival of our nation, and for the protection of our identity. This explains why the best of Europeans, Americans, Asians, and Africans were so inspired by our heroes, by the defiance of our nation, which in fact reflected the desire for freedom of all the conquered nations.
The brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight was a Pyrrhic victory. It retained its empire, preserved its place in the bipolar world order, and justified the purpose of its army. And with the brutal suppression of the revolution, the power and authority of the Red Army remained unchallenged for a little longer. But in the uneven fight, the young rebels of Pest tore off the mask of the Soviets. From the moment tanks started firing at the freedom fighters, they were no longer the custodians of the noble and righteous cause of hope. Everyone could see who they were and what they were truly like. From then on, the Soviet invaders behind the tanks and machine guns became the enemies of freedom, independence, and human dignity. The 1956 Revolution and Freedom fight revealed the true nature of the communists. There was nothing they could do to change that.
From the moment Hungarians marched to the streets for their rights and then took arms against the foreign invaders, there was no return for the communists. After the crushing of the Freedom Fight, those formerly and currently in power understood that they were sitting on a powder keg, and that they could only move cautiously if they wanted to avoid another explosion.
Although the legitimacy of the incoming Kádár regime rested on the crushing of the Revolution and Freedom Fight, on merciless and unprecedented reprisals and on the presence of the Soviet army, the only thing that maintained its equilibrium up until the overthrow of communism was reciprocal fear. Kádár and the communists were terrified of the people and wary of overplaying their hand. And the Hungarian people were afraid of them, because they knew exactly how ruthless they were, and how they would do anything to maintain their power. The communists withdrew from people’s private lives in return for a demand that we stop engaging in politics and leave public affairs to them. For more than three decades, Kádár and the others remained silent. They concealed and falsified 1956. They labeled it a counter-revolution instead of a revolution, and it was not even allowed to be spoken about.
The Revolution and Freedom Fight and national liberation of 1956 lasted for merely two weeks, yet it shook the whole world. It basically shattered the European post-Second World War peace system. It unveiled the grim reality of Soviet-style terror regimes. For nearly forty years, those two brief weeks gave hope to the oppressed of communism across Central and Eastern Europe and set an example to all freedom fighters worldwide. 1956 is one of the greatest Hungarian celebrations: it was and remains so. Yet it was barely 300 hours long. From the glorious afternoon of 23 October to the frosty dawn of 4 November, there were 300 hours of freedom. If we do the math, it equals ten million hundredths of a second. In October 1956, ten million Hungarians each had one hundredth of a second of freedom. In a hundredth of a second, our heart beats one time. And yet, our whole nation has cherished this moment forever, the entire world has respected this fleeting moment. Let us honor it too, because sometimes the moment of a heartbeat is worth more than centuries.
The truth of 1956 is the benchmark and compass that nourishes our pride. It gives us confidence and strength and provides us with so much spiritual fuel that lasts forever. When we hear the names of the young rebels of Pest, we involuntarily straighten our backs. Their memory should not be preserved merely because that is what decency dictates. But because they were the ones who, along with many other anonymous people, said ‘no’ to the communist dictatorship. And not only did they say ‘no,’ but they fought back against it, took up arms and risked their most precious possession—their lives—so that we could live free here today. Péter Mansfeld, Erzsébet Mány, István Angyal, Ilonka Tóth, László Lengyel, János Szabó, and the list goes on. In the totalitarian dictatorships of the 20th century, only the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight dared to stand up against the almighty terrorist state, because communism was not to be reconciled with. Ultimately, it was about the survival of the nation and human dignity, because there are no small nations. Even the strongest and most powerful power must be opposed when humiliation is unbearable. For a nation’s destiny is determined by the moments when it is not only drifting on the tide of history, but when it becomes history itself. As Milovan Gyilas put it, “The Hungarian Revolution was the beginning of the end of communism.” After 1956, it could no longer be ignored that the illegitimate, corrupt, and unsustainable regimes—kept alive by fire and by brutal force in the Soviet Union and the countries it occupied—were in fact total dictatorships against the people.
68 years ago, the whole world was looking at Budapest. People of good will sat with clenched fists in front of their radios from Washington to Istanbul, Munich to Montreal, London to Tallinn, Warsaw to Stockholm, Vienna to Rome, Bonn to Brussels. This life-and-death battle, which was confined to a tight period of two weeks, made it obvious that the struggle for freedom of a small nation cannot possibly stand a chance against the reality that was created by those spheres of influence that were negotiated based upon superpower balance of forces. They bewailed the reports from the blood-soaked streets of Budapest. Those who could, helped; those who were able to, sheltered and supported those fleeing.
Sixty-eight years ago, Hungary showed its best face to the world. The word ‘Hungarian’ has become synonymous with courage, patriotism, love of freedom, national unity, love of country, and heroism. We owe heroes and role models the respect and gratitude they deserve. As our renowned poet Sándor Petőfi wrote:
Hungarians-our nation’s name
Shall glorify its ancient fame;
Then we shall wash away all trace
Of centuries of our disgrace!
This is a lightly edited transcript of a speech given at the Liszt Institute Brussels on October 17th, 2024. It appears here by kind permission of the author.