Revolution!
The Hungarian uprising 50 years later; how it changed the Cold War
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY-Mihaly Nagy is doing his best to impersonate Joseph Stalin-or, more precisely, a statue of the tyrannical Soviet leader. "It was tremendously tall-10 meters, at least," Nagy says, gesticulating excitedly. "There was an arm out. ... Some of us tried to cut it off at the legs." But the gargantuan effigy that had watched over City Park in Budapest for five years as a symbol of Soviet might proved almost as indomitable as the dictator himself. So the revolutionaries turned to oxyacetylene torches. "The whole thing came down and bounced," Nagy says, pitching forward. "And only those metal boots were left."
Fifty years ago this month, the toppling of Stalin's statue was the iconic moment in a revolution that captivated the world. The Hungarian uprising was the first serious revolt inside a Communist satellite country and a major turning point of the Cold War. When the Soviet Army brutally crushed the revolt, arresting tens of thousands and executing hundreds more, it came as a shock that forced the United States to abandon its goal of "rolling back" communism and to tone down its propaganda. Now, historians are taking a fresh look at this dark episode as declassified documents help explain what really happened and why.
Iron fist. In the early 1950s, the Cold War was in a deep freeze. In the wake of World War II, the Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe through a series of puppet regimes, each run by its own "Little Stalin"-a petty tyrant installed by Moscow who adhered strictly to the party line. Hungary had one of the worst in Matyas Rakosi. He possessed an aptitude for two things: languages-he spoke 10-and running his state with an iron first. He nationalized industry and collectivized farms, all with the aid of his much-despised secret police. Those who resisted-thousands of them-were sent to re-education camps or deported east to the gulags. Even government service was no protection; Rakosi consolidated his power by purging rivals and allies alike. He once boasted that he dealt with his foes "like pieces of salami"-slicing them thin, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.
But with the death of Stalin in 1953, and subsequent revelations about his mass deportations and killings, Rakosi and many of his fellow tyrants quickly found their reputations as "Stalin's best pupils" more liability than asset. So the Kremlin removed Rakosi and replaced him with a more reform-minded Communist named Imre Nagy (no relation to Mihaly). Nagy, a onetime secret police informer in Moscow, relaxed farm collectivization, but by 1955, the country's economy was still such a shambles that the Soviets put Rakosi's hard-liners back in charge. Still, in a concession to liberalization, even the hard-liners allowed writers and intellectuals to begin openly discussing politics.
By the summer of 1956, these political debates were attracting thousands to Budapest's theaters, cafes, and public squares. The reformers had very likely been emboldened by news of the now famous "secret speech" that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had given a few months earlier. Denouncing Stalin before a stunned gathering of Communist leaders, Khrushchev said the late dictator "acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion." It was a staggering break from the previous 34 years in which Stalin's cult of personality had reigned supreme. And, though Khrushchev may have meant the speech for a domestic audience, its impact was felt most acutely in the satellites.
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