Revolution!
The Hungarian uprising 50 years later; how it changed the Cold War
Time magazine named the Hungarian fighter the "Man of the Year" for 1956. Twelve months later, after the launch of Sputnik, they recognized Nikita Khrushchev, christened by the revolutionaries "the Butcher of Budapest." Such is the complex legacy of the 1956 revolution. Imre Nagy drew his last breath at the end of a noose in 1958 and was buried in an unmarked grave but was exhumed and reburied in a Budapest cemetery when communism collapsed. A statue of him now stands near the Parliament.
Hungarians, for their part, are still trying to understand the revolt. Both the left and the right claim that they are heirs of Imre Nagy, loyal Communist and reluctant reformer turned reluctant revolutionary. Meanwhile, veterans say, everyone claims to have been a fighter. Perhaps it's the photographs of Hungarian teens throwing Molotov cocktails onto Soviet tanks that cause many Hungarians to remember a David and Goliath tale. It would be an apt metaphor had the Soviets lost. "Hungarians," says author Michael Korda, who has chronicled his experience in the doomed revolt, "are connoisseurs of lost causes."
Eavesdropping. The ghosts of the revolt still haunt the streets of Budapest. Miklos Vasarhelyi, who had been the spokesman for the revolutionary government, took refuge in the Yugoslavian Embassy with Imre Nagy but was eventually sold out to Moscow. His daughter Julia spent two years in exile and found life dramatically different in Hungary when she returned. Under Janos Kadar, who ruled Hungary with a progressively more liberal hand until 1989, the family's phones were tapped and their rooms bugged. Newly released documents on the family only added to her disillusionment. "No one can understand what it is like to find out that 90 percent of the people you knew had informed on you to the secret police," she says, concluding, "There were only a few heroes from the revolution and plenty of Communists, especially afterwards."
After the revolution, 200,000 Hungarians fled to the United States. Hungary, now a democratic country of 10 million people, threw off the shackles of dictatorship with the other former satellites and has since joined the European Union. "America will always be glad that we opened our doors to Hungarians that were seeking freedom," said President George W. Bush on a recent state visit to Budapest. "Fifty years later, the sacrifice of the Hungarian people inspires all who love liberty."
Mihaly Nagy, meanwhile, has become something of an expert on the conflicting realities facing the revolution's veterans. Arrested for carrying a pistol during the uprising, he served more than three years in jail. But his sons, and Hungarians in general, he says, aren't very interested in hearing about his heroics anymore. When the Soviets loosened their control over Hungary, Nagy applied for a visa to travel to the United States. He swelled a bit with pride as he wrote "Yes" when the application asked if he'd ever been imprisoned. His application was rejected. After he explained his revolutionary background to a consulate official, the official said, "Just lie and say it never happened." He did. The visa was granted.
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