New Hungary Republic Fulfills the Dream of ’56 Freedom Fighters : East Europe: Hungarians were closer than they realized to attaining freedom from Soviet rule, when events doomed them to failure in 1956.

On Oct. 23, church bells rang throughout Hungary to commemorate the anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule, and tens of thousands of Hungarians cheered as Matyas Szuros, the acting president, announced the nation would henceforth be the Hungarian Republic, no longer the Socialist People’s Republic. Zuros said: “The Hungarian Republic is going to be an independent, democratic and legal state.” He said the new Hungary would reflect the spirit of the 1956 “National Independence Movement.”

This is thrilling news, but most especially for those who closely followed Hungarian events in 1956--as I did, professionally. The Hungarian people are now on the threshold of achieving peacefully what they almost achieved by that rebellion. To better understand the astounding implication of these political developments, it is worth looking at some details of the 1956 revolt not fully reported at the time.

Nikita S. Khrushchev, after Josef Stalin’s death, had become leader of the Soviet Union. He proclaimed a relaxation of tensions and a thaw in police control in Eastern Europe. Intellectuals, especially writers and students, were the first to respond and, by late 1955, an influential anti-Stalinist movement was at work--most notably in Poland and Hungary.

Hungary’s leader was Matyas Rakosi, the most brutal Stalinist tyrant in Eastern Europe. He was famous for his “salami tactics”--eliminating all dissenters “slice by slice.” At the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in February, 1956, Khrushchev, in a secret speech, savagely exposed the crimes of Stalin. The contents of the speech became known in the early summer, leading Hungarian writers to attack Rakosi openly. He was soon removed and retired to exile in the Soviet Union.

His removal whetted the appetites of Hungarians, who increased their calls for political and economic change. There was remarkable freedom in the press, with articles exposing political corruption and harsh living conditions. But Rakosi was replaced by Erno Gero, another Stalinist unresponsive to the intellectuals’ complaints. Gero’s inaction inspired a growing demand for the return of Imre Nagy, a popular communist reformer, who had once been premier.

On the morning of Oct. 23, 1956, university students put up posters throughout Budapest, calling for Soviet troops to be withdrawn from Hungary, a new government under Nagy, economic restructuring, freedom of speech and press and restoration of the Hungarian Kossuth emblem (Louis Kossuth led the War of Independence against the Austrian Hapsburgs in 1848-1849. The troops of Russian Czar Nicholas I came to the rescue of the Austrians, and ultimately defeated the Hungarians.)

At 3 p.m., a young student recited the national anthem to the cheering crowds. The words came from a poem first read at the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848. At 8 o’clock that night, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered at the Parliament to listen to a speech by Nagy, calling for a new government. During the speech, shots were fired by police, loyal to Gero.

But the police could not disperse the crowds, some of whom marched to the huge bronze statue of Stalin. With blow torches, they sent it crashing to the ground. Sporadic fighting continued through the night. When Gero saw that the police had lost control, he called for intervention by Soviet forces. Soon, the students and writers were joined by armed factory workers, and then by units of the Hungarian army.

Quickly, the news spread throughout Hungary. America’s Radio Free Europe, based in Munich, was broadcasting every scrap of news about the uprising. Manned by Hungarian exiles who had current information about developments in Poland as well as Hungary, the broadcasts, though heavily jammed, became the main source of information for the Hungarian people. Partly because of the radio--but also because U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had proclaimed a goal of liberation for Eastern Europe--many Hungarians believed their rebellion would be supported by the United States.

There was consternation in the Kremlin. The Soviet Politburo was called into 24-hour session. Although not reported at the time, Khrushchev was holding long telephone conversations with Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, the leaders of China. In fact, a Chinese delegation, headed by Liu Shao-chi, was dispatched to Moscow. After discussing the various possible courses of action, they agreed not to use military force in Hungary. The Chinese went even further, recommending the Soviet Union leave Hungary. Soviet Politburo members Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail A. Suslov were sent to Budapest with instructions to negotiate an armistice with Nagy.

On Oct. 28, it was agreed that Soviet forces were to leave Hungary, and Nagy would be recognized as prime minister, with Gen. Paul Maletar, commander of the Hungarian armed forces, as defense minister. In the next 24 hours, Soviet forces were withdrawn from Budapest, and one of the four Soviet divisions had left Hungary. Nagy moved rapidly to form a multiparty government--including representatives of the old Democratic Socialist and Peasant parties. Nagy proposed that Hungary be granted neutral status similar to Austria. He hoped the Western powers would support this. Indeed, the U.S. government subsequently learned that one reason the Soviets and Chinese considered it prudent for the Red Army to withdraw from Hungary was because they expected the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to support the freedom fighters.

During September, 1956, while our wives were vacationing, I shared a house with two high ranking British diplomats, one the former senior aide to Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Night after night, they talked with growing anger and frustration about the intolerable behavior of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian leader who had nationalized the Suez Canal. After all, the Suez Canal was more important to Britain and other Europeans than the Panama Canal was to the United States, but the United States, they felt, was showing insufficient concern. Not until a month later did I understood the terrible implications of this impasse.

For the Hungarian freedom fighters were struck down as a result of the actions the British ultimately decided to take. On Oct. 30, using the Hungarian events as cover, British, French and Israeli troops invaded Egypt in an attempt to regain control of the Suez Canal. Eden had launched the invasion without consulting the United States. Furthermore, the invasion came in the last days of the U.S. election campaign between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai E. Stevenson. Secretary of State Dulles was enraged at the allies’ deception--especially because of the implications for Hungary.

The issue was immediately taken to the U.N. Security Council. Khrushchev had announced that, unless the invading forces left Egypt, he was prepared to send Soviet “volunteer” forces to assist Nasser. However, the Security Council reached an unusual consensus: the United States and Canada, joined by the Soviet Union and China, voted that the British, French and Israeli forces should end the invasion at once. But the damage was done. While the world spotlight was focused on the Middle East, Khrushchev ordered his troops back into Hungary. On Nov. 4, massive Soviet tank units entered Budapest, and crushed the rebellion, in a bloody battle.

The Hungarians fought fiercely, with more than 20,000 killed, and 150,000 wounded. Thousands of Soviets were killed as well, but they had broken the resistance. During the next month, more than 200,000 Hungarians escaped to the West. Nagy and Maletar were granted asylum in the Yugoslav Embassy, but were later captured and executed. Last month, Nagy was reburied with honors as a leader and patriot.

In 1956, the odds were probably against the Hungarians, even if there had not been an invasion of Egypt. Khrushchev was an impulsive risk-taker, as revealed by his confrontation with President John F. Kennedy over Berlin, and his dispatch of medium-range nuclear missiles to Cuba. Yet if the United States, Britain and France had been working together, instead of apart, in 1956, it is possible to imagine a negotiated resolution, guaranteeing Hungarian neutrality on the Austria model.

But that is not the way it was. In his book “Khrushchev Remembers” the Soviet leader reports a conversation between some British and French diplomats with their Soviet counterparts: “You seem to have some trouble on your hands in Poland and Hungary. We’re having some troubles of our own in Egypt. Let’s have a tacit understanding between us that you’ll liquidate your difficulties by whatever means you see fit, and you won’t interfere while we do the same.”

So the Hungarians’ reach for freedom was snuffed out in both 1848 and 1956. Yet now there is another surge of hope. The prospects are brighter than at any time in Hungarian history. Last month, the Hungarian government and its Parliament took action calculated to transform Hungarian society with a new constitution that creates a multiparty system.

The people of Hungary will probably vote for a majority of independent non-Communist representatives in the coming elections. There may be a coalition government, with important representation from the new Socialist Party, and Hungary probably will remain in the Warsaw Pact for a while--but there will be growing links to Western Europe, and, in time, Hungary will likely become neutral between East and West, as Nagy proposed in 1956.

The dangers of 1956 no longer exist. In a speech in Helsinki, on Oct. 25, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said the Soviet Union has no moral or political right to interfere in the affairs of its East European neighbors. He praised neutral Finland, as a model of stability. The future of Eastern Europe is inevitably linked with Gorbachev and his new thinkers. Thus, it is clearly in U.S., Hungarian and Polish interests that they not fail.