HUNGARY
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| Imre Nagy - a new
prime minister of Hungary |
In October 1956 thanks to the Political Office of Hungarian Party of
Workers (Wegierska Partia Pracujacych) Imre Nagy became a member of the
party once again. It was planned that at the end of month there would be
a meeting of Central Committee and Hungarian Parliament. In the meantime,
on October 23rd 1956 there was a demonstration in Budapest, supporting
transformations in Poland. Their slogans were: general elections, return
to many-party system, resignation of the management of Hungarian Party
of Workers and leaving Hungary by USSR armies. The army forces were firing
at the demonstrators. They started to fight. Next day Russian tanks rolled
into Budapest. The demonstration changed into the national uprising. The
communists called it a revolution and called USSR army for help. A lot
of victims included people who did not take part in fights. In Budapest
the detachments of Hungarian People's Army attached demonstrators. Their
commander was colonel Pal Maleter.
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| The uprising in Hungary
in 1956 |
On October 24th 1956 Imre Nagy took over the authority of Hungary. For
the post of first secretary of Hungarian Party of Workers was chosen Janos
Kadar, prisoner from Stalin's times. Russian armies were withdrawn from
Budapest. However during the next few days communists lost control of the
situation. Old democratic parties started to return and the new ones appeared.
Then, on October 30th 1956 Nagy's government announced the many-party system.
Besides Hungarian Party of Workers, coalition government consisted of the
representatives of Party of Little Possessors, National Peasant's Party,
Social Democratic Party. Hungarian Party of Workers was dissolved. Catholic
Church supported the new government. On November 1st, the government announced
neutrality of Hungary and abandonment of Warsaw Treaty Organization. And
the government asked United Nations for help to guarantee its neutrality.
On October 30th the management of the USSR announced a declaration
about the principle of "national neutrality" and it claimed that its affairs
in Hungary and generally in Central Europe, were in danger. On November
4th 1956 in the morning USSR armies went into Budapest. Nagy informed people
through the radio about the beginning of USSR-Hungarian fights. Russians
had much bigger military power. They bombed a workmen district called Csepel
in Budapest. The fights had lasted for over a week. Also on November 4th
1956 Kadar founded "Wegierski Rewolucyjny Rzad Robotniczo-Chlopski" in
Szolnok. Hungarian Party of Workers turned into Hungarian Socialist Party
of Workers (Wegierska Socjalistyczna Partia Robotnicza) with Janos Kadar
as a leader.
On December 11th 1956 there were founded special tribunals of "exceptional
law". Also Workers' Guard (Straz Robotnicza) was created .
During the fights with the USSR army at least 2,5 thousand demonstrators
and thousands of people, not involved in the fights, were killed. Tribunals
sentenced a lot of people to capital punishments - above 2 thousand people.
Thousands of Hungarian families emigrated to Austria.