Operation Whirlpool

Forty years ago this month, an uprising in Hungary tested the liberal credentials of the new Khrushchev regime and ended a warming trend in the Cold War. Noted historian Roy Medvedev describes the events of autumn 1956 in Budapest from a contemporary Russian standpoint.

The 1989 Velvet Revolutions, which brought democracy to Eastern Europe, were preceded by many decades of dramatic struggle, complex political evolution and revolutionary upheavals. Among them, the popular uprising in Budapest has a special place. Though cruelly suppressed by the Soviet army, or perhaps because of this fact, it left an indelible mark in the national consciousness of the Hungarian people and the political history of Europe.

Over the last 40 years, assessments of the events of October 23- November 4, 1956 have changed many times both in Soviet/Russian and Hungarian historical literature. It has been seen variously as an anti-Soviet imperialist counter-revolutionary revolt, a popular democratic reform movement, a national liberation movement and outright civil war.

One thing is clear — various political movements with very different aims joined together, and the character of these groups was distorted by interference from outside. But even so, the main ideas which inspired the youth, intelligentsia, soldiers and workers of Budapest were freedom, democracy, independence and socialism with a human face.

Roots of the crisis

Hungary is a country with a contradictory and complex history. For over three centuries it was under Austrian rule, against which it rebelled many times. In fact, it would have been independent in 1848, had not Russian Tsar Nicholas I sent 130,000 troops across the Carpathian mountains to shore up his Austrian allies, thus earning himself the title ‘the gendarme of Europe.’

The collapse of the Habsburg Empire and independence in 1918 was followed by a brief period of socialist rule. This, in turn, gave way in less than six months to a rightist dictatorship under a former rear-admiral in the Austro-Hungarian navy, Miklos Horthy. Twenty years later, Horthy became one of Nazi Germany’s staunchest allies, and as a result of Hungary’s position in the war, the resistance movement was weaker than elsewhere in Europe. Consequently, the progress of the Red Army through the country in 1944-5 was slow and painful.

After the war, Soviet troops remained in Hungary, facilitating a communist takeover and later stalinist purges by Party leader Mathias Rakosi. Paradoxically, among those imprisoned was the moderate Janos Kadar, who was to lead Hungary after the 1956 uprising.

Although Hungary remained economically backward at the beginning of the 1950s, it set a course for the rapid development of Soviet-style socialism. In this small, poor country, huge metallurgy and machine-building factories sprang up which did nothing but undermine the economy and the nation’s strength. Hurried measures to collectivize agriculture also caused great harm.

A new wave of repressions left 150-200,000 political prisoners in the jails and camps. But even this was unable to stop the growth of dissatisfaction and rumblings which gripped society soon after the death of Stalin in 1953.

Reformers gain control

The breaking point came after the famous 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party (February 1956). Khrushchev’s secret speech exposing Stalin very quickly became known not only to the Soviet Embassy in Hungary (then headed by 42-year-old Yuri Andropov) but also to many ordinary Hungarians, on which it had a huge effect. Meetings and demonstrations were held throughout the spring and summer, where demands for the removal of Rakosi and freeing of political prisoners grew ever louder.

Rakosi and security heads wanted to suppress this movement by force, but the Soviet Embassy opposed this, and, without the approval of Moscow, Rakosi was afraid to take decisive measures. Leading Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan came to Budapest in July for a plenum of the Hungarian Workers’ Party Central Committee. Rakosi was relieved of the leadership of the party and country and was replaced by Erno Gero, himself considered no supporter of democratic reforms. Janos Kadar and other moderates returned to the party leadership, and, under their influence, Hungary began a mass rehabilitation of political prisoners.

Meanwhile, in Poland, the March 12 death of party leader Boleslaw Beirut allowed for political amnesties and a measure of destalinization. A subsequent strike in Poznan was put down severely by the new government, led by Wladislaw Gomulka. Yet afterward Gomulka proferred conciliation — noting that the cause of the unrest was internal economic problems, not external threats (the version voiced by Moscow). This spurred a growth in anti-Soviet sentiment, which Gomulka used to test Khrushchev’s policy, touted at the 20th Party Congress, of ‘different paths’ to socialism. In mid-October, after repeated, embarrassing diplomatic rebuffs, Khrushchev responded by moving Soviet troops in Silesia toward the capital. Gomulka bowed to the pressure, but was able to continue to pursue more liberal economic policies.

For Khrushchev, the lesson was that force brought wayward satellites back into orbit. But, for Hungarian reformists, the lesson was that you could defy Moscow to some benefit.

It is against this backdrop that the political atmosphere in Hungary intensified into the fall of 1996. Nationalist feeling increased among the youth. The crisis developed into a situation verging on revolution. Khrushchev, flying from one Eastern European capital to another, knew that his political survival depended on normalization in these countries. Opposition to him had already appeared in the Central Committee, which linked the ‘counter-revolutionary rumblings’ in Warsaw Pact countries with policies flowing from Khrushchev’s secret speech at the 20th Party Congress. What was more, many Soviet people still considered Hungary a recent enemy, and to them, the idea of its departure from the Soviet bloc was unacceptable.

Things came to a head on October 23 (three days after the Polish crisis had ended), when a 2-300,000-strong demonstration outside the parliament demanded the full exposure of Rakosi’s crimes, the removal of Gero and the return of leading reformer and former premier Imre Nagy, another victim of Rakosi’s purges, to government. Most demonstrators did not oppose socialism in principle, and crowds of youth sang both the Marseillaise and the Internationale.

Nagy, newly prime minister, tried to persuade the crowds to go home peacefully and calmly await the settlement of their demands, but a threatening and reproachful radio speech by Gero upset the younger demonstrators. They descended on the radio offices, where the first clashes with the security forces took place.

That night, sporadic clashes between demonstrators and communist units flared up in various parts of the city. A panicking Gero asked through Andropov for the intervention of Soviet tanks. General Lashenko, the commanding officer of the Special Corps, replied that he took orders only from Moscow. That night students pulled down a huge statue of Stalin, and the revolt spread.

The next day, Nagy supposedly consented to the government’s request to ask for Soviet troops to enter Budapest (he later denied doing this). This only fanned the flames of resistance and brought about no improvement in public order. Some Soviet troops fired on demonstrators, others fraternized with them. Four days later, Nagy negotiated a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the capital.

By this time, however, the Soviet Politburo had decided events in Hungary had gotten out of hand and were ‘counterrevolutionary’. It is unclear when Khrushchev actually decided to use force, but it seems the decision was influenced by events in Egypt, where the Suez crisis had left the Western allies with their hands tied and somewhat at odds between themselves.

On November 1, Nagy raised the ante. He declared that Hungary was to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and appealed to the West for protection of Hungarian neutrality.

On November 3, Janos Kadar and Ferenc Munnich, previously members of the Nagy government, appeared in Uzhgorod in bordering Ukraine and declared themselves the heads of a provisional, revolutionary government requesting Soviet intervention.

The uprising is crushed

In the dawn of November 4, Soviet troops re-entered Budapest and heavy street fighting began. The Soviet military operation was called ‘Whirlpool,’ and controlled personally by Marshal Zhukov, World War II hero and then Soviet Defense Minister.

It took just eight days. On November 20, a coded message from top Soviet officials in Budapest reported:

“Since November 12 our forces have not been carrying out any military operations, although some individual units in the provinces are pursuing small gangs of rebels with a view to liquidating them. There have been no armed outbreaks, not even isolated ones. The majority of rebels have either lain or thrown down their weapons.”

The new Kadar government was installed in Budapest.

According to Hungarian historians, the total number killed on the Hungarian side was 2,502, and 19,226 were wounded. The Soviet forces lost 1,600 dead and around 2,000 wounded.

Yuri Andropov was in the Budapest embassy throughout October and November 1956 (oddly enough, another future KGB head, later 1991 coup plotter Vladimir Kryuchkov was also serving there as a regular staffer). Although political and military decisions were taken at the state level, Andropov was far from being on the sidelines, giving advice and communicating regularly with Moscow. He did not oppose harsh measures in Hungary, yet, considering his former links with the Hungarian leadership, he was regularly given mediation missions in various negotiations. He often appeared in Nagy’s office in those two weeks, and was there when the Soviet forces, after temporarily withdrawing from Budapest, once again entered the city with tank and infantry reinforcements.

The battles which flared up in the city were exceptionally fierce, but the odds against the Hungarians were too great. Their units suffered heavy losses, and soon tens of thousands of participants in the uprising, political figures and returned emigres started crossing the border to Austria, which Zhukov refrained from closing.

Recent revelations

In recent years, secret Communist Party and KGB archives, including those on 1956-7 in Hungary, have become more accessible to historians. During a visit to Budapest in 1992, President Boris Yeltsin gave 47 documents from the Presidential (former Politburo) archive and 17 from the Foreign Ministry archives to the Hungarian government. But most documents have not yet been studied, put in order or computerized, and therefore are not ready for systematic research.

From the documents that are available, though, we know that Imre Nagy first took refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. On November 22 he left the embassy for home after being given assurances of personal safety from the Kadar government. Nonetheless, he  was immediately arrested, held for some time in Romania and then in the Soviet Union, then was sent back to Budapest in 1957 to face a secret trial. The indictment was drawn up jointly between the USSR and Hungarian governments, and Andropov acquainted himself with it at the end of August, 1957 in Moscow.

Excerpts from CPSU Central Committee minutes of August 26, 1957 appeared in the Soviet press. In these, Andropov and others reported on a discussion with the Hungarian Interior Minister about the contents of the Nagy group case and the resolutions of the Hungarian leadership on it. They concluded that the indictment was acceptable, but “needs more work, particularly on the part which exposes the links of Nagy’s treacherous group with imperialists and the role the latter played in the preparations for and carrying out of the counter-revoluationary revolt.”

Imre Nagy and several of his colleagues were tried in Budapest in 1957. Nagy was sentenced to death and shot.

Contrary to the expectations of some Western political scientists, Hungary’s new authorities quickly established full control, though in the process 10,000 people were arrested and almost 200,000 emigrated (most eventually ending up in the United States). However, a series of quick amnesties reduced political tensions. Unlike Rakosi’s regime, Kadar’s was no tyranny, and he was able to stabilize the economy quickly and carry out important reforms, as a result gaining some popularity in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In the West, Hungary became known as the country of ‘goulash socialism,’ with relative material prosperity and even some elements of glasnost.

Kadar headed the newly named Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party for over 30 years, yet he was unable to adapt to the economic and political changes of the perestroika era and was removed from office in May 1988.

He died a year later at the age of 77. In his last testament he wrote: “The tragedy of Imre Nagy was my own personal tragedy.” In the same document, however, Kadar stated that he felt no regrets about his role in the events of 1956. “We did what our consciences dictated. After all, someone had to take responsibility. I thought then, and I still think now, that we acted in the interests of the Hungarian people.”

The unrepentant stance of Kadar is typical of the last generation of old guard communist leaders in Eastern Europe. However, recent history shows that, as with the East German and Bulgarian leaders later tried for the excesses of their regimes, the people he led think otherwise.

Perhaps it is thanks to him, though, that Hungarians’ rejection of Stalinism did not grow into open hostility towards Russia or socialism in general. Thus, in 1994, a reformed socialist party came back into power as the effects of the transition to a market economy, and the loss of cultural and economic links with Russia, began to bite.