The Hungarian Uprising October 1956

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ The other day I picked up an interesting little pamphlet written by the late Peter Fryer.

Peter Fryer was an English Marxist and member of the Communist Party, later the Communist Party of Great Britain, who was on the staff of the party’s newspaper, The Daily Worker, later to be renamed The Morning Star. Peter was despatched to Hungary to report on the events taking place there in October of 1956, an uprising against the Stalinist regime which was subservient to the Soviet Union and which the people were pretty pissed off with, and that is an understatement.

Fryer was sent by the CP to report on the events which were occurring and the party, which were themselves Stalinist, did not like the report Peter sent back. The CP then in turn supressed his report according to this little pamphlet, Hungarian Tragedy, first published in 1956 then republished in 1986. The events of Hungary during this period are a subject I have not revisited for a number of years which prompted me to pick up this easy read. The questions asked were, was the Hungarian rising a fascist led coup against socialism? An attempt to return the country to ‘capitalism and landlordism’ of the past? An American sparked rising under the control of Washington? These were claims made by the Soviet Union, with a certain amount of justification, prompting their invasion.

These questions were interesting because the USA had and has a track record of fuelling coups and uprisings in other countries against systems they do not approve of! There can be little doubt the US were certainly interfering on the periphery of the uprising but to what extent? Were they financing it? Were they in league with ‘fascist’ and ‘reactionary’ groups trying to direct the revolution into resurrecting ‘capitalism and landlordism’? If they were the US would never admit to it but let’s say their fingerprints were on the gun, a smoking gun! I would not write off this possibility as quickly as Peter. Stalinism is a cruel distortion of socialism used by the western media on behalf of governments as evidence why socialism will never work. Don’t listen to them, they are talking crap and they know it! Most of us owe the Soviet Red Army a world of gratitude for defeating the Nazis at Stalingrad and Kursk in 1943. Without these victories of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany it is unlikely the Western allies would have won the day, certainly as early as they did. It was the Soviet Red Army which stormed Berlin in 1945 hoisting the red flag over the Reichstag. If Nazi Germany had prevailed at Stalingrad, we could all be speaking German now.

However the Red Army operating in Hungary were not in the same vein as those liberators eleven years previous. After the Second World War the political configuration was completed by 1949 when the so-called ‘Hungarian Peoples Republic’ was formed. This so-called socialist state (which it was not) had little if anything in common with Marxism or even ‘Marxist Leninism’, itself becoming a distortion of the works written by Marx, Engels, and even early Lenin.

The Hungarian Revolution began on 23rd October 1956 as a protest initially against the Soviet Union’s geopolitical interference and domination of Hungary through the Stalinist government of Matyas Rakosi. Students on this protest were shot dead by the AVH (the Stalinist Police) which moved the situation from a protest to a revolution. The revolution was not about reinstalling capitalism, according to Peter Fryer, but about establishing true ‘socialism’ in Hungary. One problem was, in hindsight, that fascist and reactionary groups were on the periphery hoping they could mould the revolutionary demands their way. Perhaps a mistake was not dealing with these small reactionary groups along with the AVH. These fascist and reactionary groups, not dissimilar to the Anti-Semitic groups who latch on to the pro-Palestinian marches today, infiltrated to a very minor degree the revolution. This was, however, enough to give the USSR the self-perceived reason to invade Hungary to ‘fight fascism’ and the ‘White Terror’ which, they claimed, was active in Hungary and were organising this uprising. If the Hungarian revolutionary fighters had dealt with these small groups, assuming they knew who they were and if they did not any fascist utterings should have been detected early, this excuse used by the Stalinist USSR could not have been used.

There were signs early on of reactionary possible involvement and these right-wing groups with fascist leanings should have been stamped on certainly if the aim really was, as Peter asserts, socialist revolution. According to Peter Fryer in his little book, Hungarian Tragedy:

the uprising was neither organised nor controlled by fascists or reactionaries, though reactionaries were undeniably trying to gain control of it.

If Peter could see this surely the revolutionaries could? These people were an even greater threat to the uprising than the USSR and had they gained any kind of control the ideology of the revolution could well have changed in an unpleasant way. In the latter days of the Second World War the Hungarian Nazi puppet government installed by Berlin were as evil and vicious as their masters in Germany. On his arrival in the country one of the first things Fryer noticed was a young soldier working away at a five-pointed red star:

He whistled happily between his teeth as he bent forward in his ill-fitting uniform, closely modelled on the uniform of the Soviet Army. He was absorbed in his task of picking with a nail-file at the red star.

The soldier was obviously trying to remove the red star from the mosaic which was not an easy task.

Eventually the red star came away. Pocketing his nail-file the young soldier ground the bit of stone to powder with his heel and sauntered away.

The question here is, why did he do this? The Red Star is the sign of international socialism and not the preserve of the USSR. If anything, it was the Soviet Union who should have not adopted the red star. If, as Fryer claims, the Hungarian revolution was about installing true socialism in the country, why then take down the symbol of international socialism, the Red Star? It was not a symbol of the USSR. In fact, in 1924 Stalin adopted the unworkable theory and political position of ‘socialism in one country’, and in 1943 dismantled the Communist International (Comintern). It was the USSR under Stalin who disregarded international socialism, so, if Hungary was trying to bring true socialism to their country the Red Star should have been central to any design for the Hungarian masses! Another point of observation; why did the Hungarian revolutionary government abandon the Marxist maxim: ‘Proletarians of the World Unite’? Again giving credence to those who might disagree with Fryer’s analysis but I still give the Hungarian people, at this stage, the benefit of the doubt.

With the demise of the AVH, officially disbanded by the new government of Imre Nagy (later murdered by the Soviets), and to realize their political, economic, and social demands, local soviets (councils of workers) assumed control of municipal government. These councils of workers were something which the Russian Revolution of October 1917 was based upon and should, if the USSR was still loyal to those socialist principles, which they were not, have supported and encouraged these councils. The major error which the Nagy Government made and the USSR could not allow, was declaring Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, leaving a huge hole in the Eastern Bloc's defences in the west, thus allowing NATO an open door in the event of conflict.

Did this give the Soviet Union the right to invade? Well yes and no. They were equally as entitled as the USA were to interfere in Vietnam or invade the tiny island of Grenada, almost three decades later, for electing a Marxist government under the guise that it threatened the security of the USA. US Congressman, Ron Dellums, sent to investigate these claims, concluded no threat existed in Grenada. Nikita Khrushchev considered Hungary leaving the ‘Warsaw Pact’ a threat to the security of the USSR. Therefore, the Soviet leader by the same criteria as that adopted by the USA was right! The US involvement supplying Kai Chang Chek in China against Mao’s Communists, who the masses wanted, with weapons and advisors might be another example of two sets of rules. Rules existed for both then super powers, not just the Soviet Union, and both political and military giants broke these rules.

The people of Hungary were committed to the building of socialism on democratic not dictatorial lines and were equally adamant there would be no return to ‘capitalism and landlordism’. They looked to Yugoslavia and Marshal Tito for inspiration, but not to be ruled by, as it was Tito who stood up to Stalin in 1949. In a letter to Stalin Tito wrote:

Stalin, you have sent your agents three times to assassinate me. I would only have to send my agent to you once. Signed, Tito.

It was this kind of anti-Stalinism which gave the Hungarian freedom fighters heart. The Kremlin claimed that ‘White Terror’ was rife in Hungary which was, according to Fryer, not the case. The Soviet Union had seen ‘White Terror’ at first hand when the Nazis invaded. That was ‘White Terror’ and to say such forces were at work in Hungary was an untruth of the highest level. Another example of White Terror was the actions of Franco in Spain against all opposition. Bruce Renton wrote the ‘truth about the white terror’. “In the provinces only the AVH was physically attacked” (New Statesman November 17):

I had seen no counter-revolutionaries. I had seen the political prisoners liberated . . . I had seen the executioners executed in the fury of the people’s revenge . . . But there was no White Terror. The Communists walked free, the secret police were hanging by their boots. Where then was this counter-revolution, this Wite Terror”? (Truth November 16).

White Terror is the organised suppression by a bourgeois dictatorship of its revolutionary opponents. This dictatorship did not exist in Hungary and there was no evidence to suggest the ‘uprising’ ever intended to bring about this end. The USSR was, at best, perhaps premature in their invasion, at worst, they had no right to invade at all.

The Soviet Union claimed the Nagy government were moving towards fascism which they were not but Peter Fryer writes, which I disagree with:

even if Nagy had been making concessions all along the line to fascism, even if counter-revolution had succeeded, even if White Terror had been raging the Soviet Union would still not have been justified in intervening.

I disagree with Peter because he was writing knowing full well no such threat existed but, it appears, he would have held the same opinion if fascist gangs were rampaging through the streets just like the SA and later SS did in Nazi Germany. By his criteria the fascists should be allowed to roam unmolested? I can see his point but a line has to be drawn as to when fascism is present and must be stopped. That line did not exist in Hungary, but Peter's remedy (do nothing) was equally wrong.

VI Lenin, one of the leaders in the October Revolution in Russia 1917, stated:

if Finland, if Poland, if Ukraine break away from Russia there is nothing bad about that. Anyone who says there is, is a chauvinist. It would be madness to continue the policy of the Tsar Nicholas . . . No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.

Lenin was writing before the rise of fascism in Europe which almost overran the continent. Would he have spoken in this vein if he had witnessed the horrors inflicted on the Soviet Union by the Nazis in the first six months and beyond of their invasion? Karl Marx also wrote, quite correctly but again before the rise of fascism but less questionable; “A people which enslaves others forges its own chains”. This is as true today as it was in the days of Karl Marx but fascism gives us a contradiction! Such a contradiction or contradictions did not exist in Hungary 1956. The question remains, were the vents of Hungary 1956 a bourgeois counter revolution or a proletarian uprising?

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.