Tag Archives: Hungary

The Hungarian “Revolt” of 1956 – a detailed historical look at the events

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 50 minutes

Declassified documents on the assassination of President Kennedy show, in particular, that the uprising in Hungary in 1956 was supervised and sponsored by the CIA.

The recent declassification of the JFK files had a welcome side-effect – it showed that a lot of what the Soviet Union was saying regarding the Western meddling was not some “conspiracy theory”, but solid conspiracy facts. One such fact, is the Western meddling the in bloody 1956 colour revolution attempt in Hungary. The other fact is that the “revolt” was in fact a fascist revanchist attempt.

In the presented materials it becomes clear how the pardon and release by Hrushyov in 1955 of hundreds of Hungarian Nazi-criminals convicted of war crimes and atrocities committed during the Great patriotic War proved crucial to the organisation and conduct of the fascist counter-revolution attempt in October 1956.

In this article we present five materials, both from the English-language publications, and translated from Russian. Pay attention to their publication dates.

We shall start with 3 shorter publications, then moving to a longer illustrated article, which takes a broader historical perspective into account. Finally, there is a long article which references several contemporary Soviet notes and evaluations of the months and days before the attempted coup.

Read also the article “Hungary: bloody autumn 56” at TopWar!

Burn after reading: Operation Focus and the fictional Nemzeti Ellenzéki Mozgalom in the lead-up to the 1956 Hungarian Uprising

This article is only available as an abstract. It was published on December 8, 2022 as part of the book “Cold War History”.

ABSTRACT

From 1954 to 1956, the Free Europe Press, sister organisation to Radio Free Europe, engaged in a covert propaganda campaign known as Operation Focus. Writing under the alias of the fictional Hungarian partisan group Nemzeti Ellenzéki Mozgalom, the campaign encouraged widespread passive resistance against the communist regime through a coordinated print and radio campaign facilitated via specially-designed weather balloons and RFE broadcasts, respectively. Under pressure from the Hungarian and US governments, the campaign came to end just days before the outbreak of the 1956 Hungarian Rising.

MI6 trained rebels to fight Soviets in Hungarian revolt

– This article was published by “Independent” on October 22, 1996

Some of the rebels who took on the Soviet Union in the Hungarian uprising, 40 years ago this week, were trained by the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – popularly known as MI6 – according to the author of a new book on the history of the organisation.

Last night, the Foreign Office said it would not comment on “operational intelligence matters”. However, Michael Smith, the author of New Cloak, Old Dagger, to be published by Gollancz on 7 November, said: “The officers I spoke to said there was an intention to cause an uprising in Hungary.” But he added: “There is no evidence that this was specifically sparked by MI6 because there was another series of events”.

An estimated 15,000 mainly young, working-class Hungarians took up arms in the 1956 uprising, defying the might of the Soviet military for almost two weeks. An estimated 3,000-4,000 Hungarians died in the revolt, which represented the most serious challenge to Soviet rule in Eastern Europe since it was imposed following the Second World War.

In 1955 the reformist Hungarian prime minister, Imre Nagy, was forced to resign, and in 1956 the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced Stalin and his legacy. The clamour for reform began to grow. The revolt broke out on 23 October after more than 100,000 students took to the streets to call for free elections, the withdrawal of Soviet forces and the reinstatement of Mr Nagy. Small bands of fighters established pockets of resistance and demobilised scores of Soviet tanks.

Some of the weapons used were American, and others almost certainly British. Mr Smith says MI6 and the CIA had buried arms caches in the woods around Prague and Budapest for use by “stay-behind” parties or fifth columnists in case of war.

The mid-1950s were regarded by the British and the United States as the last chance to challenge Soviet dominion over eastern Europe. The Eisenhower administration had been elected on a platform of “liberating” the Soviet satellite states, but in the 10 years since the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union had strengthened its hold over the central and eastern part of the continent.

The name of Mr Smith’s main contact – a military officer working for MI6 – has been withheld under a D-notice. However, he recalled “picking up agents on the Hungarian border” to take them across in to the British-occupied zone of Austria in 1954. “We were taking them up into the mountains and giving them a sort of … crash course. I would be told to pick somebody up from a street corner at a certain time of night in the pouring rain. Graz was our staging point. Then, after we’d trained them – explosives, weapons training – I used to take them back … We were training the agents for the uprising.”

In return, the British received information. Paul Gorka was one of a group of students recruited in the early 1950s to gather intelligence on Soviet activity in Hungary. “In due course we received coded messages from Vienna asking us for information about Russian troop movements … We replied with information written in invisible ink in innocuous letters to special addresses.”

Unfortunately the Budapest students met in a coffee bar to discuss their activities and were swiftly rounded up. Mr Gorka was interrogated for several weeks, strung up from a beam and immersed in icy water. Under torture, he confessed, and was sent to prison for 15 years.

Laszlo Regeczy-Nagy, the President of the Committee for Historical Justice, representing the interests of the veterans, said: “There were thousands of Hungarians living in Austria at the time and some were undoubtedly organised and trained by the British.” He believes that foreign intervention played a modest role, and “the vast majority of those taking part [in the revolt] were locally trained and led”. He added: “Even without training, they pretty quickly learned how to fire machine guns and hurl Molotov cocktails.”

The Liquidation or The Bloody Autumn of 1956

– Historian Nikolai Starikov published this blog post on April 29, 2017:

In my new book “War. With someone else’s hands,” I analyse in detail the causes, course and essence of the so-called “uprising” in Hungary in 1956. In fact, it was a rebellion heavily based on purely “colour technologies”. The United States and Great Britain stood behind it. What for and why did our “partners” need the Budapest uprising can be found in my book, which will appear in early June 2017.

This article was published a year and a half ago in one of the mass media of Kazakhstan. We are interested in it as a living historical document, as an eyewitness account. One that is telling the truth.

And the truth looks as follows:
1. There was a fascist uprising in Hungary in 1956. On the streets of Budapest and other cities, Hungarian fascists killed Hungarian communists.
2. The technology of organising an insurrection is tricky and simple at the same time: it is a cross between the Maidan in Kiev and Gorbachev. That is, “colour” technologies multiplied by the betrayal of the Hungarian elite led by Imre Nagy.
3. The USSR did absolutely the right thing by suppressing this rebellion. The Hungarian Communists did this alongside our soldiers.
4. The fault of the USSR leadership lies in that, by his actions at the beginning of “de-Stalinization”, Hrushyov created a pretext and a backdrop for rebellion and an attempt to split the Soviet bloc. There are only a few months between the Twentieth Congress and the uprising in Hungary…
5. During the rebellion, the “rebels” committed heinous crimes: murders, burning people alive, torture, robberies, rapes.
6. The West was not going to support the rebels at all, it needed the shooting in Budapest for completely different purposes. (the details are in my new book “War. By someone else’s hands”)
Continue reading →

Exhibition of Samples of Trophy Weapons (1943-1948). An article and a documentary.

Posted on by
Reading time: 12 minutes

The article you are about to read is dedicated to the exhibition of the weaponry from Germany and their accomplices, trophied after their invasion of the USSR on the 22nd of June 1941.

On the 22nd of June 1943, exactly two years after the Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, the central park of Moscow, bearing the name of Maxim Gorky, opened its gates to an extensive exhibition over the trophied armaments of Nazi-Germany and its accomplices. The exhibition lasted until 1948.

The article consists of three parts: first comes the cinematographic essay, filmed in 1943 to give an overview of the exhibition, then a short note with the documents from Moscow City Archive, and finally, a portion of a historiographic work, dedicated to the exhibition.

Only one thought to add – the tradition that started during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 has now seen a rebirth during the present-day Patriotic War, with the exhibition of the weaponry of the Nazi Germany’s successor being displayed on the Poklonnaya Mountain in Moscow from the 1st of May 2024.

We publish about the trophy exhibition, past and present, at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, for example in this and this post.

Let’s go!

Trophies of the Great Battles

A short cinematographic essay, filmed in colour, presented the visible testimony over the ongoing victories on the battlefield over the invading horde.

The essay is full of jabs and snide remarks, mixed with facts and figures – just the way we like to watch the parallel present-day events unfold now, 80 years later.


Backup at Rumble.

Visible evidence of our victories: The Moscow Main Archive tells about the exhibition of captured German weapons

23.04.2020

The Main Archive of the capital contains documents documenting the creation of an exhibition of samples of weapons and military equipment trophied by the Red Army in battles with Nazi troops and their allies. The exposition was opened on June 22, 1943 and operated until 1948.

The decision to create an exhibition pavilion “Trophies of War” on the territory of Gorky Park was made back in December 1941, when the successful counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Moscow provided residents of the capital with exhibits of the most diverse kind. In 1942, the exhibition pavilion began to operate. However, it was located deep inside the territory of the park, near the border with the Neskuchny Garden, and did not attract mass attention. A more impressive demonstration of our combat achievements was needed.
Continue reading →

“We have nothing to lose!”
The refugees, who arrived in the European Union are ready to revolt

Posted on by
Reading time: 6 minutes

This spring I travelled to Austria and Hungary, spending a few days in Vienna, and then reaching Budapest by train. Budapest gave me the impression of a rather clean and sleepy city, a city of contrasts, where some buildings in the main street were in desperate need of repairs, while another building right beside it would glitter with newest uplifting. And overall, a rather friendly city to be in. But nothing spoke of the coming disaster in the form of the hoards of the refugees – both real and for-hire, who would swamp Hungary in only a month’s time…

In this light, the following article in “Argumenty i Fakty” seemed very enlightening. It is written by the travelling journalist Georgij Zotov and is the first article in a series of two, the second telling about the situation in Austria. The original can be read in the newspaper weekly “Arguments and Facts” number 39 9/23/2015. Translation of the second article, pertaining Austria, can be read here.

“We have nothing to lose!”
The refugees, who arrived to the European Union are ready to revolt

Crowds of desperate Arab refugees storm the “entrance” to the EU. However, it is not too late for Europe to join Russia to work together so as to destroy the “Islamic state.” Otherwise, the worst predictions will come true.

You know, it’s just a real apocalypse. Dirt. Everywhere heaps of rubbish. Barking of the police dogs. Thousands of people wander under the cold rain on rusty rail tracks – wet, hungry, exhausted, with children in their arms. At the police cordon volunteers gave them bananas, they sat down on the ground and ate them right there. A hastily built wall on the border did not improve the situation – the refugees climb over it, throwing clothing over the barbed wire. Old railway near the town Rёske (following it, the refugees travel to Hungary on foot) was blocked by a carriage. The Iraqis and Syrians on the Serbian side openly discuss the possibility to dig a tunnel: “Then try to make our way through the forest in Austria and Germany … It is better to sleep off during the day, and walk by night.” Police are trying to put the newcomers into buses to be sent to a filtration camp. Some accept it, others break through the cordon and walk on foot 170 kilometres (!) To Budapest: taxi drivers and drivers of private vehicles are forbidden to give them a lift. Along the road tired refugees sit in groups: to gain strength, then to get up and move on. Crawl they may have to do, but forward – to Europe.

“We will start a rebellion”

– Previously, local Gypsies took the Arabs along the secret paths, asking $500 per person – says the captain of the Hungarian police Attila Rakosi. – Now so many refugees have accumulated, that they can not be held back at a checkpoint. The border is now closed, but will it have any effect? Syrians and Iraqis have gone to a bypass – through Croatia. We do not register people, don’t even look though their passports – as the result, many of the “guests” from the Arab countries scattered across Europe. On many occasions I identify former soldiers among the refugees. When I frankly wonder against whom they fought, I get a scripted response – “for democracy and against Syrian President Assad”. But frankly, it is the “Islamic state” that is fighting against Assad… I have a strong feeling that I’m just losing my mind: perhaps we are witnessing the end of Europe.

Hastily equipped Hungarian refugee camp for refugees from the Middle East and Northern Africa is located in the open field, three kilometres from the border. There Syrians, Libyans and Iraqis lodge in army tents, handed out blankets and food. But there is nowhere to wash – chronic shortage of water. There is a constant traffic jam at the gates – 4-5 buses stay there, crowded with refugees, having just arrived from Rёske. Police does not let journalists into the camp to talk to people, so I walk up to the fence. “I am here with the children for five days!” – complains 36-year-old Mustafa from the Libyan city of Sirte. – “My house was bombed already 4 years ago during NATO air raids, I lived with relatives, but we had to run here because of the attack on Sirte from the “Islamic state.” We were promised to be taken to Germany, but persistent rumours of deportation back to Serbia are spreading. If this happens, the rebellion will rise … We have nothing more to lose!”

“Throw them into the sea?”

Officials privately admit: the situation is dreadful. Hungary is not prepared, there is the danger of epidemics: people live on the ground, in unsanitary conditions, do not wash. I’ve seen a lot of camps in Iraq, where the Kurdish survivors of ISIS live – there things are organized much better. Here it’s a mess, oceans of dirt, piles of garbage. It is clear: Europe did not fully believe in the influx of the refugees.

– There have already been cases where the elderly have died – says the Hungarian volunteer Maria Hedek. – They cross the border, lay down, and do not get up. There is a lack of medicines, there is no funding: The EU promised the Hungary money, but not really helped. Brussels do not care about our problems. This is interesting: Americans and the British fought in Iraq, Libya was bombed by the Italians and French, militants in Syria were trained all of them together, while the Hungarians must take responsibility for this. 10 thousand refugees come to Rёske every day… and what should the police do: take them back to Greece and to drop back into the sea? It is necessary to destroy the ISIS, pounce on the terrorists together – and necessarily with the help of Russia.


The main ways of refugees into Europe. Infographics

Inside the underworld

What the emotional Libyan Mustafa warned about, happens in the evening. The refugees walk out of the camp gates in Rёske and in front of the bewildered guards scatter in all directions, while about a thousand of their “colleagues” from Serbia are storming the Hungarian fence. Stones are thrown at the police, the guardians of order respond by firing tear gas, even though there are lots of children in the crowd. We hear screaming and children crying, the refugees are in full frenzy, break through the barriers and begin beating the police, those respond with batons. Spray of blood scatter around, giving the feeling that I am in one of the circles of hell. Women throw children over the barbed wire: “Let at least them get into the EU!” An hour later the refugees are finally being pushed back, and wiping broken faces, they use the foulest words about Europe. Residents of Rёske watch the battle with the outright resignation. “You see how much trash there is all around?” – sighs a local farmer. – “The town turned into a dustbin. Why not ask the refugees to clean up after themselves? But the authorities piled everything on us, the service can not cope with cleaning up of the surrounding area. Leftovers are rotting everywhere, dirty clothes lying lying around.”

…The night only confirms the thought of apocalypse. Howling of dogs is heard, refugees along the borders of the EU lit fires – and there is no end to them in sight. The US adventure with the overthrowing of the rulers of Iraq and Libya, as well as US support for the civil war in Syria and Yemen has forced Europe to spit blood, and this is just the beginning. “Islamic state” is not held back by anyone – it can easily spread to Egypt and Turkey, and Jordan… And then absolute “fun” will start. It is still not too late for Europe to reach out to Russia: so as by joining forces in Syria, together pounce on militants of ISIS. Otherwise Apocalypse will become a reality. Being in Rёske, you realize this with specially clarity.

The Hungarian Amnesia

Posted on by
Reading time: 6 minutes

Below is my translation of an article by Georgij Zotov, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 13th of February 2015:

Despite the fact that Hungary joined Hitler and attacked the USSR, the position of the local historians is often the same: in 1945 the country became a “victim of Soviet tyranny.” Is this true? An “AiF” observer is trying to make sense of the situation.

In number 3 of “AiF” we published a report from Poland “The Sorrow of a Warsaw Woman” (English translation here): why Polish politicians and the media ignored the memory of Soviet soldiers who liberated Warsaw. The article caused an unprecedented surge of responses and questions from readers: how do things stand with memory in other European countries? In this regard, commemorating the 70th anniversary of Victory, “AIF” begins a series of reports from European capitals that the Red Army occupied after Warsaw: on February 13, 1945 it liberated Budapest.

Soldier with PCA was removed

– Of course, we are absolutely not like Poles – a freelance journalist Laszlo Kovacs, who in 1981-1986 studied in the USSR, politely starts the conversation. – In Hungary, there is no general negative attitude towards Russia, our Prime Minister is in favour of the construction of the “South Stream” and the cessation of the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions. However, as in the rest of Eastern Europe, our media since 1989, hammered into people’s minds the same thing, that in 1945 the evil Russians came here and brought on tips of their bayonets the communist regime. We tend to forget that in fact it was Hungary that joined Hitler and declared war on the Soviet Union and sent to the Eastern Front hundreds of thousands of soldiers – during the Battle of Stalingrad a whole Hungarian army perished there. We took the land of the neighbours in Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia. In just one year the Hungarian police and SS together with the Germans destroyed 450,000 local Jews and 28,000 Gypsies. It’s just awful. The Red Army saved Hungarians from becoming a Nazi monsters.


Before and after: a monument to our soldiers completely anonymised. Photo: RIA Novosti, AIF / Georgy Zotov

And what is the gratitude for the salvation? Stepping carefully on the steep stairs, I climb Mount Gellert: in 1947 there was a monument to 80,000 Soviet soldiers killed in the battle for the capital of Hungary. You can see in my photos what’s left of it – a bronze figure of a soldier with the PCA has been removed, five-pointed star is removed, the names of all 146 who died in the battle for Gellert carefully erased from the marble stella – a monument was simply made impersonal. And not far from another obelisk to the soldiers of the USSR in the center of Budapest (at Freedom Square), there is even a monument to… an ally of Hitler – dictator Miklos Horthy. And even though this initiative is not coming from the government, but from the far-right party “Jobbik”, the closeness is quite disgusting.

– I want to emphasize – the installation of a bronze likeness of Horthy has caused a storm of protest in Budapest!, explains historian Istvan Hegedyush. – Yes, it should be recognized: Hungary acted badly when it comes to the monument on Gellert Hill – in the nineties the politicians were vying to portray themselves as fighters against “communist tyranny.” Hungarians then tempered… signed an agreement with the Government of the Russian Federation on the status of military graves: the graves of the soldiers are looked after, kept clean, fresh flowers are put there. Recently, we have restored the Soviet military cemetery Kerepesi Cemetery and invited relatives of soldiers buried there to visit Hungary without a visa. Hundreds of young people are involved in scouting forces, searching for the remains of the Red Army, so as to bury them with honour. But, of course, the attitude of the Hungarians to the Victory has strongly been influenced by the sense of offence, as a popular uprising in 1956 was drowned in the blood by your army. Then many viewed Russians not as liberators Russian from Nazism, but as occupiers.


Hungary’s capital in ruins. Restoration will be done at the expense of the USSR. Photo: RIA Novosti / I. Ozersky

The revolution, suppressed on Khrushchev’s orders, cost the Hungarian people 2652 killed citizens. The war on Hitler’s side claimed the lives of 300,000 Hungarian soldiers and 600,000 civilians – 10 percent (!) Of the total population. This is not to mention the following: the Soviet Union “shelved” the facts of Hungary’s participation in punitive operations in 1941-1944 in our country. Executions of women, burnt villages, the executions of the partisans, torture of prisoners of war – tens of thousands of victims. Documents are still kept in Russian archives: take only one case among many. On May 28, 1942 Hungarian soldiers shot 350 people in the village of Svetlov in Bryansk region “for helping the partisans”. Peasant woman gave E. Vedeshina gave testimony about it, the punishers killed her four children – 11, 8, 5 and 1 year(!) old. She miraculously survived, lying in a hole under the children’s corpses. Why am I saying this? Seems like we must forgive these kinds of atrocities, but our mistakes in Eastern Europe, no one at all forgets and is still reminding us about at every step.

“There’s nothing to thank for”

It can hardly be disputed, that after the Victory, Stalin established a regime, unpleasant for most Hungarians. However, in 1945 the Soviet Union didn’t treat Hungary as a country-aggressor (which it had the rights to do): reparations were symbolic, unlike Germany, the state was not dismembered, the government of the USSR financed the rise of the capital of Hungary from the ruins in 1950-1960s, rebuilt five bridges across the Danube. Maybe these facts should be remember too along with the “tyranny”? But no. Supporters of the label of “Soviet occupation” are ill with an interesting kind of amnesia: everything that the Soviet Union did wrong, they remember very well, but what was good, is forgotten.

After 70 years, Hungary views its liberation differently than Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States: the war with the monuments has seized, and the former SS men have no respect. Although the theme of Victory remains difficult for the local community. Hungarian Embassy in Russia, once promising to help with the interview on the topic of February 13, 1945, didn’t find a single person(!) who wanted to comment on this event, and I had to look to the interlocutors. Often we hear such opinions: “It’s enough to reproach Russian for past, but also there’s nothing to thank Russia for”. Fortunately, there are enough people with a sense of gratitude living in Hungary – the descendants of the Jews saved from the concentration camps, veterans from among thousands of Hungarian military who switched to the side of the Red Army in 1945, the participants of the anti-fascist organizations. IT will be them, who will put flowers on the graves of Soviet soldiers on the anniversary of the liberation of Budapest. Only those who wish so themselves are ill with amnesia in Eastern Europe…