The Breaking Point: the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Although whether the the 1956 Revolution was a "civil war" as mentioned in the video is debatable, it was the first armed revolt in a socialist state. It began when university students in Budapest on October 23rd began protesting in the streets, and tried get their list of demands on the radio. Secret policemen shot at the crowd, killing several people. This influenced the students to take up arms, and their numbers grew by the thousands.
Things spread quickly to a bloody revolution, with street-by-street clashes. Workers and citizens in the countryside took up arms to fight the Hungarian police and state security forces. The Hungarian celebrated a short victory from October 28th-November 4, until the Soviets re-entered the country and brutally suppressed the revolt.
From November 1956-early 1957, over 200,000 Hungarians left the state and settled in countries like Austria, West Germany, the United States and Australia. Mass reprisals followed the Soviet invasion of Hungary, with over 13,000 people imprisoned. At the same time, the state passed small reforms like raising workers’ wages and eliminating compulsory food deliveries for agricultural workers. In 1961 General Secretary János Kádár stated that, “Those who are not against us are with us.” This marked the first step towards a reconciliation of sorts with the Hungarian public. The second move in this direction occurred with the general amnesty announced in 1963, when they released most political prisoners. Yet it was not until the leadership committed to passing real socio-economic reforms in the mid-1960s that average Hungarians saw the lasting impact of the 1956 Revolution on their everyday lives.
