Hungary during the cold war

Antonio van Meerbeke Restrepo

Emilio Echeverry Grand

GIMNASIO CAMPESTRE

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

During World War II, Hungary was a member of the Axis powers. In 1941, Hungarian forces participated in the occupation of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet union. By 1944, Soviet armies were advancing toward Hungary, and the government began armistice negotiations with the Allies, which were ended by German occupation and regime change. In 1945 Hungarian and German forces in Hungary were defeated by invading Soviet armies.

THE REVOLUTION

The revolution of hungary was been the most important event of the Cold War 1945-1989. In just a few days, starting on October 23, 1956, the communist state and party apparatus was dismantled. The feared AVH secret police was nowhwere to be seen, the judeo-communist star was cut out of all flags and Hungarian army insignia and the government of Imre Nagy was installed. The political prisoners were freed, including Cardinal Joszef Midszenty, Cardinal Primate of Hungary, who had been in prison since 1948.The infamous Soviet "counsellors" and the Soviet Army units disappeared from the Hungarian cities.

THE FIGHTERS

• THE SOVIET UNION AND HUNGARY

• VS

• THE HUNGARY REVOLUTIONARIES

• Ivan Konev from the soviets

• Vs

• Imre Nagy Pál Maléter from the revolutionaries

The beginnings • The revolt began as a student demonstration which attracted

thousands as it marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building. A student delegation entering the radio building in an attempt to broadcast its demands was detained. When the delegation's release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police (ÁVH) from within the building. The news spread quickly and disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital.

• The revolt spread quickly across Hungary, and the government fell. Thousands organized into militias, battling the State Security Police (ÁVH) and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were often executed or imprisoned, as former prisoners were released and armed. Impromptu councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working People´s Partyand demanded political changes. The new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return.

1950-1952

• From 1950 to 1952, the Security Police forcibly relocated thousands of people to obtain property and housing for the Working People's Party members, and to remove the threat of the intellectual and 'bourgeois' class. Thousands were arrested, tortured, tried, and imprisoned in concentration camps, deported to the east, or were executed, including ÁVH founder László Rajk.In a single year, more than 26,000 people were forcibly relocated from Budapest. As a consequence, jobs and housing were very difficult to obtain. The deportees generally experienced terrible living conditions and were impressed as slave labor on collective farms. Many died as a result of the poor living conditions and malnutrition.

Events

• During the night of 23 October, Hungarian Working People's Party Secretary Ernő Gerő requested Soviet military intervention "to suppress a demonstration that was reaching an ever greater and unprecedented scale."The Soviet leadership had formulated contingency plans for intervention in Hungary several months before. By 2 a.m. on 24 October, under orders of the Soviet defence minister, Soviet tanks entered Budapest.

Events

• On 25 October, a mass of protesters gathered in front of the Parliament Building. ÁVH units began shooting into the crowd from the rooftops of neighboring buildings. Some Soviet soldiers returned fire on the ÁVH, mistakenly believing that they were the targets of the shooting. Supplied by arms taken from the ÁVH or given by Hungarian soldiers who joined the uprising, some in the crowd started shooting back.

Events

• On 4 November, at dawn, 1000 Russian tanks rolled into Budapest.   By 8.10 am they had destroyed the Hungarian army and captured Hungarian Radio – its last words broadcast were ‘Help!   Help!   Help”!’   Hungarian people even children fought them with machine guns.  

• Some 4000 Hungarians killed fighting the Russians.

Results of the revolution

• 200,000 Hungarian refugees fled into Austria. • Russia stayed in control behind the Iron Curtain

no other country tried to get rid of Russia troops until Czechoslovakia in 1968.

• People in the West were horrified many British Communists left the Communist Party.

• The West realised it could do nothing about the Iron Curtain countries ,but this make Western leaders even more determined to ‘contain’ communism.

Nov.4, 1956 Nov.22, 1956 June16, 1958

• NAGY and others in his government had to find refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy; but even though Kadar promised them safe passage when they left the Embassy, the Soviet security forces arrested them and held them in Romania. MALETER was never seen alive again.In a show "trial," NAGY and the others were found "guilty of treason" of two crimes: abandoning the Communist Party and directly threatening the unity of the Soviet Bloc by withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact.

Conclusions

• In first place we have to thanks our teacher of social studies for working with us. All this work we owe to him.

• With this investigation we descover the revolution in hungary in all his angles. Both positions, the soviet and the american.

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061008/16hungary.htm

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hungarian_uprising_1956.htm

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/icons/hungarian-revolution.html

Text of class, the cold war