Budapest. Hungary's government celebrated the anniversary of the revolution against communist rule with guests from all over Europe. The uprising began exactly 70 years ago, on October 23, 1956, and twelve days later, on November 4, Soviet troops bloodily suppressed it.
The state celebrations were marked by the change of government after the right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban was voted out in April this year. With a view to Orban's proximity to Moscow, the new Prime Minister Peter Magyar emphasized in his speech to parliament on Budapest's Kossuth Square: "Anyone who excuses an aggressor after 1956 or subordinates the people to the interests of a foreign empire has understood nothing of the message of 1956." The EU and NATO country Hungary belongs to the free, democratic West and wants to be a reliable partner there, he added.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised the Hungarians' desire for freedom, demonstrated in 1956, and emphasized that democracy must be fought for again and again. This year “democracy was reborn” in Hungary, she said in her speech in parliament, referring to Magyar’s election victory. She also praised Magyar's progress in restoring the rule of law, which was damaged during Orban's government, and in the fight against corruption. Among the guests was the President of the European Council António Costa and Transport Minister Steffen Bilder (CDU) from Berlin, representing Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
After the Second World War, Hungary - like other Eastern European countries and eastern Germany - came under the control of the then Soviet Union. After 1945, a communist dictatorship gradually emerged under Soviet military occupation. Parties were banned, critics were hanged or imprisoned after show trials, and members of the wealthy classes were dispossessed and sent to internment camps. The Hungarian governor of the Soviets was the dictator Matyas Rakosi.
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died in 1953, but this was not the end of Stalinism in Hungary. The discontent among the population, even among communists, grew. On October 23, 1956, 200,000 people demonstrated on Kossuth Square in front of Parliament to demand change. Part of the crowd moved on to Dozsa Boulevard, where the ten-meter-high, six-ton statue of Stalin was toppled from its pedestal.
The Communist Party increasingly lost control of events. After state security units shot at peaceful demonstrators on October 25th and caused a bloodbath, the insurgents began to arm themselves, especially since the Hungarian army also largely defected to the side of the revolution. The Stalinists in the CP resigned and the group around the popular but previously sidelined reform communist Imre Nagy took over the government. This proclaimed democratic socialism, with freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion and legal political parties. Political prisoners were freed. There were also spontaneous excesses of violence against communists and Stasi agents.
The Soviets did not initially intervene, but brought massive troop reinforcements into the country. On November 1st, Nagy fled to the front and declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Soviet-led military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. On November 4th, Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian uprising in bloody street fighting.
The Soviets appointed communist official Janos Kadar to restore the dictatorship. He unleashed a merciless revenge justice system. More than 200 participants in the revolution, including Nagy and his closest comrades-in-arms, were executed after summary trials. 22,000 people often ended up in prison for long years. 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West via Austria.
The original hardliner Kadar gradually loosened his tight grip. “Whoever is not against us is for us,” was the new slogan. Terms like “goulash communism” or “the funniest barracks in the Eastern Bloc” became household words. But the taboos remained: no one was allowed to talk about 1956.
That only changed in the years of change in 1989/90. On June 16, 1989, the communists allowed Nagy and his comrades-in-arms to be reburied. At the memorial ceremony on Budapest's Heroes' Square, a young, previously little-known student leader also took the floor: Viktor Orban. His sharp speech marked the irrevocable break with communism.
He became the most successful post-reunification Hungarian politician, first changing from a liberal to a conservative and then to a right-wing populist. He ruled from 1998 to 2002 and from 2010 until he was voted out this spring. He used his power to expand a corrupt semi-autocracy.
When Orban increasingly aligned himself with Vladimir Putin's Russia from 2014 onwards, many saw this as a betrayal of the ideals of 1956. The celebration 70 years later is also seen by many Hungarians as an expression of joy at the departure from the path to bondage that Orban took - even if it never reached the extent of the oppression under communism.
