December 13: The national guards in Sztálinváros (Dunaújváros) and Dorog are disarmed.
December 14: The CPSU passes a resolution on sending Soviet advisers to Hungary.
December 15: József Soltész is executed in Miskolc, as the first to receive the death penalty in a trial related to the 1956 revolution.
December 17: March 15, the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848 revolution, is declared a public holiday.
December 22: The security forces capture an armed group in the Bakony Hills.
December 24: The Christmas issue of the central party daily Népszabadság (People’s Freedom) tries to court public opinion by publishing some articles on religious subjects. The curfew is lifted to allow worshippers to attend midnight mass.
December 28: A members’ meeting of the Writers’ Union accepts Áron Tamási’s piece ‘Care and Faith’ as a statement of principle.
December 30: A decree of the Presidential Council transfers the duties of the ÁVH to the police.
December 31: The curfew is maintained on New Year’s Eve. The first part is completed of ‘Hungaricus’, an illegally distributed study of Soviet-type communism, written under a pseudonym.
January 1–4: Soviet, Bulgarian, Czechoslovak, Romanian and Hungarian leaders meet in Budapest.
January 4–7: The deputy secretary-general of the United Nations has talks in Budapest on the UN aid to be given to Hungary.
January 5–7: The emigré Hungarian Revolutionary Council holds it founding meeting in Strasbourg.
January 5: The first issue of the Kádárite paper Magyar Ifjúság (Hungarian Youth) appears.
January 6: The Kádár government publishes its programme, ‘Statement of the Revolutionary Workers’ and Peasants’ Government on the Main Tasks’.
January 7–11: Chinese Prime Minister Zhou En-lai calls for strong reprisals for the Hungarian uprising.
January 7: Security men break a strike that begins at Pécsbányatelep.
January 11: A government commissioner is appointed to run the Csepel Iron and Metal Works. Workers demonstrating against the appointee clash with security men. One worker is killed by a shot.
January 12: An order is issued introducing accelerated criminal proceedings. The state of emergency is extended to factories employing more than 100.
January 16: Chinese Prime Minister Zhou En-lai arrives on a two-day visit to Budapest.
January 17: The interior minister suspends the activities of the Writers’ Union.
January 19: József Dudás and János Szabó are executed.
January 20: The interior minister appoints a government commissioner to head Muosz, the journalists’ union.
January 21: All the arts associations are placed under Interior Ministry supervision.
January 31: A weekly paper in Paris gives news of the ‘Hungaricus’ study of Soviet-type communism. A few weeks later, several Western papers and radio stations describe and report details from the study.
February: The Pioneers’ Association, the communist-run children’s organization, is reorganized. The Federation of Hungarian Freedom Fighters is founded in Genoa, Italy.
February 2: Kádár, speaking in Salgótarján, accuses Imre Nagy of fomenting the counter-revolutionary uprising and calls him a traitor. The secure border zone along the Yugoslav frontier is restored.
February 8–12: Talks take place in Prague on Czechoslovak assistance to Hungary.
February 18: A legal decree is issued establishing the Kádárite Workers’ Militia. The trial of Ilona Tóth and others begins in the Budapest Court.
February 26: Kádár announces at a meeting of the Provisional Executive Committee of the HSWP that an investigation is being launched into the actions of Imre Nagy and his associates.
February 27: A Foreign Ministry spokesman tells Western journalists that the government does not intend to put Imre Nagy on trial.
February 28: The first brigade of the Kádárite Workers’ Militia is established in Kőbánya (10th District).
March and April: Imre Nagy’s selected writings of 1955–6 (On Communism: In Defence of the New Course) appear in Western countries.
March 5–6: Arrests are made at the Budapest Technical University.
March 10–15: The government fears a new uprising as the March 15 national holiday approaches. The security forces conduct mass arrests and actions throughout the country.
March 12: Workers’ Militia units are established in Csepel (21st District), Ózd and Mosonmagyaróvár.
March 15: The security forces take conspicuous control over Budapest and other larger cities. In Romania, more than 20 prisoners are executed and several hundred arrests are made in connection with the Hungarian revolution. The first issue of the Irodalmi Újság (Literary Gazette) <Writers’ Union> appears in London.
March 17: In the provinces, 38 brigades and 70 companies of the Workers’ Militia begin operating.
March 21: The Communist Youth League (Kisz) is established.
March 21–8: A Hungarian delegation headed by János Kádár visits Moscow. This is the first official visit abroad by the Revolutionary Workers’ and Peasants’ Government <Kádár government>.
March 25: Kossuth, the HSWP publishing company, brings out a volume on foreign assessments of the ‘counter-revolution’.
March 29: There are communist rallies in Budapest with several tens of thousands taking part.
March 30: The Workers’ Militia stages a display of strength in Budapest.
April: The Hungarian Association of Freedom Fighters is established in Germany <East and West Germany>. A British branch of the Hungarian Revolutionary Youth Association is formed.
April 5: Kádár writes to the Yugoslav government requesting that the ‘right of asylum’ accorded to Imre Nagy and his associates be formally annulled.
April 13: The curfew in force in Budapest for the last six months is lifted.
April 15: The members of the Imre Nagy group who have been arrested are brought back to Budapest from Romania.
April 21: The interior minister dissolves the Writers’ Union. Writer Tibor Déry is arrested.
End of April: The Hungarian Writers’ Union Abroad protests in the world press at Déry’s arrest.
May 1: Work starts on installing the first landmine barrier along the Hungarian-Austrian border.
May 7: A hunger strike breaks out in the Hungarian refugee camp in Austria after emigration to the United States is halted. Some 100–120 Hungarian students demonstrate in front of the US Embassy in Vienna, calling for the emigration to be permitted again.
May 9: Parliament meets for the first time since August 3, 1956. The Kossuth coat of arms is replaced by a design for the People’s Republic, known as the Kádár coat of arms.
May 23: István Bibó and Zoltán Tildy, both members of the Nagy government, are arrested.
May 27: An agreement normalizing the legal position of the Soviet troops stationed in Hungary is signed in Budapest.
May 28: The interior minister orders a political purge of the police force. Some 25–30 per cent of the force are dismissed.
May 30: The Kádár government calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross to cease its activities in Hungary by June 30.
June 5–11: A Bulgarian government delegation visits Hungary. A rally held in the Sports Hall is addressed by Kádár and the Bulgarian party leader, Todor Zhivkov.
June 20: The UN Committee of Five submits its report on Hungary.
June 22: The Kádár government describes the report by the UN Committee of Five as interference in Hungary’s internal affairs.
June 27–9: The HSWP holds a national meeting.
June 28: Ilona Tóth is executed in Budapest.
August: The Patriotic People’s Front organizes meetings around the country debating the report of the UN Committee of Five. The report becomes a bestseller in the United States.
August 12: Attila Szigethy, chairman of the Transdanubian National Council, commits suicide in a military hospital in Győr.
September 9: The trial begins of Leningrad University students sympathetic to the Hungarian revolution.
September 10–14: The UN General Assembly accepts the report by the Committee of Five.
October 15 onwards: As the anniversary of the revolution approaches, leaflets and graffiti begin to appear all over the country.
October 22: The Hungarian Freedom Association, Hungarian Writers’ Union Abroad, Social Democratic Party, Free Hungarian Trade Unions, and British Association of Hungarian University Students hold a ceremony on the eve of the first anniversary of the revolution.
October 23: The Hungarian public commemorates and pays respects in various ways on the first anniversary of the revolution, but no large-scale incident occurs. Detachments of the army, police and Workers’ Militia patrol the streets in Budapest and other cities. Several hundred people are arrested. Commemorations are held in Bern, Bonn, Copenhagen, the Hague, Hanover, Madrid, Mainz, Montevideo, Munich, New York, Oslo, Paris, Reykjavik, Rome, Saigon, Santiago de Chile, Stockholm, Strasbourg, Sydney, Vienna, Washington, West Berlin and Zurich. The first issue of the emigré Népszava (Voice of the People) appears in London.
October 30: A rally is held in Köztársaság tér (8th District), marking the first anniversary of the siege of the Budapest party headquarters.
November 3: The system of summary justice is abolished.
November 12–16: A conference of world communist parties is held in Moscow.
November 13: The Council of the People’s Tribunal of the Supreme Court passes sentence in the ‘great’ writers’ trial.
November 17: The workers’ councils in work places are abolished.
December 10: A resolution of the HSWP Central Committee calls for class criteria to be applied and priority to be given to proceedings against those accused of participating in the revolution.
December 21: Géza Losonczy dies in prison.
December 30: László Iván Kovács, the first commander of the Corvin köz group, is executed.
January 3–7: The UN high commissioner for refugees visits Hungary.
January 9: Árpád Brusznyai, leader of the revolution in Veszprém, is executed.
January 16–17: A party of American journalists visits Hungary.
February 5–6: The secret trial of Imre Nagy and his associates begins.
February 20–28: A Hungarian party and government delegation visits Romania.
March: Emigré organizations in New York start to publish a periodical entitled Október 23, in Hungarian and later in English.
March 14–17: The 1st World Congress of Hungarian Freedom Fighters takes place in Paris.
March 24: A delegation of the Communist Party of Great Britain has talks in Budapest.
March 27–8: Hungarian and Yugoslav delegations led by Kádár and Tito have talks in Karađorđevo.
April: The Soviet Union introduces economic sanctions against Yugoslavia.
April 2–10: A Soviet delegation led by Khrushchev visits Hungary.
April 24: József Szilágyi is executed.
May 9–12: A Polish party and government delegation visits Hungary after 18 months of postponements.
May 24: Khrushchev receives Kádár. Sizeable cuts are made in the Soviet forces stationed in the occupied countries. Kádár opposes this. (The Soviet forces are withdrawn from Romania permanently.)
June 9–15: The Council of the People’s Tribunal of the Supreme Court, chaired by Ferenc Vida, continues the secret trial of Imre Nagy and associates. Nagy, Miklós Gimes and Pál Maléter are sentenced to death, Sándor Kopácsi to life imprisonment, Ferenc Donáth to 12 , Ferenc Jánosi to eight, Zoltán Tildy to six and Miklós Vásárhelyi to five years’ imprisonment.
June 16: Nagy, Gimes and Maléter, along with the Újpest national-guard member Péter Gábor, are executed at the Budapest National Prison. The bodies are unceremoniously buried in the earth of the prison courtyard. Their remains are only transferred to a cemetery in 1961.
June 17: The verdicts in the Nagy trial are published. News of the executions provokes protest meetings in several Western countries.
June 21: The UN Committee of Five issues a statement condemning the execution of Imre Nagy and his associates.
July 31: The Institute of Party History publishes a book entitled Counter-revolution in Hungary, 1956.
August: The fifth volume of the ‘White Book’ (The Counter-revolutionary Conspiracy of Imre Nagy and His Accomplices) is published.
September: The members of the Imre Nagy group who were not arrested return with their families from Romania.
October 23: Commemorations of the Hungarian revolution are held worldwide, for instance in Amsterdam, Austria, Paris, Madrid, Munich, New York, Oslo and the Vatican.
November 16: The first parliamentary elections since the revolution are held.
December 1: István Angyal, commander of the Tűzoltó utca group of armed rebels, is executed.
December 11: The UN General Assembly again places the Hungarian question on its agenda.
March 21: Péter Mansfeld is executed 11 days after his 18th birthday.
April 4: A partial amnesty <1959 amnesty> is declared for those serving sentences of less than two years.
April 17: A Déry Committee is formed in Paris to campaign for the release of the writer Tibor Déry.
July 9: The International PEN Club applies to Kádár for an amnesty for writers.
October 23: There are demonstrations marking the anniversary of the revolution in many Western cities, including Basel, Bonn, Buenos Aires, Graz, Hanover, Johannesburg, Konstanz, London, Los Angeles, Lucerne, Montevideo, Montreal, New York, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm and Zurich.
October 27: The strength of the Workers’ Militia reaches 5000.
December 8–10: The Hungarian question again features on the agenda at the UN General Assembly.
April 1: A partial amnesty <1960 amnesty> is declared.
April 7: The restrictions attached to the amnesty provoke a hunger strike at the Vác National Prison.
May 9: The writer Gyula Illyés makes a statement to the press for the first time since 1956.
September: Khrushchev and Kádár visit New York for the UN General Assembly.
October 23: The governors of New York, Ohio, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon and Texas declare October 23 to be Hungarian Freedom Fighters’ Day. Demonstrations are held and monuments unveiled in big cities around the world to mark the Hungarian revolution.
December 16–18: Kisz holds its first congress.
February 6–7: Mass house searches take place in Budapest. Several priests are arrested on charges of conspiring against the state.
March 15: The Catholic Bench of Bishops issues a statement condemning the ‘crimes’ of those who have been arrested.
August 26: The Baross tér rebels are the last people to be executed for acts committed during the 1956 revolution.
October 23: The revolution is commemorated in several of the world’s great cities, including Buenos Aires, Graz, New York, Paris and Rome.
August 16: The HSWP Central Committee passes a resolution on ‘settlement of the unlawful trials’, concerned with the show trials held in the early 1950s. Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő, who are living in exile in the Soviet Union, are excluded from the party.
October 11–12: György Marosán is relieved of all his positions.
October 20: It is agreed at secret Hungarian-US talks to drop the Hungarian question from the UN agenda in return for a general amnesty.
December 18: The United States proposes at the UN General Assembly that the Hungarian question be dropped from the agenda. (This is accepted on December 20.)
February 24: At elections for Parliament and local councils, 98.9 per cent of the voters endorse the official Patriotic People’s Front candidates.
March 21: Kádár, addressing the opening session of the new Parliament, announces a general amnesty <1963 amnesty>.
Early April: Most of those convicted in connection with the 1956 revolution are released, but many remain in prison until the early 1970s.