These extracts come from the entry by the ’56 Institute for a competitive invitation by the Ministry of Public Education to submit a secondary-school handbook, presenting the 1956 revolution and subsequent reprisals and offering extensive source materials and recollections. The work contains short biographies of the persons occurring in the text, a glossary of the main concepts mentioned, and where necessary, tabulated information. Also included are some verses and jokes that convey the atmosphere of the period.

Extract from Chapter Three

News of the events in Hungary spread immediately round the world. The uprising became an event of world importance, front-page news in the Western papers and first in the news broadcasts, instantly reversing what had been an unfavourable image of the country abroad. The struggle by a whole people to rid itself of Stalinism won the acclaim of the public beyond the Iron Curtain. Hungarians listening to the Western radio broadcasts were inclined to imagine that the sentiments of the general public would decide the policy taken by the democratic countries. News of the Hungarian revolution also reached neighbouring communist countries, despite the official monopoly over formal sources of information. It was received enthusiastically by the Hungarian minorities in those countries. The Romanian authorities managed to stop Mefesz student delegates from Szeged meeting students in Timiooara. However, the news from Hungary sparked a rally of art-college students in Cluj-Napoca that could not be dispersed in time. The points adopted were less radical than the demands being made in Hungary, but calls for Russian and Romanian to become optional subjects and for university autonomy raised fears of a wave of revolution that precipitated a brutal response from the authorities.

Source materials

2.2.10. Statement in his own hand by István Angyal, on October 23, 1956

At the corner of Andrássy út, by the entrance to Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út, Csongovai and I ran up to the first floor of the house on the corner and through down the sign reading Sztálin út (Stalin Street). Down below, several people, using jimmies and chisels, used their combined strength to loosen and knock down the stone tablet built into the wall of the house.

We stopped at the corner of Rákóczi út and Múzeum körút as people came rushing down from Bródy S. u. [saying] the ÁVOs were firing. Afraid of this, some people dropped out, but about two or three hundred of us went on. We turned off Múzeum körút into Bródy S. utca. There was smoke there and gas in the air, and cars were burning in the streets. Including a fire engine here and there. We could see by the light of the fires uniformed figures with bayonets standing at the corner of Bródy S. u. and Puskin utca, but we could not see clearly—the lights were not burning here either, Múzeum kert was dark as well—how many there were, what uniform they wore, or whether they meant well or ill. About ten or twelve of us linked arms, Csongovai was on one side, an older chap on the other, and tram conductors and drivers most of them, all working men of a kind. We began to sing the national anthem and set off towards Puskin utca. The others followed in disorderly rows. When we had gone 5–6 paces, an officer gave the order ‘Fix bayonets!’ We opened our shirts and shouted, ‘Shoot here!’ Then we went on, singing. The officer gave the order ‘Fire!’ a volley sounded and the older chap next to me collapsed. However, we were already in among the soldiers and they couldn’t fire any more or they would have shot each other. We began to talk to them, [saying] they shouldn’t shoot at us, because we were people like them and their mother could even be among us, so that they would be murdering their own flesh and blood. When they talked of compulsory obedience to orders, we cited the service regulations, which say that an order against the people must not be carried out. Then one of the officers behind the soldiers—we could see they were members of the border guards by this time—threw a tear-gas grenade and then another, which exploded among us. I was taken bad and went on with the crowd towards the entrance to the [radio] studios. There were some young people standing on the balcony of the studios, there was a ladder leaning against the balcony, they had obviously climbed up. They read the 16 points into a microphone, but many people thought they were not on our side and shouted and abused them. You could hardly hear a word. There were men in ÁVH uniforms leaning on their elbows at a third-floor window and laughing and scoffing at us. What they were saying could not be made out because of the noise. It must have been about 11 p.m. by then. There were no weapons in civilian hands, the soldiers positioned outside the republican palace in Puskin utca were holding a momentary ceasefire, and there was quiet on the corner of Vas utca as well, in every sense. A few minutes later, the sound of tracks was heard and four tanks stopped in the streets. One before the Radio entrance, which was open, and soldiers stood close, side by side in the open gate. We jumped on the tanks and embraced the soldiers, who shouted that they would not fire at us. There was a tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the first tank, an army officer. He introduced himself, Lieutenant Colonel Solymosi (I don’t know his exact rank.) He climbed down from the tank and walked round talking to us, calming us down, saying there wouldn’t be any trouble.

Published as István Angyal’s Statement in His Own Hand. Selections by László Eörsi. Budapest: Pesti Szalon, 1991, pp. 29–31.

What behaviour did the various armed units (ÁVH, border guards, and army) show towards the rebels on the night of October 23?

Reminiscences

3.2.3. Gábor Karátson: The felling of the statue of Stalin

So it was good to run down these dirty streets and shout. God knows what, whatever [came to mind] at the time… Well, these ‘Ruskies go home’ and things like that. I don’t know, we must have sung as well. I’ve no idea, anyway it was that kind of ecstatic thing. Then we arrived in Hosök tere and there was the Stalin [statue] and the toppling of it was in progress. This took a good time as well. And I’ve got quite sharp memories of it. What they don’t often say is that the people were in a very good humour. And it made a big impression on me that they shouted, ‘Hold on, Joe!’ That amused me a lot. Because we knew, didn’t we, that he didn’t want to come down, it was hard to topple him, and lots of people shouted, ‘Hold on, Joe!’ —which was absolutely not a Stalinist cry, but a bit of popular sportsmanship, for there he was on his own, however big he might be, he was on his own and there were so many of us, and he had to be encouraged too, to hold on. There was a lot of fooling around like that. And well, in the end he toppled, they cut through his legs with a welding torch and he fell. Meanwhile they had also chucked the star down from the union headquarters. Then later, perhaps when he fell or perhaps while it was happening, there was a group who were obviously Catholics of some kind, shouting, ‘Build a church there instead!’ … And then it fell and then we sang—it wasn’t my idea but I joined in—we sang ‘dead is the plotter, the dread menace passed away.’ The crowd sang that very fast, there was quite an interesting operatic effect. And then some lorries drew up, which had come from somewhere at great speed, [telling people] to go to the Radio, because they were firing on the people at the Radio. I think I saw weapons there as well. But I couldn’t swear to it. It would be important to know whether there had been weapons already at the Stalin Statue or not, but I have the impression I saw weapons there. But I don’t know. Then, when I climbed up onto a lorry, by that time with Pista Nagy, we didn’t have weapons, that’s for sure, and I didn’t see any in the vicinity. And off we went. We set off, but people starting banging on the roof of the cab [saying] there’s an ÁVO sitting beside the driver, stop. And we stopped, and there really was an ÁVO sitting there. And he stuck his head out and said, ‘I was born in the same place as you.’ And then we cheered the ÁVO and placed our unbounded trust in him and he didn’t abuse it either. So that, you can say, belonged to the mood, that we noticed he was an ÁVO, but it was enough for him to say that and… So there wasn’t a lynching mood there and the atmosphere couldn’t even be called hostile, the hostility was turned solely on the great bogeyman, who wasn’t embodied in anyone, hardly… In my opinion [that applies to] the whole revolution, it wasn’t directed against anything, it was for something. Just the other way round from what’s usually said. And the country was looking for something. It didn’t manage to find it. It was there at that time, but it hasn’t been around since. I didn’t sense any hatred in the air, only [the feeling] that now we’re doing something. The whole thing simply fell apart, in fact an enormous pressure was released, a huge [burst of] energy.

Extracts from the interview with Gábor Karátson, made by Zsuzsa Romvári in 1991–2. 1956 Institute, Oral History Archive, No. 401.

Gábor Karátson (b. 1935), painter and writer. In 1956, he was a member of the national guard formed at the law faculty of the university. He kept in touch with the Csepel youth organization, and after November 4, helped to distribute illegal publications. He was sentenced to one year and eight months’ imprisonment.

Biographies

József Perbíró, 1908–1991

After completing upper primary school, Perbíró went to work as a trainee and later a department head at a big wholesale company. He studied while working, completing secondary school in 1931 and obtaining a law degree in 1936 from Pécs University, where he became an assistant lecturer in 1937. Alongside his research, he worked as a librarian and then became head of the Dean’s Office. He did military service from 1937 to 1941, taking part in operations in Subcarpathia and the Bácska. In 1946, he obtained his university professorship and became head of the department of commercial and exchange law at the new St Stephen’s Catholic Hungarian University in Eger, where he remained until it was closed in 1949. Thereafter he was a head of department at Szeged University. In 1956–7, he was deputy dean of the law faculty and president of the university youth welfare institutions. On October 20, 1956, he was invited to chair the assembly of the newly independent Hungarian Association of University and College Unions (Mefesz) at which its programme was decided. On October 27, he was among those delegated by the Rector’s Council to represent the university at the meeting called to elect a new city leadership. He was charged by the presiding body elected there with heading the People’s Council. This body was converted on October 29 into a revolutionary national committee, whose chairman Perbíró remained, directing the work of the city’s executive organizations until the defeat of the revolution. On November 6, he was arrested for a short while by the Soviets. He was arrested again in February 1957 and sentenced in the first instance to 15 years’ imprisonment. This was increased to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court. After his release in the 1963 amnesty, Perbíró became an auditor, and after obtaining another degree, worked as a technical and economic consultant until his retirement.

Glossary

Borsod County Workers’ Council: A workers’ council to direct the whole of Borsod was formed in the University Town quarter of Miskolc on October 25, 1956, while the Miskolc deputation of workers and students was negotiating with Imre Nagy in Budapest. The new council decided to continue the strike, set up a workers’ guard to strengthen public security, and called on factories to establish workers’ councils. Following this appeal, workers’ councils took over the control of factories and communities all over the county in the next few days. After the occupation of the police headquarters, the county workers’ council took over into the county council premises, in a move that symbolized the transfer of power to the local forces of the revolution. Although the council set about establishing special forces immediately, it was not possible to prevent a second instance of mob violence, on October 27, after which some of the presiding board members fled. The workers’ council was re-established on October 29, with the 21 points agreed at the Dimávag factory as its programme. On November 5, there were fruitless negotiations with the Soviet forces occupying the city. The council members were arrested and transported to Subcarpathia. However, the local party leadership was obliged to backtrack by the general strike, so that the council members were released and even involved in the government of the city and county. The HSWP began its ultimate settlement of accounts with the workers’ council at a meeting of activists on December 9. (This body operated essentially as a revolutionary council; see the entry on that.)

Tables

6.2.3. Number of persons executed after death sentences passed by Hungarian courts for acts committed in 1956, according to main charges

Attila Szakolczai: A forradalmat követo megtorlás során kivégzettekol (Those Executed during the Reprisals after the Revolution). In: Évkönyv III (Yearbook III). Budapest: 1956 Institute, 1994.

Verses

FERENC SZENTKUTI: EPIC TO A PEST LAD

You Pest Lad!

You, a little teen raised in day-care centre,
You, who have seen at most
Some fifteen bleak springs,
You, force-fed ideology along with your ABC,
You sang, amid Soviet tanks’ wild fire,
Your song of freedom.
Your frail hand did not shake
In the tanks’ shower of steel.
You boldly grasped your machine gun
And sprayed them with fire.
Your tiny heart may have faltered
But your legs ran boldly,
The petrol bomb span in a calm,
Sure arc from your hand.

You Pest Lad, you hero of heroes,
You shed your dear blood
And received your pay for it
In the sacred freedom it won.
You tiny comrade in arms, we swear
To defend that dearly earned pay,
For your tiny heart cannot
Have shed its blood in vain.

You Pest Lad,
You, a little teen raised in day-care centre,
You, who have seen at most
Some fifteen bleak springs,
You who gave your dear life
For your country like this,
Shall not, while Magyar lives on this earth
Be ever forgotten!

Jokes

An original Bulgarian joke about the Hungarian revolution: