1956 Revolution – The first brick that was pushed out of the wall of communism – VIDEO

For us to understand the difficulties Hungary has been going through since 1989, first we need to analyze life under Soviet occupation and how it impacted a nation that already had a long history of oppression dating back to the middle ages.

After World War II, a harsh Stalinist communist system was established in Hungary, a satellite country of the Soviet Union at the time. In the late 1940s and early 1950s private enterprise was banned, people’s individual property was confiscated, and that didn’t particularly set well with Hungarians who, by nature, are fiercely freedom-loving, highly entrepreneurial, and frequently rebellious. It didn’t take long before it was suspected that “Something big is going to happen in Hungary!” Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Otto von Habsburg, explains in the documentary about the Cold War and the Hungarian Revolution, Torn from the Flag.

In October, 1956, Hungarians rose up against the inhuman regime, and the tiny country of 10 million people defeated the big Soviet Union of 200 million people for 13 days. Not that Hungary had an impressive military, but the Magyars can be resourceful and witty folks, and put their soup bowls on the cobble stones of the streets of Budapest, making the Russian tanks believe that they were mines, having them stop, and then blow them up with home-made Molotov cocktails.

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However, the Soviet Union wasn’t going to risk Hungary’s defection. Fearing a domino effect on Eastern Europe, Ukraine, the Baltics, and eventually on the USSR itself, in November 1956, the Kremlin decided to roll one thousand Russian tanks into the capital of Hungary to crush the revolt mainly lead by university students. This was made easier when it became clear—notwithstanding propaganda via Radio Free Europe—that neither the United States nor Western Europe or the United Nations would aid Hungary in its freedom fight.

While the revolt was successfully suppressed, “the Hungarian Revolution had huge a international effect.” says former President of the Republic of Cyprus, George Vasiliou in the same film. “The changes [read: decline] that took place in all the communist parties of the West, were the exact results of the Hungarian Revolution.”

Dr. Ivan Berend, Professor of History and Economics at UCLA, states: “Retaliation was terribly harsh. People were executed, thousands were imprisoned.” Even 16-year old children were condemned to death, but to maintain a façade of compassion, the communists waited for the young freedom fighters’ 18th birthday to execute them.