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Tuesday, October 23 A leading article in the Szabad Nép (Free People), entitled ‘New, Spring Muster of Forces’, welcomes the young people’s demands.

The Hungarian party and government delegation returns from Yugoslavia in the early morning (8:30 am; DI 207)). An expanded meeting of the HWP Political Committee is held. (CUHOP 413 & 551)

"By 9 am Petofi Circle premises are buzzing" DI.205 / CUHOP 561 "Students are seen distributing leaflets" DI.206 "Leaflets are seen plastered on shop windows, trees and buildings." DI.206 / CUHOP 425

"Soviet troop movements towards Budapest. (T54s of the 92nd Soviet Armoured Division and elements of 2nd Mechanised Div. from Szekesfehervar and Gyor)" DI.207

12.53 p.m.: Kossuth Radio reads out a statement by the interior ministry, banning the demonstration planned for later in the day. However, at 2.23 p.m., permission for the rally is granted after all.

"12:53 pm radio music interrupted to announce ban on the demo." DI.207 "Everybody knows that a confrontation is looming." DI.207

Imre Nagy is not fully in picture, having just returned previous night from Lake balaton. DI.208 / CUHOP 210.

At the Poly. delegates are still arriving from factories. There are also 800 cadets from Petofi Acadmy. DI.211

By 2 pm. a large crowd of students and their professors at the medical faculty building in Ulloi Road are also getting ready to march, (to National Museum) DI.212-13.

Word spreads that the ban on marching has been lifted. DI.213

3 p.m.: The student march leaves the Petõfi statue on the Pest embankment. The Pest students cross Margaret Bridge to the Bem statue, while the Buda students march to it along the Buda embankment.

Memo: Nagy's home address is 41 Orso Ave.

The British legation's 3rd secretary Mark Russell, reports that crowds have began besieging Bem barracks calling calling out to the soldiers watching from the windows "Come with us!" DI.218 / CUHOP 413.

About 5 p.m.: The first protestors arrive in Kossuth Lajos tér (5th District). An hour later the square is already filled with a crowd estimated at 200,000. At 9 p.m., Imre Nagy delivers a speech from a balcony of the Parliament building.

Prime minister Alexander Hegedus leaves his office in he parliament building at 5 pm and looks in at [Party HQ ?] Academy St. For the next five days he will be a virtual orisoner inside. DI 219.

Demonstrators also appear about 5 p.m. before the Hungarian Radio building in Bródy Sándor utca (8th District), intending to read out the students’ 16 points. The force defending the building is strengthened, but some soldiers support the protesters. The siege of the Radio starts about 10 p.m. and lasts until dawn.

6 pm AVH reinforcements (c. 40 men) arrive at Party building. DI 220.

It is still daylight. Crowds are chanting "Down with Stalin's statue" amd "Rakosi for trial" DI 220 / CUHOP 210

200,000 demonstrators converging on Parliament building. At parliament building they are chanting the name of Imre Nagy.

About 8 p.m.: The HWP Central Committee begins an emergency session that continues until dawn the following day. Ernõ Gerõ requests Moscow to authorize the intervention of Soviet forces in Hungary. An order is given about 11 p.m. for the Soviet special corps stationed at Székesfehérvár to occupy Budapest.

As darkness falls, the red star on top of Parl,, mounted 300 ft above crowds is switched on. Crowd choruses: "Down with the red star!" I t is switched off. So are all the street lights. The demonstrators light improvised candles from newspapers and the mass of pamphlets littering the square, and keep chanting slogans.

Belated security measures are being taken quietlt around main Party and government buildings. By twos and threes AVH reinforcements are slipped into key buildings. An AVH major arrives at the radio building with a whole company of security troops. DI 224 / White Book Vol.II, p.14 quoting "M.L."

The Party's evening paper Esti Budapest appears. It lists the students' demands, but does not mention key demands: Russian withdrawal, removal of Stalin's statue and halt to Uranium deliveries to USSR. Tired of being shortchanged some demonstrators head for the radio building to have their demands broadcast in full. DI 225.

The mood of the crowd is increasingly beligerent. Less than a quarter are now students. Many older women. DI 227

There are now crowds also outside Nagy's private residence chanting his name. There are calls from members members of Cabinet (Halasz, Secretart of the Cabinet), asking nagy to come and calm the crowds. Halasz picks up Nagy and takes him to Parliament building. It is now completely dark. The roads are snowed with discarded leaflets and placards.

9.37 p.m.: Demonstrators in Dózsa György út (14th District) topple the giant statue of Stalin. There are attacks on telephone exchanges, printing presses and several arms factories in various parts of the city. Late that night, rebels also attack police stations and semi-military and military institutions. The offices of the Szabad Nép (Free People) are stormed as well.

Demonstrations take place in Székesfehérvár, Mosonmagyaróvár, Sopron and Veszprém. In Debrecen, ÁVH men open fire on the demonstrators. Three people lost their lives. Military government is introduced in Szeged to forestall the demonstrations.

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October 23

On the morning of October 23, 1956, Szabad Nép (Free People), the national daily paper of the communist party, ran a leading article entitled ‘New, spring muster of forces’. (The title was taken from a revolutionary poem written by Endre Ady in 1911, in a reference to traditions of modernization and intellectual revolution at that time.) The leader warmly welcomed the ‘politicizing youth’ of Hungary, as partners in the struggle to democratize socialism. The editors endorsed most of the university students’ demands, although they toned down or ignored some of the strongest political aspirations. Nonetheless, the revolt by the paper was an important event on that day. The students, who had the initiative on their side but still lacked political weight, had gained help and protection from one of the important factors of power. Alongside the leader supporting the demands, the paper published the communiqué of the Writers’ Union, greeting enthusiastically the changes in Poland, but dissociating itself from the demonstration in support of them.

The situation was still unsettled. The radio had also reported that there would be a demonstration of sympathy. However, there was no way of telling whether the authorities would support it or simply tolerate it, and if they supported it, what forces would favour it and for how long, and what relations would develop among the forces championing the reforms.

The position of the group of intellectuals and politicians surrounding Imre Nagy was not clear either. Nagy himself came out strongly against the demonstration, because several points in the university students’ demands went beyond what he envisaged. He justifiably feared that the radicalism of the young people might jeopardize the gains already made, which were looking more hopeful still after the events in Poland. Nagy interpreted the dismissal of Rákosi and the restoration of his own party membership to mean that the party at last thought it was time to continue the reforms of 1953.

On the same morning, the party and government delegation led by Ernõ Gerõ arrived back from Belgrade, having concluded a historic reconciliation with the Yugoslav leadership. They were astonished to hear the bleak picture of the domestic scene painted by their colleagues who had remained behind. The Political Committee of the Hungarian Workers Party (HWP) met immediately, but heard first Gerõ’s account of the Yugoslav negotiations. Only then was Lajos Ács, the senior Political Committee member to have stayed at home, able to report on the domestic situation and the demonstration of young people due to take place later in the day. Two strongly opposing views developed. One was advanced by József Révai and György Marosán. They saw a threat of counter-revolution and pressed for the strongest measures: ban the demonstration and authorize the armed forces to use arms against those who defied the ban. The interior and defence ministers still considered that the armed forces they commanded would be capable of implementing such a resolution. At the other extreme was the assessment Ács made. He disputed that the situation threatened to become a counter-revolution and supported the political remedy of bringing Imre Nagy into the government.

The work of the Political Committee kept being interrupted by the arrival of delegations—from the editors of Szabad Nép, the Budapest party committee, the Union of Working Youth (Disz), the Writers’ Union, the heads of the Petõfi Circle, and so on. There were violent disputes and debate interspersed with personal recriminations before a compromise decision could be reached. The rally was banned, but authorization to fire on those flouting the ban was withheld. Political Committee members were sent to key places to implement the resolution and help to maintain order. Révai went to the offices of Szabad Nép, János Kádár to the Radio, György Marosán to the National Council of Hungarian Trade Unions (Szot), and others to the Budapest and district party committees. Those who were sent off soon discovered for themselves that the resolution could not be implemented. During the morning, the majority on the Political Committee were denounced not only by people in the street, the students and the opposition, but by increasing numbers within the party apparatus. The all-powerful party discipline of old had broken down. Several party organizations protested immediately at the ban on the demonstration and the way the Central Committee meeting was being postponed. Disz, eager to retain its residual influence over young people, decided to ignore the Political Committee ban, join the demonstration and try to take control of it. One decisive factor was that growing numbers of workers joined the students in their demands. Meanwhile loyalty was shaken at the officers’ schools, which formed the basis of the security forces in Budapest, and the students of the military academies, approached by their university counterparts, assured them of their support. Sándor Kopácsi, the Budapest chief of police, announced that his force would not use arms against peaceful demonstrators. The reliability of the army was also in doubt, so that the security police, the ÁVH, remained as the only armed force on which the authorities could fully rely. These developments convinced the party leaders they lacked the force to crush the demonstration. Reluctantly they lifted the ban, authorized the demonstration, and even called on Budapest party organizations to take part, so as to prevent the opposition demands from spreading. The defence minister, István Bata, allowed soldiers to attend, unarmed, of course, and not in their units.

Elsewhere, some measures to keep order were attempted. Armed reinforcements were sent several times to the Radio, where the students had been demanding since the previous evening that their demands be read on the air. Detachments were also sent to other points of strategic or other importance.

The demonstration set off simultaneously from Pest and Buda at three in the afternoon, increasing rapidly in numbers and becoming more radical on the way. The slogans demanding reforms grew stronger and sharper, and the national elements gained ground. Workers arriving after the morning shift joined the young people on mass. The initial bloc of university students was joined by more and more sections of the public. The march was urged on by increasingly strident shouts of approval and encouragement from windows and pavements as it went by.

Demonstrators on the inner boulevard of Pest (Tanács körút) on October 23, 1956 (MTI Photo) Not even the organizers or the Petõfi Circle, which had undertaken to lead the demonstrators, were expecting such a crowd. They were unprepared for the task of controlling it, which they could hardly have managed in any case. The Circle’s one loudspeaker van became lost in the throng. The two marches met in Bem tér, the Buda square on the opposite bank of the Danube from Parliament, where the symbol of the revolution was born—the Hungarian tricolour with the crest of Rákosi’s Soviet-type regime cut out of it. There Péter Veres read out the demands of the Writers’ Union, but his voice was lost in the multitude.

Students of Eötvös Loránd University on October 23, 1956, at the statue of József Bem, a Polish general who served in the 1848–9 Hungarian War of Independence (MTI Photo) Most of the crowd marched from Bem tér to Kossuth tér, the square before Parliament, calling for Imre Nagy. Others gathered at the Radio or at the statue of Stalin.

Although the situation was already tense in the afternoon, it might still have been possible to prevent the events from turning into an armed uprising. In the event, there was no one taking part in the events of October 23 who would have been capable of averting the storm. The authorities showed a combination of weakness and resistance. Although strong reinforcements had arrived at the Radio, it was a long time before the authorities dared to use force against the demonstrators, while on the other hand, they were not prepared to yield to the demands. Instead of seeking a solution, they tried a stratagem, providing the protesters with a microphone attached to a van, as if they were going to broadcast the demands. In other words, the authorities were unable to say no and unwilling to say yes, which only enhanced the demonstrators’ commitment and boldness, and their frustration. The situation was the same in Kossuth tér. The street lighting in the square was turned off, in the vain hope that this would persuade the crowd waiting for Imre Nagy to disperse. Instead the demonstrators lit torches—mainly made out of copies of Szabad Nép, the daily paper with the biggest circulation. This literally added fuel to their commitment. The lights were soon switched on again, but in response to calls from the crowd, the light in the red star on top of the Parliament building was switched off. Such small successes encouraged people to hope for greater ones.

All these developments placed one of the keys to the situation in the hands of Imre Nagy. It was not an encouraging sign that he refused to budge from his home despite the demands of the demonstrators and the urgings of his friends and followers. Only when called upon to do so by the party would he appear on the balcony of Parliament, about nine o’clock in the evening, and even then, his speech caused disappointment. It was not just that he began it with the official style of greeting (‘Comrades’) or that much of it could not be heard. It was also because of what could be heard. Nagy promised no more (or less) than consistent implementation of his 1953 programme—a moderate reform of socialism, to be conducted by the ruling party. At an early stage this would have sufficed, but it was too little for a crowd that had lost its fears and was voicing demands that reached further than the promises Nagy was making. The demonstration did not break up. Only a minority returned home at Nagy’s behest. Meanwhile the chance had been lost for a communist leader who was respected and trusted by the people to come forward, head the crowd, keep events within bounds, and avert the outbreak of armed conflict.

The violence broke out at the Radio studios, where both sides had been receiving reinforcements all day. ÁVH men, police and later soldiers (the last without ammunition) had been arriving on the one side, and demonstrators on the other—groups who had broken off from the marches or come straight to the Radio, and later groups from the demonstration in Kossuth tér. By the time the scheduled speech of Gerõ was broadcast at eight in the evening, there had been several minor clashes, but shots had not yet been fired. The party first secretarys speech was oil on the flames. The demonstrators, hearing the speech from radios in windows, were understandably enraged to hear Gerõs unjust and insulting accusations while they were still trying in vain to have their demands broadcast. They already had weapons by this time. The crowd contained large numbers of workers aware of which Budapest factories manufactured and stored arms, which they were able to obtain quite quickly. Increasing numbers of demonstrators obtained arms from the soldiers sent to defend the Radio, some of whom were prepared to surrender their weapons voluntarily or after nominal threats had been made. Last but not least, many of the weapons and ammunition being delivered for the defenders found their way to the besieging crowd instead. The first shot was fired from the Radio building about nine o’clock that night under circumstances that have still not been clarified exactly. Then followed the siege of the Radio, ending with its capture at dawn.

The siege of the Radio on evening of October 23, 1956 At the same time as the armed conflict broke out, the massive statue of Stalin in Dózsa György út was being toppled. The colossus was dragged behind a lorry to Blaha Lujza tér, before the National Theatre, where it was smashed to pieces by the people.

The toppled statue of Stalin in Blaha Lujza tér in October 1956 (photograph by Sándor Bojár) Some important events also took place in the provinces on October 23. Party members in Miskolc had been gathering complaints and problems from their fellow workers for some days, with the intention of debating them at an all-day free discussion within the party. This gave rise on October 23 to a 17-point list of demands. The Miskolc university students added a further four points of a clearly political nature and immediately placed the list before the factory and city party leaders. The organizers of the protest formed a Workers’ Organizing Committee, a prototype of the later workers’ councils. Demonstrations were held in several other university towns, of which the most important was in Debrecen. There the first demonstration set out from the Faculty of Humanities building in the morning, with the students calling on the factory workers to join them. By late afternoon, some 20,000–30,000 people, parading before the county police headquarters, were fired upon by ÁVH men, first with blanks and then with live bullets. Six people were injured and three lost their lives. They were the first mortal victims of the revolution.

Meanwhile Marshal Georgy Zhukov painted a bleaker picture of events than the real one, based on reports being received from Hungary. Nonetheless, the Soviet leadership hesitated before deciding on an armed intervention. One factor was certainly the success in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis in Poland, which had greater strategic and political significance than Hungary. This seemed to increase the chances that a similar scenario might ensue in Hungary. Furthermore, Moscow was reluctant to resort to a violent, military intervention for fear of upsetting the process of international détente, which was sluggishly getting under way at this time.

Hardly an hour after the armed conflict had broken out at the Radio, Khrushchev was talking to the Hungarian party first secretary over the telephone. After repeated prompting from Gerõ and Soviet Ambassador Yury Andropov, Khrushchev said he would give permission for Soviet forces stationed in Hungary to take part in restoring order, provided the Hungarian Council of Ministers (government) subsequently requested them to do so in writing. (András Hegedüs signed such a request several days later.) At the same time, Moscow sent to Hungary Ivan Serov, president of the KGB, and Army General Mikhail Malinin, deputy chief of staff, which showed that after its initial hesitation, it was taking the situation very seriously and prepared to give every support to restoring order quickly. The Soviet units duly received orders at nine o’clock that night to advance on Budapest and help in restoring order. That put paid to any hope of a relatively bloodless solution to the crisis. The intervention of the Soviet troops swelled the ranks of the resisters and added to the revolution the dimension of a national liberation struggle.

Apart from providing military help to the Hungarian communist regime, Moscow also contributed two members of the Presidium of the CPSU to the political struggle. The choices were Anastas Mikoyan, the only Presidium member to speak against military intervention, and Mikhail Suslov, a hard-liner. They were to complement and supervise each other while cooperating on resolving the crisis.

The Political Committee and then the Central Committee of the HWP, or rather those members who could be informed and could reach the party centre, remained in session from the evening hours until dawn the following day, October 24. Imre Nagy, who arrived from Parliament, had to wait before he could take part in the decision-making and debate, until he had been re-elected to the party bodies. The leadership started from the assumption that the Soviet troops arriving in Budapest would break up the disturbances without meeting any resistance. The Hungarian party’s task would mainly be to support the Soviet display of strength and the conditions for political development alongside the military restoration of order. So they chose a course of deterrence. A curfew and a ban on all gatherings were imposed along with state of emergency. A Military Committee headed by István Kovács was convened to provide coordination between the Soviet and Hungarian armed forces. The Central Committee issued a blanket condemnation of the action. It dubbed those who took part in the armed uprising ‘the dark horde of reaction’, whose purpose was to ‘rob our people of their freedom and restore the rule of capitalists and landlords.’

On the other hand, to appease the public, some personnel changes were agreed. Imre Nagy was nominated for the post of prime minister, although the new government was not inaugurated, so that the cabinet of András Hegedüs remained in office until October 27. After some debate, changes were also made in the leading bodies of the party. Gerõ was retained as first secretary. Nagy had tied his acceptance of the premiership to Gerõs dismissal, but Gerõ still had the support of Nagy’s own candidate for the position, János Kádár, and of the majority of the Central Committee, so that Nagy had to bow to the inevitable. However, he managed to have two of his reforming supporters, Ferenc Donáth and Géza Losonczy, elected to the Central Committee and several Stalinists dropped from it.

During the night, before the Soviet troops arrived, there were attacks not only on munitions factories, but on printing presses and telephone exchanges, and late at night on police stations and military and paramilitary institutions. Insurgents also captured the offices of Szabad Nép for a time. Fighting intensified and spread after the Soviet forces arrived at dawn. Armed groups formed mainly along the main transport lines, intent on preventing the Soviets from entering Budapest and later central Budapest.

Rebels erecting a street barricade Despite being poorly armed, the young people, brought up on Soviet war films and novels, fought successfully against the Soviet tanks, which lacked infantry support and had not been expecting resistance, so that they suffered some serious losses. The fiercest clashes occurred round the Radio and the Szabad Nép offices and on the routes to them: in Boráros tér (the square at the Pest end of Petõfi Bridge), at the junction of Üllõi út with the grand boulevard, and in Baross tér, outside the Western Railway Station. Because of the fighting, the Soviets could not even approach the Radio on the morning of the 24th, and it was occupied by the insurrectionists at dawn. However, the transmissions were transferred to an emergency studio in Parliament.