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October 28

By October 27, Imre Nagy had realized the decisions could be postponed no longer. An immediate change was required. To precipitate them, he threatened to resign as prime minister, which would have brought down the new government, unless his new political concept was approved.

Imre Nagy was joined in this insistence by János Kádár. He learnt on the night of the 27th that the official trade-union federation Szot had agreed with representatives of the University Revolutionary Students’ Committee and the Writers’ Union on a joint statement of the revolution’s demands. Kádár, as the new first secretary of the HWP, could not allow his party to lose its monopoly of power. Indeed, even political ascendancy and control seemed to be slipping from its grasp. Since the Szot statement had already been printed and the party no longer had full control over the press, it could only hold up publication for a short time. That short period was all that was left to Kádár for convincing the Soviets and the leading bodies of his own party that change was essential.

Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov were obliged to yield to the arguments of Nagy and Kádár. Based on their report, Khrushchev gave his blessing to the change. There was no real alternative to the Hungarian proposal. The uprising had spread across the whole country, and at that juncture at least, it could not be suppressed by the available Soviet forces alone. There were neither the political nor the military conditions for doing so, as no preparations had been made for the political consolidation that would be needed after suppression of the armed uprising. Nor would a military victory be certain. The Soviet army needed rest, regrouping and reinforcements after the four days of fighting, and it could expect resistance from the Hungarian People’s Army as well, especially in the provinces. The solution that Imre Nagy and his associates proposed would save the Soviet army from an ignominious withdrawal from Budapest. It would withdraw because a political solution had made further fighting superfluous. The proposals did not affect the leading role of the communist party or Hungary’s place in the Warsaw Pact, so that the foundations of people’s democracy seemed to be safe. At this time, there was still no mention in Hungary of a change in the power structure or a change of system. The ceasefire and troop withdrawals were expressly intended to prevent such an outcome and allow the communist politicians leading the country—the prime minister and the party first secretary—to resolve the crisis by political means. However, Mikoyan and Suslov warned the Hungarian leaders to prevent at all costs any further drift to the right, signifying that these proposals marked the limit to which the Soviet were prepared to go.

The press was informed of the decision without any meeting of the HWP Political Committee or Central Committee or consent from them. A leading article in the October 28 Szabad Nép (Free People) rejected the way the party had earlier stigmatized the rebels, arguing that they too were seeking to accomplish socialist democracy. However, street sales of the issue of the Népszava that reported the agreement between Szot> and the other two organizations were prevented.

The front page of the Szabad Nép on October 28, 1956 The decision that had been so long in the making and now had Soviet approval had been rendered urgent by international considerations as well. The US administration had been taken by surprise by the Hungarian revolution and had no policy concepts prepared for such an eventuality. The administration was reduced to improvising, while impeded by the simultaneous presence of conflicting expectations. On the one hand, the uncertain advantages to be gained from the Hungarian revolution were outweighed by the drawbacks of upsetting a relatively smoothly operating status quo in Europe and jettisoning a several-year process of international détente. On the other, the United States had to live up to its propaganda, and as a democratic country, meet the expectations of a public that gave wholehearted support to the Hungarian struggle for freedom. The latter had induced Washington, on October 26, to raise the Hungarian question in the UN Security Council. Its main allies, Britain and France, were preparing for war over Suez, which they had resolved upon on October 22. This made them reluctant to join in the American campaign over Hungary, since it might establish a precedent that rebounded on them. However, they had not told the Americans about their impending attack on Egypt. Since their excuses for not doing so were still secret, they were obliged to give way to US pressure. The outcome was that the three powers called jointly for a meeting of the Security Council on October 27, to debate the Hungarian question. The Soviet Union had a veto on the Security Council, so that this move did not pose a danger, but the meeting would certainly have been uncomfortable. That gave the Soviet Union a further reason for accepting the Hungarian leaders’ proposal, which was intended to bring a peaceful solution to the crisis and confine it within acceptable bounds.

The proposal, having received Soviet approval, was accepted by the HWP Political and Central committees, not least because disquieting reports were arriving at the party centre <Akadémia utca party centre>. These convinced members of the leadership that their control and authority over the provinces was collapsing. They could only retain their influence by supporting the local revolutionary bodies that were forming, against the demands of the radicals, whom they saw as counter-revolutionaries <counter-revolution>. There were increasingly frequent reports of soldiers going over to the side of the revolutionary councils. The wave of mass demonstrations was reaching the villages as well, where compromised local party and council <local government> officials were being expelled. Gyõr National Council, led by Attila Szigethy, addressed an ultimatum to Imre Nagy, calling for an immediate, effective end to the fighting. Otherwise, ‘the inhabitants of Transdanubia would rush to the aid of the Budapest freedom fighters.’ In other words, there was a mounting danger that postponing a full political settlement would radicalize or sideline the revolutionary forces intent on reaching agreement with the reformers inside the communist party. So an immediate ceasefire was announced during the day. It became clear from a government announcement read by Nagy on the radio (and supported by the HWP Central Committee in a statement) that this was no temporary measure, but a radical turn of events. According to Nagy, the crimes committed in the past justified the national democratic movement that had arisen in the last few days. He guaranteed that warranted demands would be conceded immediately. He recognized the revolutionary organizations <revolutionary councils and committees> that had formed. He announced that the ÁVH was disbanded and that a new armed security force would be established, into which the armed rebels would be incorporated as well. Negotiations would start on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. So on October 28, Nagy, armed with a party resolution that had Soviet approval, was at last able to present the country with a government programme that could reasonably be expected to meet the demands of the masses and lead to a peaceful settlement.

Consolidation was under way in the provinces and villages, although the party resolution had little to do with this. The rapid change of power and the almost immediate settlement there were due to several factors. The villages contained no effective apparatus of power able to intervene against the people with any hope of success. By the time the village demonstrations began on October 27 and 28, the old order no longer had reserves to deploy. If the representatives of power waited for the demonstrators to arrive at all, they simply handed over the keys of the council <local government> office without resistance. Then a local national council <revolutionary councils and committees> would form, with members who had often served in the old council apparatus, which ensured continuity and professionalism in local government. This made it easier for the handful of inadequately armed police to treat the new body as legitimate, and for a national guard to be organized, to keep order and defend public and private property.

The political demands formulated (and frequently implemented) in the villages corresponded with the points proclaimed around the country. As a rule, villages took the set of points compiled in a large nearby town as a basis and added references to specific local needs and grievances. The peasants’ demands, like those of the workers, looked no further back than 1945. Just as the working class did not want to see the factory owners return, so the villagers had no wish to reverse the 1945 land reform. (Indeed the role Nagy had played in the 1945 redistribution, as minister of agriculture, was relevant to the fact that rural Hungary had a deeper trust in him in 1956 than the urban population did.) The structure in the pre-communist, post-war period of 1945–8 was what they aspired to recreate. Many places decided to dissolve their agricultural cooperative <collectivization>, although implementation of the decision was often postponed. Time was required to arrange a fair distribution and complete the autumn farm work. Furthermore, members felt it was inappropriate to pursue their personal profit and remedy their own grievances while the struggle was still going on in Budapest. The villages were anxious to play their part in this. The oddest assortment of vehicles would arrive in the capital every day, laden with food for the fighters or the sick and wounded in the hospitals. There were cases when a village national guard travelled up to Budapest together, joined a rebel unit, and took part in the fighting after November 4.

Life in the villages normalized as soon as local power was transferred. The country people wanted to leave the course of political settlement to those in whom they trusted: the government led by Imre Nagy and the revolutionary council running the county. The local revolutionary or national councils managed affairs efficiently. The main tasks for the national guards were to ward looters off the harvested produce and gather weapons from the privileged of the old regime. Restoring the natural order of things was not even seen as a change. The crucifix would return to the school—the task of bearing it was often assigned to the former party secretary. The Soviet war memorial, which symbolized occupation and wartime sufferings, might be pulled down, or a ‘nationalized’ mill be restored to its rightful owner. All Saints and All Souls (November 1–2) became a festival again. The latter took on special significance, as a day of remembrance for those who had died in the uprising.