“I am here to celebrate the 1956 revolution,” he said in a meeting with Hungarian leaders. Bush claimed that the popular uprising against the Stalinist bureaucratic regime in Hungary was a revolt against “communist dictatorship.” He lauded the government in Budapest today for deploying troops as part of imperialist-led occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Hungarian officials pledged commitment to this alliance with Washington.

Bush’s remarks about the 1956 events were a falsification of history, however. The millions who rebelled in Hungary were not seeking to restore capitalism, with which they had had bitter experience, especially under fascist rule. They were fighting against bureaucratic abuses, for democratic rights, and to increase their control over the country’s affairs.

A working-class political revolution was the last thing the imperialist rulers wanted. Unable to reimpose capitalism there, they counted on Moscow to crush the Hungarian revolution.  
 
Sought to strengthen historic gains
Working people in Hungary were building on the gains of the Russian Revolution and its extension. In October 1917 workers and farmers in Russia, led by the Bolshevik party, took power and overturned capitalist rule. Under socialized means of production and a planned economy, Russia, previously one of the most backward countries in Europe, rapidly industrialized. Working people made giant social strides.

In the early 1920s, however, under the pressures of imperialist assault and isolation, a privileged bureaucracy developed in the Soviet Union. Following V.I. Lenin’s death, this rising middle-class caste headed by Joseph Stalin usurped political control, defeating communist working-class opposition. The Stalinist leadership reversed the Bolsheviks’ working-class internationalist course and imposed police-state repression, bureaucratic mismanagement, and subordination of foreign policy to Moscow’s narrow priorities. It could not, however, overturn the socialized property relations.

After World War II, in face of renewed imperialist aggression, Moscow organized the overthrow of the tottering capitalist regimes in East Europe as a defensive “buffer zone.” Working people in those countries mobilized, under Stalinist constraints, to expropriate the capitalists and landlords. Bureaucratically deformed workers states were established, including in Hungary.

Too weak to launch a hot war, the imperialist powers waged a “cold war” against the workers states. They put military and economic pressure on the bureaucratic regimes to crack down on the struggles of working people.

In the early 1950s, working-class demands for better living conditions and relaxation of the totalitarian regime forced the Nikita Khrushchev leadership in Moscow to make concessions, known as “de-Stalinization.” Emboldened, workers in the region pressed for more. A working-class revolt erupted in East Germany in 1953. In June 1956 a general strike in the Polish city of Poznan led to a nationwide uprising. The hated Kremlin-backed leader was replaced by Wladislaw Gomulka, who instituted a few democratic concessions and called for some independence from Moscow.

Inspired by the Polish revolution, Hungarian workers and students, including many Communist Party members, began to stage meetings demanding democratic rights and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. Under mounting pressure, Matyas Rakosi, known as the “Stalin of Hungary,” was forced to resign his post in July.  
 
Mass uprising, workers councils
Working people created their own organizations, including workers councils in the factories, neighborhoods, and army. They fought for better living conditions and wages and an increased say in the trade unions. They demanded legal recognition of the workers councils as permanent political bodies with authority in the management of the factories.

On October 23, hundreds of thousands poured into the streets. They defended themselves from police-state repression. A crowd tore down the notorious statue of Stalin in the capital. In response, the Hungarian CP leadership appointed Imre Nagy prime minister, who favored reforms and formerly held this post.

The Soviet regime, falsely claiming that the revolt was an imperialist-inspired “counterrevolution,” responded by sending troops into Budapest. In response, the masses took up arms in self-defense, spearheading an uprising. Workers launched a general strike. Large sections of the Hungarian army went over to the revolution. Some Soviet soldiers began to express sympathy with the rebels’ cause.

Nagy abolished the hated Secret Security Police. He called for the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The troops were redeployed to the provinces.

In its Nov. 5, 1956, issue, the Militant quoted an on-the-scene news report that described “a parade of workers’ delegates from the provinces…each presenting its set of demands of the new Budapest government.” It reported that “revolutionary councils in control of several large provincial towns” were “busy clapping into jail local officials of the Hungarian Workers (Communist) party and of the security police.”

An October 25 wire dispatch reported that a rebel radio station demanded “that the top positions of the state and the Communist Party be filled with men devoted to the principle of proletarian internationalism and respectful of Hungarian traditions.”

On November 4, Moscow sent back troops and tanks into Budapest. Nagy, who had promised “free elections” and repudiated the Warsaw Pact, was arrested. The Soviet-led forces unleashed a bloodbath. Thousands were killed, wounded, or jailed. Working people put up heroic resistance despite being overwhelmed by a vastly superior military force. They continued the general strike, issued leaflets, and protested the arrests. Resistance by the workers councils was crushed within two months.

Contrary to the cynical lies peddled both by imperialist and Stalinist representatives, the Hungarian workers and students did not want to go back to the capitalist past. They fought to strengthen their workers state and historic gains. The 1956 Hungarian revolution showed that the future lies with socialism.  
 
 
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