Page 3180 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 October 2006
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The Communist security troops tried to resupply themselves by hiding arms inside an ambulance, but the crowd detected the ruse and intercepted it. Hungarian soldiers sent to relieve the security forces hesitated and then, tearing the red stars from their caps, sided with the crowd. Provoked by the security force’s attack, protesters reacted violently. Police cars were set ablaze, guns were seized from military depots and distributed to the masses, and the symbols of the communist regime were desecrated. The communist symbol in the middle of the Hungarian flag was torn out. That became a symbol of the revolution and the uprising.
I was delighted to see that flag at the Hungarian Embassy last night, where a number of Australians who helped Hungarian refugees were awarded with medals for their efforts, including some very prominent Canberrans. I was also pleased to see an old Hungarian flag with the communist symbols ripped out at the Transylvania Vineyard. That is run by a Romanian gentleman, Peter Culici, and his charming wife Maria, who is of Hungarian extraction.
Disorder and violence erupted through the capital. The Hungarian army sided with the crowd, and the revolt spread quickly across Hungary. The communist government fell. Thousands were organised into worker and student militias. They battled the state security police—the AVH—and the Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and security members were often executed or imprisoned. Former prisoners were released, including the famous Cardinal Vincenti, who was a source of inspiration to Hungarians. The revolts had spread to the countryside.
Impromptu councils wrested municipal control from the Communist Party. They demanded political changes. The new government finally disbanded the AVH and declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. It pledged to re-establish fresh elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normalcy began to return. Although it had previously agreed to a ceasefire, the politburo—the Soviet Union—reversed itself and now moved quickly to quash the revolution. They arrested some Hungarian delegations who were sent to negotiate with them. In the early hours of 4 November they sent in a large Soviet force, using artillery, air strikes and tanks.
They quickly quashed organised resistance in the capital. Organised resistance throughout Hungary ceased on 10 November 1956. Mass arrests began. Several thousand people were imprisoned and executed after the revolt, and 200,000 or so Hungarians fled as refugees. By January 1957 the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all political opposition. The Soviet Union was very much alienated by what occurred. However, it probably strengthened its control over eastern Europe temporarily. Public discussion about this revolution was suppressed in Hungary for over 30 years, but since the thaw of the 1980s it has been the subject of intense study and debate.
I have had the privilege of knowing a number of Hungarians. A fellow who came here as a builder had been a refugee. He was bravely throwing Molotov cocktails on Soviet tanks as they invaded on 4 November 1956. My old friend Steve Doszpot, whom some of you know through his involvement with Soccer ACT, was an eight-year-old boy who escaped with his family. In fact, his mother was at that student demonstration on 23 October 1956, when the troops and the communist security element started firing on the crowd.
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