The events in Hungary in 1956 seem to be of high importance for historians and political researchers.

Half a century ago, under the influence of XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, destalinization led to events that became a tragedy: military forces of the USSR invaded the sovereign state in order to change its government. For a long time after 1956, in the Soviet Union these developments were explained in a way that was appropriate for us (Soviets, Russians) according to the stereotypes produced by communist agitation machinery. And even more, as Ferenc Feher correctly highlights, the Hungarian revolution very quickly became taboo in the Eastern bloc. It was never mentioned with any positive connotation, and was generally expunged from the records, pushed into total oblivion. [2; p.60] This point only confirms that the Hungarian events of 1956 are considered to be of significance. But even nowadays, when we experience freedom of speech and historians have access to archives of the Communist Party, these revolutionary developments are still not very clear or so easy to estimate. In order to understand the consequences of the events of 1956 Hungary, I shall explain the causes of the revolution and the processes that took place during these events. After the Second World War, the head of the Hungarian Communist Party, Rakosi, and his elite were implementing destructive social policy, including industrialization, repressions, and strengthening the rule of the party. The situation was almost the same in other Eastern European states, but in Hungary, people already had experience of reforms and destalinization measures because of Imre Nagys term as prime-minister (1953-1955) and his enduring conservative politics. A primary cause of the revolution was the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, where Khrushchev made a speech denouncing Stalin. This action appeared to be unexpected and striking for the communist world. What is more important, Khrushchevs speech was crucial for the inner political state in Hungary, because it undermined Rakosis position, and set in motion a wave of opposition, which led to the events of 23 October 4 November. [1; p.32]. It should be noted that, after Rakosis removal from power, a portion of the intellectual elite were unsure as to what action to take, but there was not only one social class that was driving the process. As Bill Lomax states, scientists have concentrated their attention on the rebellion of intellectuals, writers and politicians, while the actions of the popular masses, of the working class and the peasantry, the soldiers, students and youth, have been left largely out of account [1; p.17] Moreover, all different social classes were united in their revolutionary movement; for example, students were reflecting the general mood of dissatisfaction that was becoming ever more openly expressed by the working

people themselves [1; p.37]. This unity bore various methods of struggling - for example, general strike, which became a concerted action. It started immediately after the morning of 24 October. Furthermore, the unstoppable cycle of peaceful mass demonstrations, in Budapest and in other parts of the country was also a manifestation of Hungarian revolution; the whole country was taking part in an action of collective civil disobedience. This single-minded disobedience revealed the main characteristic of this rebellion: its undomesticable anti-authoritarianism. As a part of that disobedience, people had simply brought about the freedom of the press without waiting for any permission.[2; p.89] Therefore, the revolution had three main features. Firstly, it united the whole nation in struggle, regardless of social class and position. Opinions differed as to the main goal of this struggle: was it a fight for national independence from the Soviet Union, or fight for political liberties? [2, p.75]. The answer is not so straightforward. Though the revolution was, at the beginning, aimed at achieving political aims, after the Soviet forces entered Hungary it transformed into a fight for national independence [2, p.86]. Secondly, there was a high degree of selforganisation by the masses. People established committees and workers councils, that became kinds of democratic institutions providing political equality. It is significant that when Soviet military forces suppressed the revolution on 4 November, and all political achievements of the revolution were destroyed, only workers councils remained and continued to struggle. So a special role of the working class formations in the revolution should be highlighted. [1, p.147] The third feature of the revolution was political pluralism of the government. On 3 November Imre Nagy headed a government coalition of the new Communist Party and Social Democratic, Smallholder and Peasant Parties. [2, xvi] From analyzing these events, it appears as though the Soviet Union did not estimate such events to happen in Hungary. This may have been, in part, because Soviet leaders believed that in Eastern Europe people, and especially the working class, were fully committed to communism and did not desire any change. To them, it was unthinkable to suggest that a communist state from Eastern Europe would like to leave the Communist Camp. [3, p.319] This suggests why Hungary played such an important role in the world arena. As Ferenc Feher states, the Hungarian revolution of 1956 eliminated forever this idea of the indestructibility of the Soviet regimes from within. [2, p.3] It was the first time that the Soviet Union faced such a serious challenge; despite the fact that Khrushchev earlier had criticized Stalins methods of governing, he himself had to make a difficult choice intervene in, and suppress, Hungarian affairs, or stay aside and watch. It is well known that Politburo wasnt unanimous in the decision to use military force

indeed, it was largely Khrushchevs decision. As Ferenc Feher mentions in his book, Khrushchev said that there were also internal reasons in the Soviet Union why they could not permit the restoration of capitalism in Hungary. There were people in the Soviet Union who would say that as long as Stalin was in command everybody obeyed and there were no big shocks, but that now, ever since they had come to powerRussia had suffered the defeat and loss of Hungary. [2, p.56] But it was not only Khrushchevs fear of losing his credibility and power that played against Hungary indeed, it was the whole international situation. They expected Western countries to provide help, and if not take part directly in these events, at least to protect Hungarian neutrality against Soviet invasion. The United States of America even declared that they empathized with Hungary. It seems that in the most important moment, when Khrushchev was in great doubt about whether to use military force or not because of the Western reaction, when Soviet tanks were taken away from Budapest, when even the Chinese Communist party had shown sympathy towards Hungarians by stating that the claims made in the recent events in Hungary were perfectly justified [2, p.64], the crisis in Suez played crucial role. Hungary became a pawn in the game of great powers, where the Soviet Union refrained from interfering at the Suez crisis and left it to France and Britain, while they decided to close their eyes at Hungary events. At that moment the decision of repeated entering of Soviet military troops in Budapest was made by Khrushchev once and for all. The further development is clear: the revolution was suppressed and a new government headed by Kadar was introduced. But was it a total loss of revolution? Or did the revolution have any positive consequences? For example, it can be said that Hungary saved Poland from military invasion, because in Poland peoples dissatisfaction with regime was appearing. But the Soviet leadership decided not to solve the situation in Poland with the same means, and Gomulkas regime got a chance to conduct policy of gradual reforms as a way to socialism.[2, p.52] But what is more important, as Agnes Heller states, Kadarism has redirected Hungary back to the traditional national course of her distorted development. The Rakosi period was totally outside Hungarian national development, because it was a period of direct Russian rule.[2, p.148] The world community, including opponents of socialism within Eastern Europe states who were counting on Western help, accepted the incident as proof of the strength of the bipolar world system. Considerable impact the Hungarian events had for the world communist movement: it was split. Supporters of the "nationaloriented" concept of socialism understood that any attempt to move away from the

Soviet model of social organization would be perceived by Moscow as an attack on her "the landlord" role. And, finally, the political situation in the Soviet Union was also intensified: the fear of the developments similar to "Hungarian counterrevolution" stopped the scant reform potential of Khrushchev and his team. The process of de-Stalinization of the society went to the decline. The position of Khrushchev himself was significantly weakened and criticism of the course of the XX Congress intensified, and moreover, real intraparty opposition emerged, which stated itself quite openly in June 1957.