Oh Jack maybe
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it's autumn 1956 and in Hungary all is
not well years of brutal repression and
economic failure at the hands of a
regime a communist puppet has created a
popular fury that threatens to boil over
into open defiance when Poland managed
to force the Soviets to accept their new
reforming leadership under bloody Slavko
mukha in late october the hungarian
opposition senses its chance for reform
has come at a moment's notice
large protests are organized in budapest
to demand change in the early hours of
October 23rd 1956 a manifesto for change
was distributed far and wide among the
citizens of Budapest
it was the 16 points and it demanded the
removal of Soviet troops from Hungary
and the formation of a new government
and Hungary's own reforming leader
former prime minister Emery Nagi
initially the Communists tried to ban
the demonstrations from taking place but
the sheer scale at the crowds assembling
made this impossible when the martyrs
began at 3 p.m.
20,000 people began to converge on the
statue of Yosef BAM a Polish general who
would fall with the Hungarians during
their 1848 to war with Austria at the
front of the crowd in Buda on the west
side of the river Danube the Hungarian
flag was carried but with the communist
emblem at the center cut out a potent
symbol of the revolution that was to
come by 4:30 p.m. there were about
25,000 people crowded into bem square
scene in this photo clustered around the
statue unwilling to disperse now with
the March was concluded some in the
crowd began to call for the protesters
who take their demands directly to
Parliament and spontaneously the crowd
began to move off crossing the Margaret
bridge 40 abreast by now workers were
finishing their shift of the day and
join the crowd swelling its numbers
the slogans turned more radical with
shouts of Russians go home her a slogan
that would soon be trophy teat across
the city a communist party headquarters
on Academy streets that there was panic
faith with mass protests against his
rule the Hungarian Communist leader
ernõ Garrow fell back on the support of
Soviets guns alongside the Soviet
ambassador to Budapest Yuri Andropov
he asked the Soviets to send troops into
the city to end the demonstrations by
the early evening the crowd had reached
Parliament Square and was up to 200,000
people strong the loudest chants were
now for Imran Nagi to come and address
the masses and after some hesitation he
agreed to do so appearing at Parliament
at 8:45 p.m. Nagi was a very popular
politician but at heart he was still a
communist and thought that some of the
demands of the protesters went too far
his speech calling for the crowd to go
home and leave reforms to him failed to
capture the mood and Nagi soon found
himself overtaken by events elsewhere as
the old man spoke at Parliament a second
crowd of several thousand people marched
at the Budapest radio station on Sandor
Brody Street to demand of a 16 points be
aired nationwide the station controller
agreed but deceived the protesters by
pulling the plug on the transmitter so
that they couldn't be heard when this
was realized the furious crowd began to
try and force their way inside the
station it was at this point that a
nervous soldier of Hungary security
forces the AVH panicked and opened fire
on the crowd in the first volley of
shots three people were killed and two
more injured in an instant everything
changed Hungarian Regular Army units who
had been sent to disperse the protest
refused to open fire and some began to
fire back at the AVH men inside the
building
Lieutenant Colonel sanic epoxy went
further going over entirely to the
nascent revolution and opening stores of
police weapons to arm that would be
rebels in just a couple of hours a day
of peaceful protest became an armed
insurrection as a fierce gun battle
raged at the radio station another crowd
gathered in heroes square to the
northeast I began to attack the huge
statue of Stalin that dominated the area
at 9:37 p.m. after two failed attempts
the statue was finally brought down and
his head removed the most visible symbol
the subjugation of Hungary had been
toppled with events beginning to spiral
out of control the Soviet leadership met
urgently in Moscow
and decided on two courses of action
firstly Guerra would be sacked as prime
minister and replaced by imre nagy II
missed second Lee the new government
will be backed by 6000 Soviet troops and
hundreds of Tanks he would enter the
city to restore order at midnight Naji
accepted the post of Prime Minister and
at 2:00 a.m. the Soviet troops moved in
though the Soviets were quickly able to
control most of Budapest important
streets squares and bridges but they
were constantly harassed by ragtag bands
of rebel fighters that could ambush them
before melting away into the city's maze
of back streets and alleyways armed very
Molotov cocktails or rifles the rebels
were also able to seize key strongholds
of their own at xena square tomba street
burrows square and most importantly the
Corvinus cinema across the street from
the Colvin was the kilian barracks where
at 11:00 a.m. Hungarian Army Colonel
Powell militaire was dispatched to
prevent the garrison mutiny when he
arrived he found Soviet tanks laying
seized in a cinema and quickly realized
that the rebels were not in fact
fascists reactionaries but ordinary
garyun citizens with that he rang the
Defense Ministry and announced he was
going over to the revolution but the
Soviets forced to withdraw a small
corner of Budapest fell firmly under
rebel control by this time it wasn't
just Budapest defying a Soviet Union but
towns and cities across Hungary
demonstrations and uprisings were
reported in Debrecen miss Scotian
Chapelle just south of Budapest in the
afternoon Imre Nagy II made a nationwide
radio broadcast to call for calm but he
was still stuck thinking in terms of
reforming the communist system not
destroying it as many rebels now wanted
he was ignored late on the 24th with
Budapest still not secured the Soviets
were reinforced by an additional 14,000
troops but this made little difference
the Red Army was still unable to fully
destroy any rebel strongholds because of
a ban on the use of aircraft or heavy
artillery in the afternoon of October
25th the communists continued their
record of disastrously mishandling tense
situations when a crowd once again
gathered to peacefully protest in
Parliament Square it was suddenly fired
on by both Soviet troops and AVH men 75
were killed and 282 wounded in an action
that further inflames the situation in
Budapest hundreds of new volunteers
flocked to the rebel bands hoping to
expand the area helped by the rebels
around the Corbin cinema and see the new
stronghold as Zigman or each square
about 2100 rebels were now under arms
inside the city buoyed by this success
over the next couple of days the
strength of the revolution reached its
peak the towns and cities of beatstep
regime juror and miss cult who fell
under full rebel control the defendant
of the Corbin cinema destroyed four
Soviet tanks as they repelled yet
another assault on their
in this photograph you can see the
aftermath of the assault with the
Killian barracks opposite severely
damaged and destroyed Soviet tanks
littering the road on October 27th Emre
Nagi announced a new cabinet that
included for non communists naively
hoping that this gesture would be enough
to calm the violence
what Nagi failed to recognize was that
with hundreds of tanks on Budapest
streets and over 300 civilians already
dead the public did not really care that
a former social democrat had been made
minister for foreign trade Naji's new
cabinet was met with rejection from
rebel groups and the public at large
prompting him to finally realize that he
had to go much much further meeting with
soviet envoys to budapest Anastas
Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov Nagi began to
negotiate for a ceasefire and pushed for
many rebel demands to be accepted
including a disbandment of the AVH
security forces late into the night an
agreement was reached and after a final
attack on the Corvin on the morning of
october 28th a ceasefire was declared at
1:20 p.m. as the sound of gunfire died
away both sides counted their losses in
four days of fighting over 1,000
Hungarians and 500 Soviet troops had
been killed at dawn on October 29th it
was announced that the Soviets would be
withdrawing from Budapest as part at a
ceasefire in Rana GE was now faced with
the task of restoring some sense of
normality to Budapest
while discussions with the Soviets were
ongoing top of the list was bringing the
dozens of rebel groups on side and
moving towards disarming as thousands of
armed civilians now she was concerned
that continuing to have armed civilian
bands roaming around the city at will
would give the Soviets the impression
that his government which was weak and
make it more likely that they would
reenter the city
the Prime Minister's considered tree
approach appeared to pay off as the
Soviets publicly declared their support
for Hungarian national sovereignty and
early on October 30th agreed to withdraw
their troops from Hungary entirely at
9:30 a.m. that same day the Soviet
guards of a communist party building in
Republic Square left their positions in
accordance with the ongoing withdrawal
not long afterwards a large crowd
gathered outside including rebel
fighters a rumor had spread that the
building housed a secret AVH dungeon and
the revolutionaries rushed inside to
located what precisely happens next is
unclear but it appears the rebels came
face-to-face with AVH offices who were
laying low inside the building and a
furious gun battle broke out the rebels
ran outside and the building was
besieged where the tank brought up to
pound it into submission hearing about
the outbreak of violence the hungarian
defense ministry dispatched its own
tanks to disperse the crowd however when
the tanks arrived the site of another
hungarian tank Aldi present and firing
on the building confused them and rather
than prevent the violence the soldiers
joined in with the attack on the
building not long afterwards at about
2:30 p.m.
a man emerged from inside waving a white
flag he was shot on the spot and the
building was then stormed once it was
captured a flag was raised how she can
see here and then AVH prisoners were
brought outside one by one or in small
groups
the officers were dragged out into the
street beaten and then shot some were
hanged 23 were lived in total in an
outbreak of brutality that was captured
on camera and shocked the world the
violence against communists which spread
round the entire nation at this point
and the inability of the Hungarians to
do anything about it horrified sue Slav
and McCoy an late in the day they sent
back a very pessimistic report to Moscow
expressing fears that the entire
Hungarian army might go over to the
revolutionaries this report which gave
detail about the attack on Republic
Square gave the impression of a
government losing control of its own
capital and was read with great concern
by nikita khrushchev news of this
deteriorating situation in Budapest came
at the same time as reports of protests
in Romania and Poland and the Soviets
began to worry that unrest could
destabilize their European Empire at a
meeting of the Soviet Politburo on
October 31st it was decided to reverse
the announcement of the previous day and
to now take military action against the
Hungarians it was judged that it would
take three days to prepare the troops
needed for a quick and overwhelming
victory so November 4th was set as the
dates for the invasion of Budapest all
that remained was for the Hungarians to
be kept in the dark about the Soviets
true intentions and to that end
Mikoyan and sooo Slav were recalled from
Hungary only the silver-tongued
diplomats who Yuri Andropov would remain
in Budapest to give the appearance of
normality from the early hours of
November 1st the Hungarian government
got reports of Soviet troop movements
back into Hungary initially naji
believed the shirin system Andropov
these were routine but after repeated
meetings during the day he finally lost
his patience at a 5 p.m. cabinet meeting
he proposed that Hungary withdraw from
the Warsaw Pact and declare its
neutrality this was accepted unanimously
but yellow Skoda a young cabinet member
who had been made partybot in the wake
of garrow's dismissal was noted by
Andropov to be unenthusiastic Nagi
broadcast his decision on the radio at
8:00 p.m. and at the same time kadar was
taken by cart of a Soviet embassy in
form of the imminent assault on Budapest
and persuaded by Andropov to defect to
the Soviet Union
the next day still playing for time with
the Hungarians Andropov agreed to begin
negotiations on a timetable for Soviet
withdrawal from Hungary Paul Molitor now
appointed Minister of Defense led the
Hungarian delegation and the talks began
at 2:00 p.m. on November 3rd in good
spirits as a gesture of goodwill Miletus
and Hungarian tanks back to barracks and
agreed to conclude the talks that
evening at a Soviet military base to the
south of Budapest that evening Martha
was warned by both his wife and his
deputy that it could be a Soviet trap
but he resolved to go anyway after
arriving at 9:45 p.m. the talk went as
planned and mallets are reported to Nagi
and major-general bellacor I the
commander of Budapest defences that all
was well just before 11 p.m. then about
an hour later a dozen Soviet policemen
led by KGB chief even surov stormed into
the negotiation room and placed the
Hungarian delegation under arrest
minutes later her I was woken with
urgent report that Soviet tanks had
begun to penetrate Budapest outer
defense ring with no orders to shoot
Hungarian soldiers hadn't fired on the
invaders her I rang him ranaji and
begged him to allow a declaration of war
to the issue the weary Prime Minister
not wanting a futile battle against
overwhelming odds refused a hundred and
fifty thousand troops from ten Soviet
divisions swarmed into the city and from
4:00 a.m. key rebel areas were shelled
relentlessly
a 5:20 a.m. Nagi made a final radio
broadcast for Parliament
announcing the attack before seeking
refuge in the Yugoslavian embassy at
5:30 a.m. Soviet tanks reached
Parliament Square and half an hour later
a pre-recorded broadcast by jános kádár
was played and noting the formation of a
new government with the Hungarian army
decapitated with mallet s arrest there
was a little resistance from them only
the rebel band - at first risen up 12
days earlier defended their positions
with tenacity and bravery
this time however bravery was not to be
enough against modern t54 tanks
overwhelming numbers and airpower by
10:00 a.m. the saviors had cleared the
rubble on Hornet borough Square and laid
siege to the others in a heroic stand
the revolutionaries are the two
strongest centers of resistant Zeena
Square and the Corbin cinema managed to
hold out for a full 48 hours before
succumbing on November 6th it took the
Soviets three further days to stylish
the kilian barracks entirely and to
finally bring the revolution to a close
as for Emre Nagi his safety in the
Yugoslavian Embassy would last just a
few weeks before he was lured out on the
promise of safety and promptly arrested
he would remain in prison for almost two
years before being executed mica das new
regime when the dust finally settled
2600 Hungarians had been killed in the
revolution and a hundred and eighty
thousand had fled the country Hungary
would remain firmly within the communist
sphere for another 33 years under Kedar
rule until the fall of communism in 1989
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