Contexts - The Rough Guide to Budapest - page 329

The Communist takeover and the 1956 Uprising
As Budapestis struggled to rebuild their lives after the war, the Soviet-backed Communists
took control bit by bit - stealthily reducing the power of other forces in society, and using the
threat of the Red Army and the ÁVO secret police , who took over the former Arrow Cross
torture chambers on Andrássy út. By 1948 their hold on Hungary was total, symbolized by
the red stars that everywhere replaced the crown of St Stephen, and a huge statue of Stalin
beside the Városliget, where citizens were obliged to parade before Hungary's“Little Stalin”,
Mátyás Rákosi .
The power struggles in the Moscow Communist Party leadership that followed the death of
Stalin in 1953 were replicated in the other Eastern European capitals, and in Hungary Rákosi
was replaced by ImreNagy . Nagy's “New Course” allowed Hungarians an easier life before
Rákosi struck back by expelling him from the Party for “deviationism”. However, society
had taken heart from the respite and intellectuals held increasingly outspoken public debates
during the summer of 1956. The mood came to a head in October, when 200,000 people at-
tended the funeral of László Rajk (a victim of the show trials in 1949) in Kerepesi Cemetery,
and Budapest's students decided to march to the General Bem statue near the Margit híd.
On October 23, demonstrators chanting anti-Rákosi slogans crossed the Danube to mass
outside Parliament. As dusk fell, students demanding access to the Radio Building were
fired upon by the ÁVO, and a spontaneous 1956 Uprising began, which rapidly took hold
throughout Budapest and spread across Hungary. The newly restored Nagy found himself in
a maelstrom, as popular demands were irreconcilable with realpolitik - independence and
withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact were anathema to the Kremlin. It was Hungary's mis-
fortune that the UN was preoccupied with the Suez Crisis when the Soviets reinvaded on
November 10, crushing all resistance in six days. An estimated 2500 Hungarians died and
some 200,000 fled abroad; back home, hundreds were executed and thousands jailed for their
part in the uprising.
“Goulash socialism” and the end of Communism
After Soviet power had been bloodily restored, János Kádár gradually normalized condi-
tions, embarking on cautious reforms to create a “ goulash socialism ” that made Hungary
the envy of its Warsaw Pact neighbours and the West's favourite Communist state in the late
1970s. Though everyone knew the limits of the “Hungarian condition”, there was enough
freedom and consumer goods to keep the majority content. Decentralized management, lim-
ited private enterprise and competition made Hungary's economy healthy compared to other
Socialist states, but in the 1980s it became apparent that the attempt to reconcile a command
economy and one-party rule with market forces was unsustainable. Dissidents tested the lim-
its of criticism, and even within the Party there were those who realized that changes were