I have posted some topics on Colour Revolutions recently and it seems a surprise to people when I say that Hungary was a colour revolution. In reality I should be able to just show the TIME magazine cover supporting the “freedom fighters” and that should be it. Why on earth would TIME be interested in promoting “true socialists”. That should be the end of this post really - “look TIME supported them”. Dust my hands off at a job well done. \
The bourgeois and Trotskyist press has long maintained that “actually they were true socialists that were crushed by tanks by the evil baddie Soviet stalinists”. Even today they are still at it. (some examples below)
https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/43532/Hungary+1956—rebirth+of+socialism+from+below
https://www.socialist.net/the-hungarian-revolution-60-years-on.htm
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2006/10/hun1-o25.html
This is a profound rewriting of history. I recently had a discussion with someone on here that said there “wasn’t an antiCommunist nature to the protests”.
Radio Free Europe (should be familiar to everyone here) was broadcasting that the US would not allow the “revolution” to be crushed and encouraged the protests
The CIA had numerous assets in place under the agencies Red Sox/Red Cap program
James Jesus Angleton, the CIA, and the Craft of Counterintelligence, PP.150-160
Section from the book “The Truth about Hungary” by Herbert Aptheker; a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse in the 1940’s, and Marxist Historian. Written in 1957 it outlined what later would be confirmed by the bourgeois Western press
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”
"But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing."
>"Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. **These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements**' ...." (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
"The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary."
>"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives.“”
Backed by US and British imperialism with Gladio style weapons caches. If you are unfamiliar with Operation Gladio it was a US/British backed operation to fund and arm nationalists and fascists against a hypothetical invasion by the USSR. In reality the USSR was invading noone having suffered 27 million dead in WW2
Instead Gladio became an operation to commit terrorist attacks against civilians, blame them on Communists to create a “strategy of tension”
I can recommend Daniele Ganzers, NATOs Secret Armies
Some of the weapons used were American, and others almost certainly British. Mr Smith says MI6 and the CIA had buried arms caches in the woods around Prague and Budapest for use by “stay-behind” parties or fifth columnists in case of war.
The mid-1950s were regarded by the British and the United States as the last chance to challenge Soviet dominion over eastern Europe. The Eisenhower administration had been elected on a platform of “liberating” the Soviet satellite states, but in the 10 years since the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union hadstrengthened its hold over the central and eastern part of the continent.
The name of Mr Smith’s main contact - a military officer working for MI6 - has been withheld under a D-notice. However, he recalled “picking up agents on the Hungarian border” to take them across in to the British-occupied zone of Austria in 1954. “We were taking them up into the mountains and giving them a sort of … crash course. I would be told to pick somebody up from a street corner at a certain time of night in the pouring rain. Graz was our staging point. Then, after we’d trained them - explosives, weapons training - I used to take them back … We were training the agents for the uprising.”
In return, the British received information. Paul Gorka was one of a group of students recruited in the early 1950s to gather intelligence on Soviet activity in Hungary. “In due course we received coded messages from Vienna asking us for information about Russian troop movements … We replied with information written in invisible ink in innocuous letters to special addresses.”
Pictures from the Counter Revolution of them dragging dead jews and communists through the streets, spitting on their bodies, burning pictures of Lenin and Stalin and the USSR flag
Also the Time Magazine cover and the CounterRevolutionary fascists stopping to have their picture taken with a American cia agent
Of all the things Kruschev would do after Stalins death that Stalin should’ve shot him for - running tanks into Hungary was absolutely correct
The Communists who sided with tanks going into Hungary was how Communists earned the moniker “Tankie”
Yet 50 years later it’s revealed that MI6 were training the rebels :shrug-outta-hecks:
“Tankie” should unironically be worn with pride in the fact “tankies” were absolutely correct in characterising the uprising as a semi-fascist counter-revolution (doors of jews and Communists were marked by pogroms during it) that needed to be put down
Some of the weapons used were American, and others almost certainly British. Mr Smith says MI6 and the CIA had buried arms caches in the woods around Prague and Budapest for use by “stay-behind” parties or fifth columnists in case of war. Additional: The Truth About Hungary is a brilliant and quite short book worth reading. Published in 1957 it basically set out the character of the protests as semi-fascist and supported by the imperialist powers. Basically everything that was dismissed as Communist propaganda but has now been confirmed by the Western press. People seem to forget that hungary only a 11 years previously was a fascist state allied with the Nazis and Left Anticommunists have continually tried to portray the uprising as a “socialist uprising but with a more human face”
https://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/the-truth-about-hungary.pdf
for completeness here’s a pasta on it, would be interested in your comments on it. JoeySteel (RIP) sometimes let his rage get in the way of his writing and I think it could be condensed further
The Soviet invasion of Hungary was good and based and one of the few correct things Khrushchev did. It’s worth bearing in mind the uprising in Hungary coincided with Israel, France and UK’s attack on Egypt.
It was a mix of a popular uprising against Khrushchevs faked “secret” speech about Stalin which enabled the fascist elements (paid, armed and trained by US and UK) of Hungarian society to gamble their chance on getting rid of socialist rule.
Fascists marked Communists homes with a white cross and those of jews with a black cross for extermination squads:
The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of these days, said that! the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”
Andre Stil, editor-in-chief of the French Communist newspaper, LHumanite, arrived in Budapest on November 12. He toured the city and conferred with many Communist and other survivors of the days of White Terror. His account is substantially the same as the reports sent in by Times and Tribune and Commonweal and Commentary and U.S. News and Life and Politika eyewitnesses, fascistic mass murder reminding one of the Berlin days of 1933—and the Budapest days of 1919. Thus:
After the tortures, those who were still breathing were hanged Even dead people were hanged. The corpses of those hanged were in such a state that many could not be recognized. The trees in Republic Square still bear the traces. These corpses, in all parts of their bodies, were bored through with bayonet thrusts, assailed by kicks, tom by nails, covered with expectoration…
(Herbert Apheker, The Truth About Hungary, p.220)
CIA sent terrorists to Hungary under the RED SOX program (Horthy here was the leader of the Hungarian fascists under 23 years of fascist rule in Hungary until Soviet liberation).
“The CIA sent RED SOX/RED CAP groups in Budapest into action to join the Freedom Fighters and to help organise them… Radio Free Europe, and the RED SOX/RED CAP groups encouraged the rebels.” Often since denied, this was something known at the time to those in the know. For example, on November 10 1956, the FBI tapped a conversation between Pagie Morris and Jay Lovestone. Morris said “I know the whole thing… Do you remember when I said to you that it was criminal to incite a revolution and a rebellion, and not to follow it through? … Well, the Wisner crowd incited it… And the Horthy crowd has been in it… That Radio Free Europe is the crowd that’s behind it.”
(James Jesus Angleton, the CIA, and the Craft of Counterintelligence, by Michael Howard Holzman, pp. 150-160)
The CIA chief in Vienna recalled that these “were very sad days” – we sat powerless on the sidelines watching the Soviets preparing to crush the revolution.
(ibid)
Weapons were British and American
Some of the weapons used were American, and others almost certainly British. Mr Smith says MI6 and the CIA had buried arms caches in the woods around Prague and Budapest for use by “stay-behind” parties or fifth columnists in case of war.
(MI6 trained rebels to fight Soviets in Hungarian revolt, The Independent)
Hungary, in 1954, was considered a “weak spot” of the Soviet Union according to US committee ’
Again on New Years day, 1954, the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate released a study, through its chairman, Senator Alexander Wiley which spoke of “accumulating tensions” and mounting “sabotage and underground activities” in Eastern Europe and referred in particular to Hungary as being the most tender spot - the "weakest link
(Truth About Hungary p.112)
The mid-1950s were regarded by the British and the United States as the last chance to challenge Soviet dominion over eastern Europe. The Eisenhower administration had been elected on a platform of “liberating” the Soviet satellite states, but in the 10 years since the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union had strengthened its hold over the central and eastern part of the continent.
USA was planning on WW3 with Soviet Union in 1943 (2 years before WW2 ended) whilst the British - at war with Hungary at this time “looked on at favour of Horthy” (Horthyism was the brand of fascism in Hungary in power for 23 years prior to Soviet liberation which was only more and more influenced by Nazism as the alliance with Austria and Germany deepened during that period and was to be the main fighting force in 1956)
By April 3, 1943, the editors of The Nation, in discussing “Russia After the War,” warned that many of the rich insisted on the inevitability of World War III—a “thought entertained by powerful forces in the United States which fear any modification of property relationships and are made uneasy by the possible existence of a powerful and successful collectivist state in the world.”
Specifically, in terms of Eastern Europe, as Doreen Warriner writes: “In 1944 all the anti-Soviet elements in the Balkan capitals believed that America and Britain would invade the Balkans after the defeat of Germany,” (cited work, p. 21n.). Leigh White, an American correspondent in the Balkans, writing in 1944, commented upon “the disreputable dynasties (there) of which our Metternichs of the State Department and Foreign Office are apparently so enamored” (cited work, p. 459). The distinguished English historian, Professor A. J. P. Taylor, in his introduction to the Memoirs of Michael Karolyi, declares that: “Even in the Second World War, when Hungary was an enemy state, and democratic Hungarians, one might have thought, our only friends, the British Foreign Office looked with favour on Horthy, Kallay and the rest, while Michael Karolyi was held at arm’s length.”
(Herbert Apheker, The Truth About Hungary, p.71)
Americans gravitated toward the fascist elements in Hungary at the end of WWII
When I left Italy in the Summer of 1945 (writes Mr. Riegel), talk of an inevitable war with Russia was fashionable with the Catholic Right and the small cynics who know the answer to everything. Arriving in Hungary, I found this same inevitability of war an article of general faith, intensified by a heritage of Nazi propaganda and wishful thinking.
He found, in agreement with all other observers—the testimony of some of whom has been offered on earlier pages—that … fascism and para-fascism, with their off-shoots of anti-Semitism and clerical reaction, are still strong forces in the country.”
These forces gained encouragement from the American officials, for in Mr. Riegel’s words: “The Americans gravitate toward the most dubious elements remaining in Hungary, the remnants of the gentry, industrialists, the higher clergy, and the motley assortment of fascists and opportunists.”
(ibid p. 73)
NATO furnished support to the fascistic elements of the Horthy fascists with:
The Mutual Security Act (of 1951) has as its stated aim, “to maintain the security and promote the foreign policy and provide for the general welfare of the U. S. by furnishing assistance to friendly nations in the interest of international peace and security.” To this was added an amendment, introduced by Representative Charles Kersten (R., Wis.) and approved by the House (and the Senate and signed by President Truman in October) in the following form, appended to the above:
and for any selected persons who are residing in or escapees from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, or the Communist- dominated areas of Germany and Austria, or any other countries absorbed by the Soviet Union, either to form such persons into national elements of the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or for other purposes, when it is similarly determined by the President that such assistance is important in the defense of the North Atlantic area and of the security of the United States (Congressional Record, August 17, 1951, vol. 97, p. 10261).
(ibid p.95)
Yes, I tried to clean it up a bit and will probably come back to it.
His writing was great, although somewhat sectarian, which isn’t surprising given he is an avowed Stalinist hah
The worst thing about knowing all of this is that you can’t tell anyone. If you tell liberals all of this they will dismiss you as a tankie conspiracy crank. They knew the uprising was good and democratic and that the Soviets were bad and authoritarian send they refuse to be told anything else.
this is my experience as well.
“well, sure, there were probably SOME fascists, but the people have a right to self determination” :blob-no-thoughts:
Self determination is not a valid argument if the individuals who want to do that are fascists. Inevitably, you must then ask “self-determination at the expense of who?”
i remember trying to tell my lib grandma some of this stuff, and she constantly just tone policed me. “You should breathe more.” “Calm down.” “You’re talking too fast.” “You know you sound really angry right now.” “I can’t pay attention to what you’re saying when you get like this.”
This bizarre part of this is I was being very calm, slow, patient, and was taking care to police my own tone. I wasn’t actually worked up. It felt like a deliberate strategy of avoidance.
Even when I first heard about it in history class, I thought “Well they were Nazis so of course they didn’t like being ruled by Communists and revolted against them.” Never realised quite to the extent it was (entirely) a CIA/MI6 OP. Thank you for the write up 👍
Don’t give the CIA and MI6 too much credit. They needed enthusiastic support from fascists all across Europe to make Gladio work. They were sowing bombs in fertile soil.
Saving for later (I’m off down the pub) but wanted to say thanks, this looks really good.
I think a similar effort post on Kronstadt could be warranted. It was, to my knowledge, the first color revolution ever.
It was also used as a wedge to turn Russian Anarchists against the Soviet Union. Deeply fucked event.
Still achieving that effect to some extent. They really hit a home run on their first try.
My eyes just rolled to the back of my skull.
If you have legitimate critique of this, than please share. I’m interested in other perspectives, especially any Hungarian sources.
I mean not even mentioning the workers councils that literally shut the country down and dismissing them as something only the trots care about is a huge problem to start. Like, workers didn’t started a strike wave so a few fash and CIA agents can start lynching.
The lynching did happen btw, but it wasn’t something that was condoned by the wider movement, quite the opposite. Here is what the paper of Imre Nagy’s supporters wrote about it.
"We hated fascism, no matter its color, we hated the bandits of Hitler, who, with the innocent Jews, exterminated such great persons of this nation as Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre. We hated and hate now the red fascists, the stalinist-rákosiist-péter gáborist-farkasist, or whatever directionist cops who killed, imprisoned, driven to suicide or turned into a physical and mental wreck some of our greatest patriots. And we hate the fascists lurking in the dark, who, taking advantage of the turmoil of the revolution, are trying to bake their own bread over the fire that’s cleansing the nation.
It’s tough to separate justified rage of the people from the hooligans trying to hide in the upset masses, but we got to.
There were lynchings in the city yesterday. Posters started to appear on the walls saying “Down with Communists! Down with the Party! Exterminate the Communists!” Shady people join the masses pointing at houses, saying “there’s a communist living here”, hoping that the masses will listen to them.
Instead we appeal everyone listen to reason! We call everyone to think! We feel like Igazság has deserved the right of calling on everyone to think, as we have supported the rising people from the first and hardest hours, screamed the truth despite the ÁVÓ guns pointed at us, protected the freedom fighters and spread their truth.
First of all we gotta remind you that even in the darkest times, in the midst of terror there were party members, who, risking their own and their families lives, ruining themselves, but came forward and unveiled the enemies of the people, even if it was the leaders of the party. These people were thrown out of the party, lost their jobs, some of them even got imprisoned. They started the process that led to the removal of Rákosi, and to the fact that in the frontlines there are active Party members.
We also gotta remind everyone to the siege of 1944-45 when the snitches brought the Arrow Cross soldiers on the necks of the believers of true freedom and the hiding Jews. They only had to say “This one is a friend of Jews, this one listens to English radio, this one is a member of an opposition party…” Do you remember? And do you remember the workers who were taken away from the barracks because they were succdems or union members?
The tollers of revolution are back. When the weapons were the loudest, they were hiding in the basement and now they’re back to whisper “Communists live here.” You gotta recognise the instigators! The revolution and them are like fire and water!
We say, all of them should be punished! Punish the AVH snitches, punish the AVH members, who ruined families, punish the functionaries who brought this people to ruin instead of rising them! They should be punished, but by the revolutionary tribunals, by the terms of Hungarian laws!
The revolution broke out for the freedom of order and the rule of law. The lynchmobs’ judges and the AVH executioners grew from the same ground. True revolutionaries will condemn lynching as they condemned the fascism of Rákosi.
The order of the Revolution is: Every criminal should answer to the law! But the streets are no tribunals. You shall unveil the criminals of the past, hand them over to the authorities and reject the ones calling for lynhing!
You’ll protect yourself and lay the base for a silent revolution and the blooming of productive life if you do this."
Also there was the “Unguarded money” chests which were started as an art project, by the writers union but in two day they raised about 42 thousand dollars worth of money for the families of fallen revolutionaries and AVH members who were victims of lynching.
These are just the first two examples i could find about how the lynch mobs were rejected. I will maybe address the “color revolution” claims later but i’ve been writing this for 2 hours now. But in short: everything i saw in the alst few years about them makes me think that even if there were western elements in the revolution (probably were) they were strictly limited to the street fights in Budapest, which explains why that is the part that gets mentioned is that and why no one apart from the trots and a few marxists ( like CLR James , who can’t be accused with being a liberal and compared the Hungarian revolution to the Cuban one) mention that the factory councils had a huge part to play in this as well (like when they stopped sourcing the police with weapons after the first instances of firing into the crowd).
Edit: Just out of curiosity i did a ctrl+f of this thread and this comment is the first with the word “council” in it. Kinda telling.
It must never be forgotten that the Hungarian Revolution was successful as no other revolution in history was successful. The totalitarian state was not merely defeated. It was totally destroyed and the counter-revolution crushed. It is the totality of the success which enabled the workers to do so much before the revolution was robbed of its victory by Russian tanks from outside.
Every time I read something from libcom it’s an absolute blast.
:meow-floppy: so broadly it can be described as general unrest with both (prolly more?) sides ™ vying for power, due to mismanagement or heavy hand of moscow? :meow-floppy:
Like: gib councils side (disaffected workers?), and freedom in workplace; fuck commies side (former bougie types?), gib marshall plan
There were definitely more. And it was a shitstorm, which is well demonstrated by the fact that Maléter (one of the “leaders” of the revolution, also an avid communist) didn’t even know of the lynchings until videos of it were shown to him on his trial (source: his biography page 273 ).
The reasons of the revolution was economic hardships combined with the fact that this era of communism was hardly anything like what Hungary expected after WWI. You couldn’t even start wage negotiations about your wage without shady people starting to ask questions about you behind your back. For 30 years Hungarian communists were sold because they thought council communism is the way, but after WWII that didn’t return. That contradiction was what blew up and if you check the demands ( linking the hungarian because the english translation is ridiculously bad ) they were all things like “living wage for workers” “give the same subsidies to people working alone and people working in co-ops”, “Bottom-up elections in the Labor Party” etc, which were all in the terms of communism staying intact. There are nationalist demands as well, like changing the flag back to the original red-white-green with the Kossuth-badge, but these were formalities.
The most comprehensive work about 1956 from Hungary is by Eörsi László, a Jewish historian, but i only know of one of his books that was released in English, [this one](https://www.amazon.com/Hungarian-Revolution-1956-Realities-Studies/dp/0880335912 i didn’t find a pirate version unfortunately) . It’s cover is shit but he really did a lot of legwork in order to start pushing the narrative leftwards here regarding 1956, he wrote a book where he compiled the biographies of everyone who was sentenced to death, writing in the prologue basically “yeah, there were people who deserved it.”
It actually seems to track with some strikes in ussr around same time and czechia later :soviet-hmm:
It’s some internal contradiction of revolution/coherent tries of socialism it seems, if you immediately go council communism, shit stops working (notable exception of barcelona aside :thonk: ), if you go central party planning, party squashes dissent and then quietly rots away for 50 years until complete revisionism, where bottom up approach could have rescued it.
You were threatening long post with modern info from hungarian sources for some time :meow-floppy:
Or maybe just source, so as not to bother you too much
I do lol but it would take time to compile it and i like to spend that with not arguing on the internet, especially this last year. but with all these revisionist posts it looks like i seriously gotta get to it.
How is this post revisionist, this matches the Soviet and communist view at the time and has contemporary sources to back it up.
If anything, you coming in with “modern Hungarian sources” would be the revision
I’m a bit perplexed by this as well, but I’m always up for learning and better understanding.
Apparently the Western Liberal historical account is always default and correct and attempting to show the historical account from the point of view of anyone else is “revisionism”
I thought the shitting on “tankies” came from the Prague spring
Hungary was the first “stalinist repression” that was spun by the west to undermine the international communist movement. With the tankies phrase originating from the British :british-maw: denouncing CPGB members thst upheld Khrushchev’s actions as "send in the tank"ers or tankies for short. Brezhnev’s crushing of the social fascists in Czechoslovakia basically solidified the “muh tankies” bit
Another win for the tankies. Join us, Anarcho brethren! We are consistently right
We are consistently right
No. There are many examples of Marxism miscalculating and failing to adapt. The point of this post is not “anarchists wrong”, it is to clearly outline a historical event so it can be properly discussed and understood.
Accepting Capitalist and Imperialist propaganda as events where Marxism failed only weakens our ability to adequately critique, study, and build upon socialist theory.
If the USSR had been consistently right, it would still be here. It is not. We must all learn from those missteps so we do not repeat them.
With that said, The USSR combatting Hungarian Fascists and halting the beginnings of another antisemitic genocide is an event where the Soviets succeeded.
