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50th anniversary reopens old wounds
Political tension is rising in Budapest as Hungarians commemorate the 1956 Uprising
The right-wing opposition Fidesz party and 1956 veterans’ organisations have threatened to boycott the official celebrations. As international dignitaries began arriving in Budapest, attending a black-tie concert, several hundred of the protesters who have for weeks been trying to bring down the Socialist-led Government remained outside the parliament yesterday, while police helicopters swooped overhead.
Opposition leaders have organised a huge demonstration in the heart of Budapest’s business district, near the radio station where fighting first began in 1956. The banks of the Danube are bedecked in giant flags with a hole in the centre — the symbol of the 1956 revolution.
Passions are running high across the country after Budapest exploded into violence last month when a tape emerged of Ferenc Gyurcsány, the Prime Minister, admitting that he had lied “morning and evening”. Last night there were fears that police might not be able to control the crowds. Gábor Demszky, the mayor of the capital, accused Viktor Orban, the leader of Fidesz, of wanting to “heighten tension”.
Two monuments will be unveiled today: an official one near Heroes’ Square, where in 1956 revolutionaries tore down a giant statue of Stalin; and a more realist statue near the Technical University, supported by veterans’ groups.
Among the official guests expected were José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, and King Juan Carlos of Spain. Denis MacShane, the former Europe Minister, is representing Britain.
“The heroic failure of 1956, the astonishing courage shown by Hungarians, restored honour and pride in a nation that had shown little of either in the first half of the 20th century,” said Victor Sebestyen, author of Twelve Days, a new history of the 1956 uprising.
The ceremonies will be uncomfortable for Mr Gyurcsány, once a communist youth leader and now one of the richest men in Hungary. His wife, Klara Dobrev, is the granddaughter of Antal Apró, who helped to organise the crackdown in which hundreds of freedom fighters were imprisoned and more than 200 executed.
“Hungary is a divided nation, based on the question of which side of the barricades was your father on in 1956,” Sebestyen Gorka, of the Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security, said. “Was he fighting for independence and democracy or to maintain the dictatorship and communism?
“People cannot understand how the Government today is made of supporters of the old regime.” Government supporters argue that the communist party of the 1980s was very different from that of the 1950s, the terror having long since ended.
Yet Hungary has not had a reckoning. Many communist-era officials and former secret police officers remain in their luxury villas in the Buda hills. “We need to come to terms with the fact that Hungarians willingly killed Hungarians after 1956,” said Mr Gorka.
The uprising of 1956 was crushed by Soviet tanks and Imre Nagy, its communist leader — whom the nationalist Right now tries to appropriate — was hanged after a show trial.
Yet the subsequent compromises of the “goulash communism” instituted by János Kádár contributed to the collapse of the dictatorship. “After 1956 nobody could have any illusions that the Soviet Union was progressive or idealistic,” Mr Gorka said. “What happened in Hungary played a significant part in the ultimate collapse of communism.”
In 1989, Nagy was reburied with full state honours.
HOW THE REVOLT WAS CRUSHED
Oct 23, 1956 200,000 stage demonstration outside Parliament in Budapest. A statue of Stalin in Heroes’ Square is toppled. Hungarian secret police open fire on crowds outside Radio Budapest
Oct 24 Soviet tanks enter capital at 2am. Imre Nagy, the reformist Prime Minister, makes radio appeal for calm
Oct 25 Soviet soldiers and Hungarian police fire on protesters outside the Parliament building. The government collapses. Over the next few days about 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops are killed
Oct 27 Nagy forms a new Government
Oct 28 Ceasefire in Budapest; fighting continues elsewhere
Oct 28 Most Soviet troops withdraw from Budapest to garrisons outside the city
Nov 1 Nagy announces Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. Soviet Union sends in more tanks
Nov 4 New Soviet-backed government announced
Nov 10 Organised resistance ends and mass arrests are made. More than 200,000 Hungarians flee as refugees
