Word: hungarian
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...spark that set off the Hungarian explosion blew across from Poland in June 1956, when the workers of industrial Poznan (pop. 372,000) revolted. By October Moscow had been forced to grant the Poles a large measure of independence. The question then arose: How much further could Moscow go in granting freedom to other restless satellites? Evidence before the U.N. committee suggests that there was a difference among Soviet leaders on this point. One group, probably the marshals, was against any further concessions, and eager to crush any rebellion that might take place in Hungary...
...Party Secretary Erno Gero on a visit to Tito's Yugoslavia, and the world concluded that Kremlin concessions to Hungary were in the wind. But several days before the revolt broke out, says the U.N. report, ponton bridges were assembled by the Russian army at Zahony on the Hungarian-Soviet frontier. And in neighboring Rumania, Soviet officers on leave and reserve officers speaking Hungarian were recalled to their units...
...before Hungarian students were expected to demonstrate at the statue of Hungarian Hero-Poet Petofi, Soviet forces in western Hungary were observed moving towards Budapest. The Hungarian demonstrations, when they occurred, were spontaneous, "entirely peaceable," and nothing shows that any demonstrators intended to "resort to force." Then Erno Gero, suddenly recalled from Belgrade, made an aggressive radio speech: There would be no relaxation of Communist control. The students became incensed. And when they tried to have their modest demands read out over the same radio station, the hated AVH secret police fired on them...
Playing with Fire. There is thus reason to believe that the Soviet marshals intended to provoke rebellion in Hungary in order to crush it firmly and finally. But the Russians badly miscalculated their own strength and control. Within a few days the Hungarian Communist Party had disintegrated, the Hungarian army had defected, and the borders of Hungary were open to a host of sharp-eyed Western observers. Overnight the Revolution became a war strictly between Hungarians and Russians, with the world looking on. In this unexpected situation, the Soviet army command was forced to mark time while the forces they...
There was no Hungarian civil administration to support the Kadar government, no public support whatever, only "a small segment of former Communist Party officials, a few senior officers of the Hungarian army," and a few members of the old AVH. But that did not bother the Russians, who sent Kadar scurrying around the country whipping up a following while his taped voice cried hysterically from every radio station. When a delegation from Kobanya asked him to intervene with the Soviet military commander to stop the deportation of workers, Kadar answered: "Don't you see there are machine guns...