Hungary and the reforms of Nagy
- Created by: nasifahuddin04
- Created on: 09-08-20 18:59
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- HUNGARY AND THE REFORMS OF NAGY
- Hungary was led by hard-line Communist= Matyas Rakosi
- Hungarians hated restriction which Rakosi's Communism imposed on them
- Hungarians felt bitter about losing freedom of speech & lived in fear of secret police
- Hungarians resented presence of thousands of Soviet troops & officials in their country
- some areas of Hungary had Russian street signs, Russian schools & Russian shops
- Hungarians had to pay for Soviet forces to be in Hungary
- Hungarians hated the 'Russification' of Hungary
- June 1956: group within Communist Party in Hungary opposed Rakosi
- Hungary was led by hard-line Communist= Matyas Rakosi
- Hungarians hated restriction which Rakosi's Communism imposed on them
- Hungarians felt bitter about losing freedom of speech & lived in fear of secret police
- Hungarians resented presence of thousands of Soviet troops & officials in their country
- some areas of Hungary had Russian street signs, Russian schools & Russian shops
- Hungarians had to pay for Soviet forces to be in Hungary
- Hungarians hated the 'Russification' of Hungary
- Rakosi appealed to Moscow for help & wanted to arrest 400 leading opponents- Moscow wouldn't back him & the Kremlin ordered him to be retired for 'health reasons'- forced to leave his position
- Hungary was led by hard-line Communist= Matyas Rakosi
- The new leader (after Rakosi) Erno Gero was no more acceptable
- Student demonstration on 23 October 1956- giant statue of Stalin in Budapest was pulled down
- After Gero- USSR allowed a new government to be formed under the well-respected Imre Nagy
- Soviet troops & tanks stationed in Hungary since the war began to withdraw
- Hungarians created thousands of local councils to replace Soviet power
- several thousand Hungarian soldiers defected from the army to the rebel cause, taking their weapons with them
- Nagy's government began to make plans
- - Hold free elections - create impartial courts (unbiased)- restore farmland to private ownership
- wanted total withdrawal of Soviet army from Hungary
- planned to leave Warsaw Pact & declare Hungary neutral in Cold war struggle between East & West
- there was widespread optimism that American President Eisenhower, who had been wartime supreme commander of all Allied forces in western Europe, would support the new independent Hungary
- Soviet Fears & Reaction
- Khrushchev at first seemed ready to accept some reforms but couldn't accept Hungary leaving Warsaw Pact
- November 1956- thousands of Soviet troops & tanks moved into Budapest- two weeks of bitter fighting followed
- about 3,000 Hungarians & 7,000-8,000 Russians were killed- another 200,000 Hungarians fled across border into Austria to escape Communist forces
- Imre Nagy & his fellow leaders were imprisoned, then executed
- Hungarian resistance was crushed within 2 weeks
- western powers protested to USSR but sent no help- they were preoccupied with Suez crisis in Middle East
- Khrushchev put Janos Kadar in place as leader
- Kadar took several months to crush all resistance
- about 35,000 anti-Communist activists were arrested & 300 were executed
- Kadar cautiously introduced some of the reforms being demanded by the Hungarians- apart from the membership of the Warsaw Pact
- Hungary was led by hard-line Communist= Matyas Rakosi
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