50 years since the Hungarian Revolution.

international | history and heritage | news report

Sunday October 22, 2006 22:12

by liszt

It is very curious that most of the key momentous changes of European History & thus the events we note as watersheds of our social development - were spontanous & un-planned or even the results of "accidents".

50 years ago today young people took to the streets of Hungary & kicked off a popular revolution. No-one really knew what they wanted & no-one really remembers if they had leaders & what their names were. It proved to be the event which confirmed that the Warsaw Pact states of Europe would have to follow the stalinist isolationist path laid out just a few years before in the former East German state & sectored Berlin. It is odd how the Hungarian revolution began, as odd as how the Berlin wall came down (the result of a mistakenly read statement at a press conference). The brutality shown them was the same brutality that kept half of our continent in bonds till only recently.

Hungarian youngsters danced on the remains of Stalin's statue. Only his big boots were left for a few weeks. That was really revolutionary.

When thanks to a quick run of really very good Eurovision song competition winners with chirpy easy to understand choruses -stalinism disappeared & now all we have are a few James Bond movies with no special effects & dodgy casio watches & car gadgets.

Of course they don't tell you that in school. They credit the fall of stalinism to the EEC & the good work of the polish pope. But at end it was unsustainable just like Capitalism will be someday .

But one thing is certain. We must all be very glad Stalinism ended. & that Kruschev didn't get an -ism or Andropov for that matter though Andropov went on from being Soviet ambassador to Budapest & thus a sort of Soviet equivalent of Negroponte to being head honcho of the USSR. & that's when he tried to kill the polish pope. (you see how it all comes together?)

And oh yeah! the Americans did nothing. Don't forget that either.

from Wikipedia :-

{ "On the afternoon of October 23, 1956, about 20,000 protesters convened next to the Bem statue. Péter Veres, President of the Writers’ Union, read a manifesto to the crowd, the students read their proclamation, and the crowd then chanted the censored "National Song" (Nemzeti dal), the refrain of which states: "We vow, we vow, we will no longer remain slaves." Someone in the crowd cut out the communist coat of arms from the Hungarian Flag, leaving a distinctive hole and others quickly followed suit. Afterwards, most of the crowd crossed the Danube to join demonstrators outside the Parliament Building. By 6 p.m. the crowd had swollen to more than 200,000 people; the demonstration was spirited, but peaceful.
At 8 p.m., First Secretary Ernő Gerő broadcast a speech condemning the writers' and students' demands, and dismissing the demonstrators as a reactionary mob. Angered by Gerõ's hard line rejection, some demonstrators decided to carry out one of these demands - the removal of Stalin's giant statue from its place near to Heroes' Square. By 9:30 p.m. the statue was down and protestors placed Hungarian flags in the boots atop the pedestal." }

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956

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Comments (7 of 7)

I hope Redjade ( in Budapest ) puts up photos & reports.

by liszt - ( iosaf )

Tue Oct 24, 2006 21:11

The Spanish media (the one I get) not only troubled to do editorials today on "Europe's last true revolution" but had a look at the police action in Budapest yesterday. I don't know if this story reached Ireland, but I know it got on the BBC world site. Basically within sight of visiting dignatories & heads of state of Europe (including my local mister bourbon) cops brutally put down protesters with tear gas & rubber bullets. These were fired at hip position directly into the crowds. Many people are gurggling about the neo-nazi element amongst the anti-government demonstrators who "spoilt" the constitutional message of the main opposition parties who are still calling for a referendum to decide whether or not the Hungarian prime minister ought stay or go. Others pictured the comandered soviet tank which itself was a relic of the 1956 revolution which some rioters drove into the police lines.

But this level of police brutality is not excusable. Just because the young people in front of militarised police lines are "extreme right" or "extreme left" never justifies the violence which (in Barcelona) saw on late night TV. I saw multiple instances of police hitting heads of people lying on the street and in two cases kick the fallen bodies then drag them off by the scruff of the neck (we may presume for more roughing up). It strikes me as ridiculous that at pretty much the same time the heads of state of Europe were being shown round a stalinist era torture chamber now turned into a museum.

I see links between this gratuitous state violence and the emergence of the extreme right in Budapest and the process of EU expansion trumpeted by Ahern. I discussed this briefly with "Ex-pioneer" (a hungarian) on the previous thread http://indymedia.ie/article/78484

So please note today both the UK and Ireland (who enjoy a "common area" exempt from Shengen) decided to disallow both Romanian & Bulgarian migrant workers thier right as Europeans to work when their states become "new EU members" on january 1, 2007. Our 2 tier Europe is to become a 3 tier one "after all". Well done Bertie!

what an interesting day!

Mon Oct 23, 2006 22:03

from far away (as far away as Ireland) I see some of the same mysterious misbehaviour as preceded the local elections & was reported here :- http://indymedia.ie/article/78484

But I also see clear recognition by the Magyars that they have much to be proud of & reminiscent of - something which not all EU states have. Indeed there was & is lack of such spirit in those nations who left them to it in 1956.

Cheers

by Carol

Mon Oct 23, 2006 14:52

We all have to have to the cheek to stand up to it.

We are witnessing it on a daily basis, in our country and in other
countries- Palestine, Afghanisatn, Iraq, Ireland.

But thanks for the correction!

Wrong date

by neverforget

Mon Oct 23, 2006 13:58

The overthrow of Allende was on September 11th 1973, not May 17th. Don't know how you got that wrong, unless you were thinking of the 17th of May 1974 which does have some significance here in Ireland since that was the day on which a different empire also wreaked death and devastation on a nation which had the cheek to stand up to it.

The Polish Pope was rather disappointed by all accounts...

Mon Oct 23, 2006 13:24

He believed that after the fall of Communism the church would dominate the hearts and minds of the Polish
people- not so apparently.

Will provide the link later- but 'The Pope in Winter' has a good chapter on the depth of that disappointment.

It coincided neatly with the Fatima Conspiracy- the last vision and its release into the World, his
survival against the bullet and the Communist world being captured and replaced with the spirtual world.
Unfortunately mass-market replaced communism and its glitterly , christmassy world of Hypnosis.

The place for spirituality, as sucessive Workers in the Vineyards have denied is not in the corridors
of Power but in the heart. read also the Fatima visions because the celebrations by the Hierarchies
of the estabished church at the May 17th overthrow of Allende was tied into the political and westernised
thrust of Catholicism. Anti- commumnism has infected most of the papal regimes , which is fair enough
we all have our dislikes... but it unfortunately played into the creation of the Dominant US Empire
and the murders/coups and put downs of amongst others - the revolutions in Spain/Hungary/s, Guatemala.
the Vatican political oligarchy facilitated the expansion of Capitalism by refusing to locally
empower the church administrators who were dealing with poverty and need.

Hence the need for a de-centralised church and a religion based on compassion not political power.
Yep- JP 2 was disappointed but when a gulf is created the strongest will fill the vacuum-a t the
loss to the weakest and most needy. the church should really not get involved in politics.

+ the EEC used to be a trading movement not a federation-

Hungary: workers’ councils against Russian tanks

by ISJ

Mon Oct 23, 2006 02:34

A quarterly journal of revolutionary Socialism
Latest Issue Back Issues Links Resources Translations Subscribe About
Hungary: workers’ councils against Russian tanks
Issue: 112

Mike Haynes
‘Tell me what you think about Hungary and I will tell you who you are,’ said a Polish writer in late November 1956. So in this spirit let us make a declaration. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was an authentic working class revolution. Other factors were involved; revolutions are complex things. But the driving forces of the Hungarian Revolution were the efforts of the workers. First they established organs of popular power. Then they fought to extend them to defend Hungary against the invading Soviet forces that eventually allowed the puppet government of János Kádár to crush the revolt:
Most of the provincial councils and workers’ councils in the capital became, to an ever increasing degree, representative of an attitude unknown in Hungary: the belief in self-government, or to put it in other words, government by soviets, in the original sense of the term—people’s councils, organs of local power.1

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=250&issue=112

editor note: please do not copy and paste huge gobs of text to indymedia. - excerpt and link, instead. thx.

1956 Commemoration in Budapest Today

by redjade

Mon Oct 23, 2006 00:18

Photo series and attempting to explain all the craziness here in Budapest these days coming up tomorrow...

stay tuned.

Revolutionary re-enactments all over Budapest - this one in front of the Hungarian equivilent of GTMO

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50 years since the Hungarian Revolution.

Comments (7 of 7)