Focus task: the rebellion in Hungary 1956 and the rebellion in Czechoslovakia 1968

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Introduction

In this essay I’m going to compare the two rebellions in Hungary 1956 and in Czechoslovakia 1968. To start with we have to understand that the atmosphere in the east was very tense under the Russian power after the Second World War. Stalin spread communism by helping communist parties to win in Eastern Europe and by imposing his power. Trough Cominform, he made sure that these countries followed the same policies as the Soviet Union and to ensure the control, Stalin did not hesitate to send in troops into these countries. The economy in the east was not very good and Stalin did not make it better by imposing Comecon, which would ensure the trade with the other eastern countries at the advantage of the USSR e.g. Poland was forced to sell its coal to Russia at 10% of the price it could sell it for on the open market.

When Stalin died in 1953 Nikita Khrushchev succeeded him. Khrushchev was very different from Stalin and he had new plans like improving the living conditions in the east. He even closed down the Cominform and seemed to give out the message that the time of terror and dictatorship was over. Khrushchev seemed more open minded than Stalin and he wanted to ease the cold war tensions and have peaceful co-existence with the west. He then held his “secret speech” in 1956, at the Communist Party International, and caused a chock for the people who had been oppressed under Stalin for many years. The speech focused on Stalin’s crimes against the party and denounced him as a tyrant who worked for his own good and not the peoples. The cult of personality that had long been built up around Stalin, with propaganda praising him, was now being destroyed with the De-Stalinisation programme. Now, when there had been a sudden change of direction, opposing groups in Eastern Europe felt that they could press for changes as they realised that Khrushchev was a much more progressive and reformative leader.


Hungary

Hungary was led by a hard-lined communist called Mátyás Rákosi, at the time, and the Hungarians did not approve of his way of ruling. They had no freedom of speech and they constantly feared the secret police. The Soviet power was strongly resented by the Hungarians as Russia had troops in the country (Hungarians even had to pay for these troops to be there), the streets would have Russian street signs and in some areas there would be Russian schools and shops. In June 1956 Rákosi was opposed by a group within the communist party, as a result of his way of ruling, and he called Moscow for help. As Rákosi was a true Stalinist, Moscow would not back him in the crisis. Instead he was forced to retire from his post “for health reasons”. The new leader, Ernö Gerö, was no more accepted than Rákosi and on 23 October there was a big student riot and the statue of Stalin was pulled down in Budapest. A new government was allowed to be formed with Imre Nagy in the lead. His policies were to have free elections, which meant there would be other political parties. He wanted the soviet troops out of the country. He would also introduce private ownership of land and make Hungary become a neutral country in the Cold War struggle between east and west by withdrawing from the Warsaw pact. Khrushchev had created the Warsaw pact in 1955 as a buffer against a possible attack from the West. All the eastern communist countries, except Yugoslavia, were members of this pact and they had to defend each other if one was attacked. Hungary looked at its independent future with optimism, as they believed that the new American president, Eisenhower, would support their cause. As Soviet troops entered Hungary, now that the war began to withdraw, thousands of Hungarian soldiers defected to the rebels with their weapons.
Khrushchev accepted some of the reforms that Nagy had imposed but he would not accept their withdrawal from the Warsaw pact. In November 1956 the Red army entered Budapest and after two weeks of intensive fighting the resistance was crushed. There were an estimated 3000 casualties on Hungary’s side and more than the double on the Russian side. Nagy and his leaders were arrested and executed. The soviet invasion took place at the same time as the Suez crisis and so the world’s attention was not in Hungary. The western powers were even too occupied by the crisis that they did not send any help to Hungary. The year after, in 1957, Eisenhower announced his “Eisenhower doctrine”, which guaranteed assistance from the USA to any country facing aggression from international communism. Nagy’s replacement was János Kádár, chosen by Khrushchev, and he took several months to crush all the resistance in Hungary. 35,000 arrested and 300 executed. As Kádár was in power he introduced some of the reforms that had been demanded by the Hungarian people but he did not consider the main demand, which was to quit the Warsaw pact.


Czechoslovakia

Twelve years later it was the turn of Czechoslovakia to test the Russian power. Khrushchev was no longer in power and a new leader called Leonid Brezhnev had replaced him. People’s moods in Czechoslovakia were low after the 20 years of communist control. Some people had even lost their faith in the communist theory “…There must be a fault other that just the wrong people were chosen. There must be a fault in the theory [of communism] itself.” . The Czechs wanted reforms such as freedom of speech, an end to the secret police, a choice of political parties and the withdrawal from the Warsaw pact and the Comecon. When the old Stalinist leader, Novotny, was forced to resign in 1967, Alexander Dubček replaced him. Dubček was a committed communist but he believed that communism did not have to be restrictive as it had been in the previous years. As an attempt to make communism more friendly to people he introduced a policy of “socialism with a human face”. This meant less censorship, more freedom of speech, a reduction in the activities of the secret police and improving trade links with the west. Dubček would not make the same mistake that had been done in Hungary and so he reassured Brezhnev that his country had no plans to quit the Warsaw pact or the Comecon. The Czech opposition was led by people who had lost their believe in communism and as censorship had been eased, they could easily attack the system. A new party, the Socialist Democratic Party, was even formed as a rival to the communist party.

The crisis in Czechoslovakia worried the Soviet Union as Czechoslovakia was centrally placed which was good for the Warsaw pact members and so if they would quit it would be a big loss. Brezhnev was also worried that the rebellious ideas would spread to other countries and he came under pressure from Ulbricht and Gomulka, the East German leader and the Polish leader, to find a solution. The three countries attempted to warn Czechoslovakia by sending troops to the border and they thought about imposing economic sanctions but that would only lead to the Czechs asking the West for help. In July Breznev organised a summit with the Czechs where Dubček agreed not to allow a new Social Democratic party to form and in early august the Warsaw pact countries asked Czechoslovakia to maintain political stability. Just 17 days later the Soviet, East German, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces crossed the border of Czechoslovakia at their amazement and the amazement of the outside world. Dubček appealed to all the citizens to keep calm and not resist the armed forces entering the country. This also meant that the army, security force and People’s Militia had been ordered not to defend the country. Dubček had to resign from his post but was not executed just gradually downgraded. The ideas that could have reformed communism to a more people friendly theory were silenced but retaken by Gorbachev twenty years later.


Comparison

The aims of the rebels in both cases were pretty similar. They both wanted to be independent countries, leave the Warsaw pact, but only Hungary asked for it to happen. They also both wanted to have a choice of parties and an end to the secret police. The Hungarians did question the communist way of ruling but they were not like the Czechs who had lost all faith in the theory and wanted a Socialist democratic party instead. The Hungarians would perhaps have liked to have a leader like Dubček who wanted to introduce his own friendlier version of communism, “socialism with a human face”. The Hungarians had also demanded for a choice of parties, which is a step towards democracy even if all the parties were communist. The attitude to the USSR was different even though both countries disapproved of it. The Hungarians in 1956 were closer to a USSR ruled by Stalin and so Russia represented more terror than it represented for the Czechs in 1968. The attitude to the West was positive in both cases as Hungary expected to have Eisenhower’s support in their independent future and Czechoslovakia wanted to improve the trade links with them. The Soviet intervened in Hung...