Hungary's scars linger
Chicago Tribune
By Tom Hundley
October 22, 2006
Mainly, it was a nationalist uprising against the Soviets. Within that, the people on the streets completely disagreed on everything else
The memorial to be unveiled during this week's 50th anniversary of Hungary's doomed 1956 uprising against Soviet rule is a stark modernist design in which hundreds of rusted steel girders gradually meld together to form a single shining steel blade.
'It shows how a revolution is made up of individuals who form themselves into one. Their strength is symbolized in the density of the metal,' said Szilard Szajda, a senior government minister overseeing anniversary preparations.
Szajda called the memorial, which stands on the spot where the freedom fighters of '56 toppled a giant statue of Stalin on the first day of the uprising, 'pioneering and inspiring.'
Tibor Arany, one of the freedom fighters, doesn't think so.
'It stinks,' he said. 'This is not remembering us. It's a monument to our defeat. It's terrible. It reminds me of the gallows they used against us later.'
Half a century after those turbulent events, Budapest still carries the scars of the Soviet invasion. Buildings pocked with bullet holes remain a common sight in the capital, and Hungarians continue to disagree bitterly over what it all meant and how it should be remembered.
The anniversary comes at a particularly awkward moment for the government of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. A former communist youth leader who is now one of the wealthiest people in Hungary, Gyurcsany was embarrassed last month by a leaked recording in which he admits 'we lied morning, noon and night' about the true condition of the economy during the last election campaign.
The revelations triggered several days of violent demonstrations. Protesters burned cars and attacked the state broadcasting headquarters. A determined hard core now occupies the square in front of the parliament building and says it won't leave until Gyurcsany resigns.
The square, of course, is where the '56 uprising began, and it is the main venue of the anniversary ceremonies to which scores of foreign leaders have been invited.
`A political instrument'
'Fifty-six has always been used as a political instrument in Hungary, even when it was officially suppressed,' said Attila Szakolczai, a researcher at the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
'Outside Hungary, views of '56 tend to be oversimplified and exaggerated--good versus evil. In Hungary, it's more complicated,' he said.
Historians generally agree that what began in Budapest on Oct. 23, 1956, was a spontaneous uprising against the Soviet military presence in Hungary and Moscow's heavy-handed interference in Hungarian politics.
Some who rebelled were anti-communists who wanted to bring down the entire system, but a majority were committed communists who wanted to replace 'bad' communists with 'good' communists.
The only thing they agreed on, according to Victor Sebestyen, the author of a new history of the uprising, was 'Russzkik haza'--'Russians out.'
'Mainly, it was a nationalist uprising against the Soviets. Within that, the people on the streets completely disagreed on everything else,' Sebestyen said.
As the grainy black and white photos of civilians confronting tanks with Molotov cocktails and stones appeared on the front pages, the U.S. government encouraged the rebels. CIA-funded Radio Free Europe, which had a wide audience in Hungary, gave its listeners technical advice on guerrilla tactics and how to disable a T-34 tank.
Many freedom fighters believed it was only a matter of time before the U.S. intervened directly. But behind the scenes, the U.S. was frantically signaling the Soviets that it had no intention of risking a potential nuclear showdown over Hungary.
A massive invasion After dithering for 12 days, Moscow launched a massive invasion. In less than 48 hours it was over. More than 2,700 Hungarians were dead, 20,000 wounded. Afterward, thousands were arrested and 229 were executed. More than 180,000 fled the country. Arany, the former freedom fighter, was among the 150,000 exiles taken in by the U.S.
Before the uprising, he was a conscript in the Hungarian army who spent 10 months in a labor camp for disobeying orders. Arany said his unit was ordered to confiscate food from farmers.
'It wasn't right; I wouldn't do it,' he said.
After his release from the labor camp, he worked in a factory. When he heard about the students marching on parliament, he joined them immediately.
During the fighting, he served as a courier for the writer Tibor Dery, one of the uprising's leaders. A few weeks after the uprising was crushed, Arany's mother warned him that the secret police were searching for him.
He escaped Hungary with false papers and ended up in New York. He worked as a building superintendent in Manhattan, drove an ice cream truck on weekends and eventually made a little money in real estate.
Four years ago, Arany, now 74, moved back to Budapest. These days he is the self-appointed caretaker of a small memorial erected in the square in front of parliament in 1991.
Although he is unhappy with the government's attempt to claim the mantle of the '56 heroes, he also has doubts about the protesters who occupy the square. 'These are good Hungarians maybe, but I think they go which way the wind blows,' he said.
Szajda, the government minister, said it was important that this week's events 'be free of contemporary politics.'
Under the circumstances, that seems unlikely. But Sebestyen suggested that all Hungarians could take a measure of pride in those 12 days at the height of the Cold War.
'Hungary had been on the wrong side in two world wars. It was considered a trouble-maker,' he said. 'But the '56 revolution gives all Hungarians a kind of pride that was always missing.'
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