網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

SPECIAL FEATURE:

NEW EVIDENCE ON SOVIET DECISION-MAKING AND THE 1956 POLISH AND HUNGARIAN CRISES

The overlapping crises in Hungary and Poland in the autumn of 1956 posed a severe challenge for the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU). After a tense standoff with Poland, the CPSU Presidium (as the Politburo was then called) decided to refrain from military intervention and to seek a political compromise. The crisis in Hungary was far less easily defused. For a brief moment it appeared that Hungary might be able to break away from the Communist bloc, but the Soviet Army put an end to all such hopes. Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian revolution, and a degree of order returned to the Soviet camp.

Newly released documents from Russia and Eastern Europe shed valuable light on the events of 1956, permitting a much clearer and more nuanced understanding of Soviet reactions. This article will begin by discussing the way official versions of the 1956 invasion changed-and formerly secret documents became available during the late Soviet period and after the Soviet Union disintegrated. It will then highlight some of the most important findings from new archival sources and memoirs. The article relies especially heavily on the so-called Malin notes, which are provided in annotated translation below, and on new materials from Eastern Europe. Both the article and the documents will show that far-reaching modifications are needed in existing Western accounts of the 1956 cri

ses.

OFFICIAL REASSESSMENTS BEFORE AND AFTER 1991

The advent of glasnost and "new

by Mark Kramer

political thinking" in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev led to sweeping reassessments of postwar Soviet ties with Eastern Europe. As early as 1987, an unofficial reappraisal began in Moscow of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Initially, these reassessments of the 1968 crisis did not have Gorbachev's overt endorsement, but the process gained an official stamp in late 1989 once Communism had dissolved in Eastern Europe. Soon after the "velvet revolution" engulfed Czechoslovakia in November 1989, the five states that took part in the 1968 invasion-the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Bulgaria-issued a collective statement denouncing the invasion and repudiating the Brezhnev Doctrine. In addition, the Soviet Union released its own declaration of regret over the "erroneous" decision to intervene in 1968.'

Curiously, though, Gorbachev was much less willing to proceed with a reevaluation of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November 1956. Not until October 1991, two months after the aborted coup in Moscow had severely weakened the Soviet regime, did Gorbachev finally provide an official apology for the 1956 invasion.2 Until that time, official judgments about Soviet actions in 1956 had been left primarily to Soviet military officers, who routinely glorified the invasion of Hungary as an example of "the international defense of socialist gains" and of "transforming socialist internationalism into action." 3 A senior officer on the Soviet General Staff argued in 1987 that the "suppression of counterrevolutionary rebellion," as in Hungary in 1956, should still be among the chief military

missions of the Warsaw Pact.4 The

same theme was expressed the following year in a Soviet book about the "Military Policy of the CPSU," which received admiring reviews in Soviet 5 military journals and newspapers.

When political reforms began to sweep through Hungary and Poland in late 1988 and 1989, signs of unease soon cropped up in Soviet military writings. In September 1989, a prominent article by one of the top Soviet commanders in Hungary in October-November 1956, Army-General Pyotr Lashchenko, offered extravagant praise for the Soviet invasion. Very few ar6 ticles devoted solely to the Hungarian crisis had ever appeared in Soviet military journals (particularly after "normalization" began in Hungary in the late 1950s), so there was no doubt that the publication of Lashchenko's analysis had been carefully timed. Several months before the article went to press, Imre Pozsgay and other top officials in the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party had publicly declared that the events of 1956 were a "popular uprising against an oligarchical regime that was humili"7 ating the nation.” By contrast, Lashchenko still insisted that the events of 1956 were merely a "counterrevolutionary rebellion that was actively supported by the most reactionary forces of international imperialism." This harsh assessment was clearly intended to help prevent the political changes in Hungary from endangering the raison d'etre of Soviet military deployments in Eastern Europe.

Unease within the Soviet military regarding the 1956 invasion continued even after the upheavals of late 1989. In contrast to the official Soviet state

ment condemning the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, no such statement was issued about the intervention in Hungary. Although numerous Soviet officials, such as deputy foreign minister Anatolii Kovalev, later denounced the invasion of Hungary, the Soviet High Command apparently blocked efforts to release a statement about 1956 comparable to the one about 1968. Moreover, in August 1990, the same journal that had published Lashchenko's 1989 article featured another essay, by a Hungarian lieutenant-colonel, that was even more scathing in its assessment of the "counterrevolution" of 1956; the journal's editors highly recommended the article to their readers. Although senior officials on the CPSU Central Committee staff were secretly ordered in November 1990 to begin studying archival materials from 1956 and preparing an assessment for the CPSU leadership, this effort was intended mainly to find ways of deflecting pressure from the Hungarian government, and no public Soviet statements resulted. 8 Even when the last Soviet troops were pulled out of Hungary in June 1991, Gorbachev still declined to condemn the 1956 intervention.

The Soviet leader's belated apology in October 1991 was soon overtaken by the collapse of the Soviet regime. The new government in Russia under President Boris Yeltsin proved far more willing to reevaluate and condemn controversial episodes in Soviet relations with Eastern Europe. As a result, a large quantity of Soviet documentation about the 1956 Hungarian crisis and Moscow's response has recently become available. Yeltsin turned over a preliminary collection of declassified materials to the Hungarian government in November 1992, which are now stored at the Institute for the Study of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest. These documents were all published in Hungarian translation in 1993 as a two-volume collection.9 A few of the items had appeared earlier in the original Russian, 10 and in 1993 most of the others were published in Russian with detailed annotations in a

three-part series.11 Subsequently, a few additional Soviet documents were re

leased, most of which are now available in Fond 89 (the declassified collection) of the Center for Storage of Contemporary Documentation in Moscow, the former archive of the CPSU Central Committee. As valuable as these initial items were, they provided only a few tantalizing details about Soviet decision-making in 1956. Some aspects of Soviet decision-making had been revealed in memoirs by Nikita Khrushchev and other former officials, but in the absence of primary documentation it was difficult to know how ac12 curate the memoirs were.

Fortunately, that gap in the historical record has now been at least partly closed. In mid-1995, the Russian archival service finally released the "Malin notes" from the October-November 1956 crisis. Verbatim transcripts of CPSU Presidium meetings were not kept in the 1950s, but Vladimir Malin, the head of the CPSU CC General Department during the entire Khrushchev period, took extensive notes of all Presidium meetings. His handwritten notes, stored in the former

THE MALIN NOTES: AN ELECTRONIC SYMPOSIUM

Readers interested in further analyses and commentary on the notes by V. Malin on Kremlin decision-making on the 1956 Polish and Hungarian crises can find them on the Internet: the Cold

War International History Project and the National Security Archive, U.S. cosponsors and organizers of the September 1996 Budapest Conference on "Hungary and the World, 1956: The New Archival Evidence," plan to present commentaries on the significance of the Malin Notes, as well as other materials on the 1956 events, via CWIHP's website on the Archive's home page on the World Wide Web: http://www.nsarchive.com.

Commentators will include Russian and Hungarian scholars such as Vladislav Zubok, Janos Rainer, Vyacheslav Sereda, and Vitaly Afiani. Articles on China's position on the 1956 crises in Eastern Europe by Chen Jian and L.W. Gluchowski will also be available.

13

Politburo archive (which is now under Yeltsin's direct control), were all supposed to be declassified by the end of 1996, but regrettably only the ones pertaining to the Hungarian and Polish crises of 1956 have been released so far. The initial batch of Malin notes were provided to a Russian historian, Vyacheslav Sereda, and to researchers at the 1956 Institute in Budapest, who had exclusive access to the materials until the spring of 1996, when the full set were published in Hungarian translation. 14 Since then, other scholars— both Russians and foreigners-have been permitted to study the original documents. Malin's notes about the Hungarian crisis were published in Russian in the summer and fall of 1996, and the notes about the October 1956 crisis in Poland were published in Moscow at the end of 1996.15 (The portions about Poland had already appeared in the Hungarian translation.)

For an understanding of Soviet policy during the crises in Hungary and Poland, the Malin notes are by far the most valuable items that have surfaced. Although other important documents about the events of 1956 may eventually be released from the Russian Presidential Archive, the former KGB ar

chives, and the Russian military archives, the Malin notes are enough to shed extremely interesting light on Soviet decision-making during the crisis. Moreover, the Malin notes can be

supplemented with a vast number of recently declassified materials from the East European archives as well as new first-hand accounts. Of the East European documents, an especially noteworthy item is the handwritten Czech notes from a Soviet Presidium meeting on 24 October 1956, as the crisis in Hungary was getting under way. 16 Of the new memoirs, perhaps the most valuable is an account published in serial form in late 1993 and early 1994 by a high-ranking Soviet military officer, Evgenii Malashenko, who helped command the operation in Hungary in 1956.17 Together, all these materials permit a much better understanding of why and how the Soviet Union responded with military force in one case but not in the other.

NEW FINDINGS

One of the intriguing things about the new evidence is that it tends to bear out much of Khrushchev's brief accounts of the Hungarian and Polish crises. Khrushchev's reminiscences were tendentious (as most memoirs are) and he was confused about a number of points, but overall his account, including many of the details, holds up remarkably well. At the same time, the new documentation provides insight about many items that Khrushchev failed to discuss, and it also allows numerous mistakes in the record to be set right. Although it is impossible in a brief article to provide a comprehensive review of the latest findings, it is worth highlighting several points that cast new light not only on the events of 1956, but on the whole nature of Soviet-East European relations.

Soviet Responses to the Polish Crisis

New evidence from the Russian and East-Central European archives helps explain why the Soviet Union decided to accept a peaceful solution in Poland but not in Hungary. Poland was the initial focus of Soviet concerns. A series of events starting in June 1956 had provoked unease in Moscow about growing instability and rebellion. The Poznan riots, on 28-29 June, came as a particular shock. Workers from the ZISPO locomotive factory and other heavy industrial plants in Poznan staged a large protest rally on 28 June, which soon turned violent. The Polish army and security forces managed to subdue the protests, but the two days of clashes left 53 dead and many hundreds wounded. It is now known that some Polish officers tried to resist the decision to open fire, but their opposition proved futile because the security forces were willing to carry out the orders and because Soviet commanders (and their Polish allies) still dominated the Polish military establishment. 18 Soviet leaders were taken aback by the events in Poznan, fearing that the unrest would flare up again and spread elsewhere unless strict ideological controls were

reimposed. At a CPSU Presidium meeting shortly after the riots, Khrushchev claimed that the violence had been provoked by the "subversive activities of the imperialists" and was aimed at "fomenting disunity" with the Soviet bloc and "destroying [the socialist countries] one by one."19 These assertions echoed the public commentaries that So20 viet leaders issued right after the riots.4 The measures adopted by Polish officials to alleviate public discontent and prevent further disorders had only a limited and transitory effect. By the late summer and early fall of 1956 a new crisis was gathering pace, which soon led to a tense standoff with the Soviet

Union.21 In early October, one of the most prominent victims of the Stalinist purges in Poland in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Wladyslaw Gomulka, triumphantly regained his membership in umphantly regained his membership in the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and was on the verge of reclaiming his position as party leader. The Soviet authorities feared that if Gomulka took control in Warsaw, he would remove the most orthodox (and pro-Soviet) members of the Polish leadership and steer Poland along an independent course in foreign policy. Soviet concerns were heightened by Gomulka's demand that Soviet military officers serving in the Polish army, including Marshal Konstantin Rokossowski, the Polish-born Soviet officer who had been installed as Polish defense minister and commanderin-chief in November 1949, be withdrawn. This demand came after the PZPR Politburo had already (in September 1956) requested the pull-out of all Soviet state security (KGB) “advisers" from Poland.

To compel Gomulka and his colleagues to back down, Soviet leaders applied both military and political pressure. On 19 October, as the 8th Plenum of the PZPR Central Committee was about to convene to elect Gomulka

[blocks in formation]

Vyacheslav Molotov, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich, and Anastas Mikoyan, accompanied by the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact, Marshal Ivan Konev, and 11 other highranking Soviet military officers, paid a surprise visit to Warsaw. In a hastily arranged meeting with Gomulka and

other Polish leaders, the CPSU delegates expressed anxiety about upcoming personnel changes in the PZPR and urged the Poles to strengthen their political, economic, and military ties with the Soviet Union.22 Gomulka, for his part, sought clarification of the status of Soviet troops in Poland and demanded that the Soviet Union pledge not to interfere in Poland's internal affairs. Although he reaffirmed his intention of staying in the Warsaw Pact, he emphasized that Poland "will not permit its independence to be taken away." Gomulka also renewed his away."23 call for the withdrawal of all or most of the Soviet Union's 50 "advisers" in Poland, and again insisted that Rokossowski and other top Soviet officers be removed from the Polish army. The Soviet delegation responded by accusing the Poles of seeking to get rid of "old, trustworthy revolutionaries who are loyal to the cause of socialism" and of "turning toward the West against the Soviet Union."24

During these tense exchanges, Gomulka was suddenly informed by one of his aides that Soviet tank and infantry units were advancing toward Warsaw. This large-scale mobilization of Soviet troops, though intended as a form of coercive diplomacy rather than to provoke an immediate confrontation, gave the crisis a new edge.

Rokossowski and dozens of other Soviet commanders (and their Polish allies) who were still entrenched in the Polish officer corps were able to keep the Polish army from preparing to defend Gomulka against incoming Soviet forces.25 Rokossowski's influence, however, did not extend to many of the Polish troops from the Internal Security Corps (KBW) and other combat personnel under the aegis of the Polish Internal Affairs Ministry (MSW), who were fully willing to fight on behalf of the new Polish regime. These units took

up strategic positions all around Warsaw and called in reinforcements as Soviet columns were reported to be moving in.26 In this game of politicalmilitary brinkmanship, a clash seemed to be looming between the KBW troops and Soviet forces, and an even more explosive situation emerged within the Polish military establishment, pitting KBW units against troops from the National Defense Ministry under Rokossowski's command. Thus, for a brief while, Poland appeared to be on the verge of civil war as well as a conflict with the Soviet Union.

-a

The latent danger of a clash between Soviet forces and the KBWdanger that loomed large even though neither side wanted a direct confrontation-spurred Khrushchev and Gomulka to make a renewed effort to find a peaceful solution. After being informed about the troop movements, the Polish leader requested that the Soviet units be pulled back; and Khrushchev, after some hesitation, complied with the request, ordering Konev to halt all troop movements." 27 Although Khrushchev assured Gomulka that the deployments had simply been in preparation for upcoming military exercises, the intended message was plain enough, especially in light of other recent developments. The existence of Soviet "plans to protect the most important state facilities" in Poland, including military garrisons and lines of communication, had been deliberately leaked to Polish officials earlier in the day; and Soviet naval vessels had begun holding conspicuous maneuvers in waters near Gdansk, keeping the Polish Navy at bay.28 Despite these various forms of pressure, the Polish authorities stood their ground, and the meeting ended without any firm agreement. The official communique merely indicated that talks had taken place and that Polish leaders would be visiting Moscow sometime “in the near fu

ture."29 In most respects, then, the negotiations proved less than satisfactory from the Soviet standpoint.

Shortly after the Soviet delegates returned to Moscow on 20 October, they briefed the other members of the CPSU

Presidium on the results of the trip.30

By this point they knew that the PZPR Central Committee had reconvened early on the 20th and had elected Gomulka first secretary and dropped

Rokossowski and several neo-Stalinist officials from the PZPR Politburo. Khrushchev made no attempt to conceal his disappointment, arguing that "there's only one way out-by putting an end to what is in Poland." He indicated that the situation would get much worse if Rokossowski were not permitted to stay as Poland's defense minister. Khrushchev lay a good deal of the blame for the crisis on the Soviet ambassador in Poland, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, who, according to Khrushchev, had been “grossly mistaken in his assessment of [Edward] Ochab and Gomulka." (Khrushchev declined to mention that he himself— and the rest of the Soviet leadership had "grossly" misjudged the situation in Poland over the previous few months.31)

The Presidium adopted Khrushchev's suggestion that a meeting be held soon in Moscow with leading representatives from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, East Germany, and Bulgaria. Khrushchev also proposed that they consider sending a few senior officials to China "for informational purposes." In the meantime, the Presidium resolved to "think carefully" about additional measures, including new military exercises and the formation of a "provisional revolutionary committee" that would displace committee" that would displace Gomulka. In addition, Khrushchev authorized a new campaign in the press, building on an editorial in the 20 October issue of Pravda, which had accused the Polish media of waging a "filthy anti-Soviet campaign" and of trying to "undermine socialism in Poland."32 These charges, and subsequent accusations, prompted vigorous rebuttals from Polish commentators.

Strains between Poland and the Soviet Union remained high over the next few days as tens of thousands of Poles took part in pro-Gomulka rallies in Gdansk, Szczecin, and other cities on 22 October. Even larger demonstrations, each involving up to 100,000 people, were organized the following

day in Poznan, Lublin, Lodz, Bydgoszcz, Kielce, and elsewhere. In the meantime, joint meetings of workers and students were being held all around Poland, culminating in a vast rally in Warsaw on 24 October attended by some 500,000 people. Although these events were intended mainly as a display of unified national support for the new Polish leadership in the face of external pressure, some of the speakers, particularly at a rally in Wroclaw on the 23rd, expressed open hostility toward the Soviet Union.

As tensions mounted on 20 and 21 October, Soviet leaders reexamined a variety of economic sanctions and military options, but again they found that none of these options seemed the least bit attractive. At a meeting on the 21st, the CPSU Presidium unanimously decided to "refrain from military intervention" and to "display patience" for the time being.33 The rationale for this decision remained just as compelling in subsequent days, as Khrushchev emphasized to his colleagues and to other East European leaders during an expanded Presidium meeting on the evening of 24 October: "Finding a reason for an armed conflict [with Poland] now would be very easy, but finding a way to put an end to such a conflict later on would be ,,34 hard." very The standoff on 19 October had demonstrated to the Soviet leadership that most of the Polish troops who were not under Rokossowski's command, especially in the KBW, were ready to put up stiff resistance against outside intervention. Khrushchev and his colleagues also seem to have feared that Polish leaders would begin distributing firearms to "workers' militia" units who could help defend the capital. (Gomulka later claimed that arms were in fact disseminated, but the evidence generally does not bear out these assertions.35 The important thing, however, is that Soviet officials assumed that Gomulka would proceed with this step.)

Khrushchev's reluctance to pursue a military solution under such unfavorable circumstances induced him to seek a modus vivendi with Gomulka whereby Poland would have greater leeway to follow its own "road to socialism."

Gomulka reciprocated by again assuring Khrushchev that Poland would remain a loyal ally and member of the Warsaw Pact. The Polish leader demonstrated the credibility of his promises by ordering Polish officers to cease considering the prospect of a complete withdrawal of the Soviet Northern

Group of Forces from Poland.36 (On 21 October, as the crisis with Moscow began to abate, a number of Polish commanders, led by General Waclaw Komar of the Internal Army and General Wlodzimierz Mus of the KBW, had thought it was the right moment to press for a total Soviet withdrawal, and they started drafting plans to that effect. Gomulka put an immediate end to their activities.) Gomulka also adopted a far more conciliatory line in public, as reflected in his keynote speech at the rally in Warsaw on 24 October.37 The Polish leader not only called for stronger political and military ties with the Soviet Union and condemned those who were trying to steer Poland away from the Warsaw Pact, but also urged his fellow Poles to return to their daily work and to refrain from holding any additional rallies or demonstrations.

Over the next few days, Soviet leaders became annoyed when Gomulka insisted that Rokossowski be removed from the national defense ministry (as well as from the PZPR Politburo), a demand that perplexed even Chinese officials, who overall were staunchly supportive of Gomulka.38 Had the crisis in Hungary not intervened on 23 October, Soviet leaders might well have been inclined to take a firmer stand against Rokossowski's dismissal from the ministry. But by the time Gomulka began pressing this demand on 26 October, the deteriorating situation in Hungary gave Khrushchev a strong incentive to prevent renewed difficulties with Poland. Having been reassured that Gomulka would keep Poland in the Warsaw Pact and retain Soviet troops on Polish soil, Khrushchev reluctantly acquiesced in Rokossowski's ouster. In mid-November, Rokossowski was recalled to Moscow, where he was appointed a deputy defense minister.

Early in the crisis, some members

of the Soviet Presidium, especially Vyacheslav Molotov and Kliment Voroshilov, had strongly opposed the leeway granted to the Poles, but by the time the Presidium met on 21 October, as noted above, all members agreed that it was best to eschew military intervention and to "display patience," at least for a while.39 Nor were any major signs of dissent evident at the Presidium meeting on 23 October.40 Participants in the meeting emphasized the "fundamental difference" between the situation in Poland and the emerging crisis in Hungary. Gomulka's speech on 24 October and his follow-up discussions with Khrushchev further convinced the Soviet leader that Poland would remain a loyal member of the "socialist com41 monwealth" and Warsaw Pact.4

This did not mean that all tensions with Poland were instantly dissipated. In addition to continued bickering over Rokossowski's status, Khrushchev remained concerned about the "unacceptable" views espoused by certain PZPR officials, including some who allegedly wanted to assert territorial claims

against the USSR.42 Soviet leaders also were disturbed by reports that an influential PZPR Secretary, Wladyslaw Matwin, had given a speech in Poznan on 10 November in which he con

might well have ensued. The contrast with Hungary was telling. Early on, Soviet leaders may have hoped that they could rely on Imre Nagy to do in Hungary what Gomulka had done in Poland, but the Soviet Presidium soon concluded that there was "no comparison with Poland" and that "Nagy is in fact turning against us.' 44

The Onset of the Hungarian Crisis

Social pressures had been building in Hungary since the spring of 1955, when the reformist prime minister Imre Nagy was dislodged by the old-line Stalinist leader Matyas Rakosi, who had been forced to cede that post to Nagy in mid-1953. The earlier transfer of power from Rakosi to Nagy, and the shift back to Rakosi, were both effected under Moscow's auspices. In June 1953 the Soviet authorities, led by Georgii Malenkov and Lavrentii Beria, had summoned Rakosi and other Hungarian officials to Moscow for a secret meeting. During three days of talks, Malenkov and his colleagues stressed that they were "deeply appalled" by Rakosi's "high-handed and domineering style" in office, which had led to countless "mistakes and crimes" and had "driven [Hungary] to the brink of a

demned recent "abnormalities in Pol- catastrophe."45 They ordered Rakosi

ish-Soviet relations" that had "raised doubts about the sovereignty of our 43 country. Nevertheless, these frictions did not detract from the basic assurances that Gomulka had provided to Khrushchev. By late October and early November 1956 the two sides had reached a broad accommodation that I was able to withstand occasional disruptions.

Gomulka's determination to preserve a Communist system in Poland and to remain within the Warsaw Pact had a strong bearing on Soviet policy during the Hungarian revolution. The outcome of the Polish crisis demonstrated that some Soviet flexibility would continue and that a return to fullfledged Stalinism was not in the offing, but it also set a precedent of what would be tolerated. Had Gomulka not been willing to keep Poland firmly within the Soviet bloc, a military confrontation

to relinquish his prime ministerial duties to Nagy. Although Rakosi was allowed to remain First Secretary of the Hungarian Workers' Party (HWP), the office of prime minister at the time was seen as more important than the top party position.

By early 1955, however, the political calculus in both Moscow and Budapest had changed. The First Secretary of the CPSU, Khrushchev, had gradually eclipsed prime minister Malenkov, enabling the CPSU to regain its predominant status in Soviet politics. Khrushchev sought to reinforce his victory by prodding the East European countries to halt their New Courses (i.e., the reforms they had adopted when Malenkov was the top figure in Moscow) and to give renewed emphasis to the "leading role" of their Communist parties. This political reconfiguration came at the same time that Soviet lead

« 上一頁繼續 »