radical elements in Hungary, who wanted to overthrow the existing regime. Although Soviet leaders were determined to adhere to a "firm line" and put an end to Nagy's and Kadar's "flip-flops," they reluctantly agreed that they had little choice but to support the current government and to be prepared to withdraw troops from Budapest (though not from Hungary as a whole).

87

By 30 October, however, the mood within the Soviet Presidium had taken a surprising turn. All the members, including Molotov and Voroshilov, had reached a consensus-ephemeral though it may have been-that the Soviet Union should forgo large-scale military intervention in Hungary. Marshal Zhukov conceded that the Soviet Union had to be ready, if necessary, to withdraw all Soviet troops from Hungary, viewing this as "a lesson for us in the military-political sphere." Others reluctantly concurred. Khrushchev and his colleagues were well aware that the situation in Hungary had continued to deteriorate, and had taken on distinctly anti-Soviet overtones. Even so, they unanimously agreed to adopt what Khrushchev described as "the peaceful path-the path of troop withdrawals and negotiations”—rather than "the military path, the path of occupation."88

This decision seems to have been predicated on an unrealistic expectation of what could be achieved by the Soviet government's "Declaration on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation Between the USSR and Other Socialist Countries," issued on 30 October.89 A draft of the statement, prepared by high-ranking CPSU Central Committee officials, was reviewed at length and edited by the CPSU Presidium just before it was released. The declaration acknowledged that SovietEast European relations had been. plagued by "egregious mistakes" in the past, and that Moscow had committed rampant "violations of the principle of equality in relations between socialist countries." It pledged that in the future the Soviet Union would scrupulously "observe the full sovereignty of each socialist state" and reexamine the basis

for its continued troop presence in the Warsaw Pact countries (other than East Germany), leaving open the possibility of a partial or total withdrawal. Most of the Presidium members seemed to view the declaration as a viable way of “extracting us from an onerous position" and of "putting an end to the bloodshed."90 Any hopes they may have had, however, were quickly dashed. Had the declaration been issued several months earlier, it might have prevented all the subsequent turmoil, but by the time the statement was broadcast over Hungarian radio on 30 October, events in Hungary had already eluded Soviet control. Moscow's verbal promises were no longer sufficient to contain either the wave of popular unrest or the actions of Nagy's government. Although the declaration caused a stir in most of the East-bloc countries, its effect in Hungary was limited. Many of the insurgents were determined to achieve their goals immediately, rather than settling for ill-defined negotiations that, once under way, would be subject to delay or derailment.

Nevertheless, even if Soviet hopes about the declaration were misplaced, the decision to forgo intervention was still remarkable at this late stage. It suggests that for a brief while-a very brief while the Soviet Presidium actually may have been willing to accept the collapse of Communism in Hun

gary.

The unanimity of the Presidium's decision to eschew military force belied the inherent fragility of that position, especially after Khrushchev and his colleagues realized that the 30 October declaration would not have the desired effect. Ominous reports from Hungary, including cables and secure phone messages from Mikoyan and Suslov that were much more pessimistic than their previous dispatches, continued to flow in. Earlier in the crisis, Mikoyan and Suslov had hoped that they could induce Nagy to restore order and achieve a satisfactory political solution, but by the end of October they had markedly changed their tone. In a phone message to Moscow on 30 October, they warned that the uprising could be ended only through the use of

force and that the Hungarian army probably was not up to the task:

The political situation in the country, rather than improving, is getting worse. . . . The peaceful liquidation of the remaining centers [of resistance] can effectively be excluded. We will try to liquidate them using the armed forces of the Hungarians. But there is a great danger in this: The Hungarian army has adopted a "wait-and-see" position. Our military advisers say that the attitude of Hungarian officers and generals toward Soviet officers has deteriorated in recent days, and that there is no longer the trust which existed earlier. It may well be that if Hungarian units are used against the uprising, they will go over to the side of the insurgents, and it will then be necessary for the Soviet armed forces to resume military operations.91

Subsequent messages from Mikoyan and Suslov were gloomier still, in part because they sensed that their worst fears were coming true. Within hours after their initial message on the 30th, they learned that an angry mob had launched a bloody attack on the Budapest party committee's headquarters in Republic Square. The grisly reprisals that some of the attackers carried out against disarmed AVH troops came as a shock not only to Mikoyan and Suslov, but to most Hungarians (including many rebel leaders, who strongly criticized the actions and appealed for calm). The attack caused. even greater alarm in Moscow, where scenes of the violence were being featured on newsreels when the CPSU Presidium met on 31 October. Equally disconcerting was the very fact that the mob had been able to seize the building. Three Hungarian army tanks, which had been sent to help the defenders of the site, ended up defecting to the insurgents, just as Mikoyan and Suslov had feared. The siege in Republic Square proved to be an isolated case (and actually helped stabilize the situation a good deal by spurring both the government and the rebels into seeking a peaceful settlement), but amid the general turmoil in Budapest at the time, it initially seemed at least from Moscow's perspective-to portend the "deterioration" that Mikoyan and

Suslov had been predicting.

Concerns about the internal situation in Hungary were reinforced by the latest news about international developments, particularly the start of French and British military operations in the Middle East and the increasing signs that unrest in Hungary was spilling over into other Warsaw Pact countries. Each of these factors is important enough to warrant a separate discussion below. Not only were the Suez Crisis and the fears of a spillover crucial in their own right; they also magnified the importance of Hungary's status in the Warsaw Pact. The prospect of an “imperialist" victory in the Middle East and of growing ferment within the bloc made it all the more essential to keep Hungary within the Soviet camp; but on this score, too, there seemed increasing grounds for pessimism. By late October it was clear that momentum for Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact was rapidly building. One of the members of Nagy's new "inner cabinet," Bela Kovacs, explicitly called for a "neutral Hungary" and the end of Hungary's "ties to military blocs" in a speech he delivered on 30 October.92 That same day, Nagy himself endorsed the goal of leaving the Warsaw Pact, and he opened talks about the matter (and about the withdrawal of all Soviet

troops from Hungary) with Mikoyan

and Suslov, who promptly informed their colleagues in Moscow about the discussions.93 It seems likely that Nagy's expressed desire to renounce Hungarian membership in the Warsaw Pact was one of the factors that induced the CPSU Presidium on 31 October to reverse its decision of the previous day. To be sure, Nagy had spoken many times in earlier years (especially after he was abruptly removed from power in 1955) about the desirability of Hungarian neutrality, but his decision to raise the issue with Mikoyan and Suslov at this delicate stage must have come as a jolt in Moscow.94 Once Soviet leaders were confronted by the stark prospect of Hungary's departure from the Warsaw Pact, they realized how much their influence in Hungary had waned.

stances was bound to spur a reassessment of Moscow's non-interventionist stance. Khrushchev later recalled that he regretted the 30 October decision. almost as soon as the Presidium adopted it.95 At short notice on 31 October, he convened another emergency meeting of the Presidium to reconsider the whole matter.96 The notes from the meeting reveal that Khrushchev was not the only one who had misgivings about the previous day's decision. With one exception, all the participants strongly endorsed Khrushchev's view that "we must revise our assessment and must not withdraw our troops from Hungary and Budapest. We must take the initiative in restoring order in Hungary." The only dissenting voice was Maksim Saburov, who argued that "after yesterday's session this discussion is all pointless. [Full-scale intervention] will merely vindicate NATO." His assertions were disputed by Molotov and numerous others, who insisted (not entirely convincingly) that the previous day's decision had been “only a compromise." After further persuasion, Saburov finally came around to support the interventionist position.

With that, the Presidium unanimously approved the full-scale use of military force "to help the working class in Hungary rebuff the counterrevolution."97 This action brought an end to the long period of indecision and wavering in Soviet policy.

Even so, the reversal on 31 October should not detract from the importance of the consensus on the 30th. The Malin notes suggest there was a chance, if only a very slender one, that the events of 1989 could actually have occurred 33 years earlier.

The Effect of the Suez Crisis

Israeli troops moved into Egyptian territory, an action that was broadly coordinated with France and Great Britain. On 30 October the French and British governments sent an ultimatum to Nasser which the Egyptian leader promptly rejected — and early the next day they joined the Israeli incursions by launching air raids against Egyptian cities and imposing a naval blockade.98 Western analysts have long speculated about the role of the Suez Crisis in Soviet decision-making vis-a-vis Hungary, but until recently there was no real way to know. The new evidence, particularly the Malin notes, does not resolve all the ambiguities, but it does shed a good deal of light on the matter.

On the whole, the Malin notes and other new materials indicate that the Suez Crisis gave Soviet leaders a powerful incentive to resolve the situation in Hungary as soon and as decisively as possible. For one thing, the prolonged diplomatic wrangling over Suez induced the Soviet Presidium to be wary of becoming embroiled in lengthy political disputes the way the French and the British had. Khrushchev raised this point at the Presidium's meeting on 28 October, the day before military action began in the Middle East: "The English and French are in a real mess [zavarivayut kashu] in Egypt. We shouldn't get caught in the same company.' 99 By this, he evidently meant that if the Presidium allowed the Hungarian crisis to drag on indefinitely, things would only get worse and the Soviet Union would be left facing the same intractable dilemma that the French and British were encountering in Suez.

The start of fighting in the Middle East on 29-31 October, which left Moscow's political ally Egypt in a precarious state, caused even greater complications for Soviet leaders. They worried that a failure to act decisively in Hungary would compound the damage to Soviet foreign policy. This fear was particularly acute after the French and British launched their military operations in the early morning hours of 31 October. When the Soviet Presidium met later that day to reach a final decision about Hungary, reports were al

ready flooding into Moscow about the spectacular "successes" that the French, British, and Israeli forces were supposedly achieving. It soon turned out that their joint military efforts got bogged down (for want of U.S. support) and a stalemate ensued, but Khrushchev and his colleagues could not have foreseen that when they met on 31 October because they automatically assumed-in a classic case of misperception-that the United States would back the allied incursions. Khrushchev himself expressed the dominant sentiment at the Presidium meeting:

If we depart from Hungary, it will give a great boost to the Americans, English, and French-the imperialists. They will perceive it as weakness on our part and will go onto the offensive. We would then be exposing the weakness of our positions. Our party will not accept it if we do this. To Egypt [the imperialists] will then add Hungary.

Khrushchev's subsequent comments about Suez, especially at a Presidium meeting on 4 November, show that he believed the decision to intervene in Hungary would help, rather than hurt, Moscow's policy vis-a-vis Suez. The distraction posed by Hungary, he implied, had prevented an effective response in the Middle East. Now that a firm decision to suppress the uprising had been adopted, the Soviet Union would be able to "take a more active

part in the assistance to Egypt."101

In another respect as well, Soviet policy in Hungary was linked-if only inadvertently to the Suez Crisis. The sudden conflict diverted international attention from Poland and Hungary to the Middle East. Because the United States refused to support the Israeli and French-British military operations, the crisis generated a deep split among the Western powers at the very moment when they needed to show unity in response to the events in Hungary. The intra-NATO rift engendered by the Suez Crisis was not a critical factor in Moscow's response to the Hungarian uprising-after all, the rift was not yet fully evident when the Soviet Presidium met for its fateful session on 31 October-but it did, as Khrushchev pointed

ish governments, he noted on 2 November, "are bogged down in Suez, and we are stuck in Hungary." "103

The invasion of Hungary undoubtedly would have been approved even if there had been no Suez Crisis, but Soviet fears of "imperialist" successes in the Middle East and the sudden emergence of a divisive row within NATO clearly expedited Moscow's decision.

Fears of a Spillover

New evidence confirms that Soviet leaders feared the Hungarian revolution might spread into other East European countries and possibly into the USSR itself, causing the whole Communist bloc to unravel. Warnings to that effect had been pouring in throughout the crisis from the Soviet embassy in Budapest, from KGB representatives in Hungary, and from three former HunHungary, and from three former Hungarian leaders (Rakosi, Andras Hegedus, and Istvan Bata) who had fled to Moscow after being ousted. Concerns that the Hungarian revolution would spill into other Warsaw Pact countries were heightened by a series of intelligence reports from neighboring Romania and Czechoslovakia. ing Romania and Czechoslovakia. Khrushchev later recalled he had learned from KGB sources that "the residents of the border areas in Hungary had begun seeking contacts with [residents in] the border areas of Czechoslovakia and Romania to gain direct backing from them."104 Archival materials fully bear out his recollections.

From Romania, Soviet leaders received word that students in Bucharest and in a large number of Transylvanian cities (Cluj, Tirgu Mures, Timisoara, Baia Mare, and Oradea, among others) were holding demonstrations in support of the Hungarian revolution, and that disturbances were spreading around the country. As early as 24 October, the Politburo of the Romanian Workers' Party (RWP) felt the need to impose emergency security measures and visa regulations along the border with Hungary, effectively sealing it off to all traf

a further precaution, the RWP Politburo ordered the state security forces (Securitate) to reinforce their defenses around key buildings, including transport stations, communications and broadcasting facilities, university complexes, and Communist party and government offices. Leaves and furloughs for soldiers and state security troops were cancelled. 106 Over the next few days, Romanian leaders also took steps to alleviate economic grievances and boost living standards, but overall Romania's efforts to prevent a spillover from Hungary were geared predominantly toward increased vigilance and preparations for a large-scale crackdown.107

Despite these precautions, the Romanian authorities were soon confronted by renewed “agitation and demonstrations by student groups and hostile elements" in many parts of the country, especially Transylvania and Bucharest. 108 Officials who were dispatched to Cluj reported scenes of "mass confusion and unrest."109 An unofficial student movement, formed at Bolyai University on 25 October, attracted hundreds of members and gained support from much of the faculty, including many who belonged to the RWP. Romanian officials in the area emphasized that "party members of Hungarian origin" were especially likely to succumb to "hostile” elements, and that ethnic Hungarian students throughout Transylvania were “singing 110 Horthyite and chauvinistic songs." Most worrisome of all were reports that young people in Baia Mare and Carei were "intent on joining the Hungarian army," and that Romanian army troops and security forces in the border region were being swayed by the demonstrators' "tendentious" and "inimical" pro111 paganda. To combat the growing unrest, the RWP Politburo on 30 October set up a "general command staff," consisting of four senior Politburo members (Emil Bodnaras, Nicolae Ceausescu, Alexandru Draghici, and Leontin Salajan), who were given ex

traordinary powers, including the right

to issue shoot-to-kill orders and to de

clare a state of emergency. 112 The

command staff was successful in its task, but the very fact that this sort of measure was needed was a disconcerting reminder to Soviet leaders that the events in Hungary, if left unchecked, could prove contagious.

Equally disturbing reports flowed into Moscow from Czechoslovakia about student demonstrations in Bratislava and other cities amidst growing "hostility and mistrust toward the Soviet Union."113 The Czechoslovak authorities denied most of these reports, but they acknowledged that the events in Hungary were having "deleterious psychological effects" and creating a "hostile, anti-socialist mood" among some of the Czechoslovak troops who had been sent to reinforce the 560-km Senior

border with Hungary.114

Czechoslovak military officials warned that the confusion might even "tempt the counterrevolutionary forces [in Hungary] to penetrate into our country and stir up a rebellion in Slovak territory," especially in the southern areas inhabited mainly by ethnic Hungarians. 115 They also warned that the danger would increase "if Soviet and Hungarian units are withdrawn" from northern Hungary, since "it is unlikely that [Czechoslovakia's] existing combat forces will be enough to prevent incursions by counterrevolutionary groups."116 The risk of a spillover into Czechoslovakia was explicitly cited by Soviet leaders when they approved a full-scale invasion: "If we don't embark on a decisive path, things in Czechoslovakia will collapse."117 It

is unclear whether the actual danger was as great as they feared, but the important thing at the time was the perception in both Moscow and Prague that a failure to act would have ominous consequences.

The growing concerns about a spillover were shared in East European countries further away from Hungary, notably East Germany. Initially, the East German leader, Walter Ulbricht, mainly feared that the return of Nagy might presage a similar turn of events in the GDR.118 Once the Hungarian

revolution broke out, apprehension in East Berlin rapidly increased. A top East German official, Otto Grotewohl, warned that "the events in Hungary and Poland show that the enemy looks for weak spots in the socialist camp, seeking to break it apart.' "119 He and other East German leaders were acutely aware that the GDR itself was one of these "weak spots." Soviet officials, too, were worried that developments in Hungary could undermine their position in East Germany, which by this point was closely tied to Ulbricht. Soviet foreign minister Dmitrii Shepilov warned that certain elements in East Germany might exploit the crisis to launch a campaign against the "Ulbricht clique."120

Quite apart from the threat of a spillover into Eastern Europe, Soviet leaders were aware of serious problems in the USSR itself. The inception of de-Stalinization had spawned numerous instances of public disorder and unrest. Mass disturbances erupted in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities in early March 1956, as students, workers, and intellectuals joined together to protest the growing criticism of "our great leader Stalin."121 These demonstrations

marked the first time that "anti-Soviet activities" had occurred in Georgia since Communist rule was established, and Soviet leaders responded by imposing martial law. 122 Very different challenges arose elsewhere in the Soviet Union, where intellectuals and some other groups took advantage of the opportunity to voice long-suppressed grievances. Criticism of Stalin and of the "cult of personality" opened the way for broader complaints about the nature of the Soviet regime itself. Soviet leaders tried to regain control of the deStalinization campaign by issuing a decree that specified what was permis

year of the Petofi Circle in Hungary. They feared that the use of repressive measures might not be enough to restore tight discipline, just as Rakosi's and 124 Gero's efforts had failed in Hungary.

These concerns seemed to gain credence when protests cropped up both before and after 4 November at higher educational institutions in the USSR, including Moscow State University (MGU). State Security (KGB) troops were dispatched to MGU to arrest students and faculty who had staged rallies "denouncing the Soviet military intervention" and had put up "anti-Soviet slogans and posters."125 The KGB

also cracked down harshly on demonstrations in Yaroslavl and other cities where students organized demonstrations and carried banners demanding the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hun126 These incidents underlined the gary. concerns that had prompted the CPSU Presidium's decision on 4 November to "purge all higher educational_institutions of unsavory elements."127 To deter further protests, the authorities ordered the arrests of other presumed dissidents in late 1956 and 1957, but some senior party officials wanted to undertake much more drastic action, launching a crackdown reminiscent of the Stalin era. 128 Their proposals were never formally adopted, but the disturbances in 1956 were enough for Soviet leaders to feel that the invasion of Hungary had narrowly averted a much. worse spillover into the USSR.

A number of Western analysts, such as Charles Gati, had long suspected that concerns about a spillover from Hungary were one of the major factors in Soviet decision-making during the 1956 crisis. 129 The new evidence has amply corroborated that view.

decision, but Mikoyan was dismayed by it, opposing it just as strongly as he had resisted the original decision on 23 October. Mikoyan pleaded with Khrushchev to call another meeting of the CPSU Presidium to reconsider the matter, but Khrushchev refused. According to Khrushchev's memoirs-which seem eminently plausible on this point-Mikoyan even threatened to commit suicide if Khrushchev did not

reconvene the Presidium.130 Khrushchev responded that it would be the "height of stupidity" to behave so “irrationally," and he set off to take care of the final political and military preparations for the invasion. Had it not taken the CPSU Presidium so long and been so politically costly to reach a final decision about Hungary, Khrushchev might have been willing to comply with Mikoyan's request; but Khrushchev explained to Mikoyan that he was loath to "resume fruitless discussions" and "destroy our whole plan" now that "everything has been decided and a timetable has finally been laid out."131

Despite these explanations, Mikoyan remained deeply upset by the decision, as he indicated at the Presidium meeting on 1 November (when Khrushchev had already headed off to Brest to inform the Polish leadership of

the decision). 132 Mikoyan insisted that

"the use of force now will not help anything," and that "we should enter into negotiations instead." Although he agreed that "we cannot let Hungary escape from our camp," he argued that it was still possible to wait 10-15 days to see how the situation would unfold: "If things stabilize by then, we can decide whether to pull out our troops." The other participants disagreed with Mikoyan, but he held his ground, arguing that an invasion was "inappropriate in the current circumstances." In public, however, Mikoyan did not display any qualms. The first time that Mikoyan's objections were revealed was in Khrushchev's memoirs, and the Malin notes fully bear out Khrushchev's

account.

Interestingly enough, in later years Mikoyan tried to gloss over his anti-interventionist stance in October 1956, arguing that the decision to send in

troops was unanimous. 133 troops was unanimous. 133 Technically,

this assertion was correct because the participants in the 31 October meeting did indeed approve the decision unanimously. What Mikoyan failed to point out is that if he had been present, the decision would not have been unanimous, just as he dissented from the original decision to send in troops on the night of 23-24 October. In spite of this subsequent backtracking, Mikoyan's position in October-November 1956 was in fact both courageous and consistent.

Janos Kadar's Trip to Moscow

It had previously been known that Janos Kadar and Ferenc Munnich were spirited to Moscow aboard a Soviet military aircraft on the evening of 1 November, and were brought back with Soviet troops after 4 November to be installed as the prime minister and deputy prime minister of a "Provisional Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government." Nothing was known, however, about what Kadar was doing in Moscow on 2 and 3 November. Almost all Western accounts of the Hungarian crisis have assumed that Kadar was duplicitous and supportive of Soviet military intervention from the outset. The Malin notes provide a more complex picture, offering the first solid evidence of Kadar's and Munnich's roles in the establishment of a post-invasion regime.

Both Kadar and Munnich took part in sessions of the CPSU Presidium on 2 and 3 November, though Kadar did most of the talking. 134 (On the 2nd they were joined by another Hungarian official, Istvan Bata, one of four senior figures who had been transported to Moscow several days earlier, on the evening of 28 October. On the 3rd, they were joined by Imre Horvath, who took detailed notes of the session.) On 2 November, Khrushchev and Malenkov were still away conferring with the leaders of other Warsaw Pact countries and with Tito, but the rest of the Presidium members met at length with Kadar and Munnich. On 3 November, Khrushchev and Malenkov joined in as well.

The notes from the two sessions

indicate that even though Kadar had been willing to travel surreptitiously to Moscow at a critical moment, he did not favor large-scale Soviet military intervention in Hungary. Nor did he arrive in Moscow intent on becoming the head of a new, post-invasion government. At the session on 2 November, Kadar warned that "the use of military force will be destructive and lead to bloodshed." Such an outcome, he added, would "erode the authority of the socialist countries" and cause "the morale of the Communists [in Hungary] to be reduced to zero.' "135 The next day, Kadar's tone had changed somewhat, though not drastically. He highlighted the existing government's failure to prevent the "killing of Communists," and said he "agreed with [Soviet officials]" that "you cannot surrender a socialist country to counterrevolution." Kadar also asserted that "the correct course of action [in Hungary] is to form a revolutionary government." But even then, he implied that a Soviet invasion would only make things worse-"The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary will be of great significance"-and warned that "the [revolutionary] government must not be puppetlike; there must be a [popular] base for its activities and support among workers."136 In this respect, his views differed sharply from those of Bata, who insisted that "order must be restored through a military dictatorship" imposed by the Soviet Army, 137

It is also interesting that even on the 3rd, Kadar did not portray the recent events in Hungary in a uniformly negative light. Although he claimed that "Nagy's policy has counterrevolutionary aspects" and that "hour by hour the situation [in Hungary] is moving rightward," he urged the Soviet leadership to recognize that the uprising had stemmed from genuine popular discontent and that "the HWP has been compromised in the eyes of the overwhelming masses." He argued that "the entire nation took part in the movement" to "get rid of the Rakosi clique."138 Kadar's perspective at this time was far more nuanced and insightful than the rigid formulas adopted by his government in December 1956, which char