acterized the whole uprising as no more than a "counterrevolution" instigated and supported by the West.

One other surprising aspect of Kadar's remarks is that he made little effort to gloss over his own actions or to downplay the negative influence of Soviet policy. He gave a detailed account of the meetings of the Hungarian "inner cabinet" on 1 November, noting that he "was a supporter of the view that no sorts of steps should be taken without having spoken with Andropov." This position, however, did not really distinguish Kadar from Nagy, who himself had summoned Andropov to the evening session for urgent consultations about Soviet troop movements. 139 Moreover, Kadar acknowledged that when the consultations were over, he joined the other members of Nagy's cabinet in voting for the declaration of neutrality, the appeal to the United Nations, and the resolution demanding an immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. On both the 2nd and 3rd of November, Kadar spoke harshly about past Soviet "mistakes" in Hungary, and was far more critical about Rakosi than about Nagy. His comments on this topic were echoed by Munnich, who argued that the fundamental "source of anti-Soviet sentiments" in Hungary was the population's "certainty that the [Communist] regime exists and is preserved only through the support of the USSR."

None of this is to imply that Kadar's stance in early November was greatly beneficial to Hungary. Kadar was hardly naive, and the fact that he was willing to come to Moscow suggests that he advocated more forceful Soviet action. Nevertheless, the Malin notes do not bear out the notion that Kadar was a quisling from the very start. He took on that function after 4 November, but it was not the role he wanted or envisaged when he arrived in Moscow.

The Invasion

The CPSU Presidium's abrupt shift in favor of all-out intervention on 31 October, after more than a week of vacillation, left many political and military tasks to be carried out. Shortly before

the Presidium meeting, Khrushchev had spoken by phone with Gomulka, and the two men had arranged to meet the next day (1 November) in Brest, along the Soviet-Polish border. The Presidium designated Malenkov and Molotov to accompany Khrushchev to Brest. The Presidium also authorized Khrushchev and Malenkov to hold negotiations with Tito so they could try to gain at least tacit support from the Yugoslav leader. In addition, the Presidium approved Khrushchev's suggestion that they "inform the Chinese comrades, the Czechs, the Romanians, and the Bulgarians" about the upcoming invasion. [40

It turned out, however, that the talks with Liu Shaoqi were much less onerous than expected. After Khrushchev explained why the Soviet leadership had reversed its position, the Chinese delegates condoned the change and promised to go over the matter carefully with Mao. Even before the delegation returned to China, Mao's own view of the situation was gradually changing as a result of intelligence reports and diplomatic cables flowing into Beijing. It is unclear precisely when Mao shifted unambiguously in favor of the invasion, but the last-minute consultations at Vnukovo Airport may well have been decisive in allowing the Soviet Union to gain strong Chinese back143 ing.

Khrushchev wanted to inform them immediately about the new decision, rather than having them find out about it second-hand back in China. The entire CPSU Presidium traveled to Vnukovo Airport on the 31st to meet with the departing Chinese officials and smooth over any ruffled feathers. 141 Khrushchev was concerned that Liu Shaoqi might be upset when he learned about the sudden change in Soviet policy. During consultations with the Soviet leadership over the previous week, Liu Shaoqi had consistently expressed Mao's view that the "working class of Hungary" must be permitted to "regain control of the situation and put down the uprising on its own," without further Soviet interference. As late as 30 October, the Chinese delegates had called for Soviet relations with all other socialist states, including Hungary, to be based on the five principles of Pancha Shila: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; nonaggression; non-interference in internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence.142 The Soviet

decision on 30 October seemed to be in full conformity with these principles, but the volte-face on 31 October raised doubts about Chinese reactions.

With that task accomplished, Khrushchev and Malenkov were able to set off a few hours later for their rapid series of top-secret meetings with leaders of the other Warsaw Pact coun

Brest, Khrushchev and Malenkov were joined by Molotov for talks with a Polish delegation consisting of Gomulka, Jozef Cyrankiewicz, and Edward Ochab. This meeting was regarded as particularly sensitive and unpredictable because the political situation in Poland was still so turbulent. The three Soviet negotiators hoped to defuse most of Gomulka's objections, but their efforts in this regard were largely unsuccessful. Although the Polish leader agreed that the "counterrevolution" in Hungary had to be suppressed, he strongly objected to the use of Soviet military force. Khrushchev soon realized that he would not be able to convince Gomulka that direct intervention was necessary, and the Soviet leader was not even sure by the end of the meeting whether Gomulka would refrain from publicly criticizing the action. 145

Khrushchev's concerns were not entirely unfounded. Shortly after Gomulka and his colleagues returned to Warsaw, they convened an emergency session of the PZPR Politburo, which

146

"expressed opposition to the USSR's armed intervention in Hungary." The Polish Politburo also endorsed the publication of a statement affirming that the crisis should be resolved "by the

Hungarian people alone and not by foreign intervention." This statement appeared (in slightly modified form) in the PZPR newspaper Trybuna Ludu the following day. 147 Moreover, on 2 November, Gomulka publicly offered Warsaw as a forum for Soviet-Hungarian negotiations, which he (and Imre Nagy) hoped would "lead to the settlement of problems in bilateral relations."148 When Gomulka's last-ditch efforts proved futile and the invasion began as scheduled on 4 November, the Polish leader briefly considered voicing his objections openly. After further thought, however, Gomulka decided that he should maintain a discreet public stance to avoid undue antagonism with MosCOW. 149 At his behest, the PZPR Politburo instructed the Polish envoy at the United Nations to vote against a U.S.sponsored resolution condemning the Soviet invasion. 150 Gomulka remained distinctly uneasy about the whole matter, but he kept his reservations out of public view. To that extent, the Soviet consultations with Polish officials in Brest on 1 November were a qualified success. Had Gomulka not been informed at all about the invasion beforehand, he might well have been inclined to adopt a much less accommodating position when Soviet troops moved in.

The Soviet consultations after the Brest meeting went far more smoothly. Molotov returned to Moscow on the 1st so that he could inform the other members of the CPSU Presidium about Gomulka's reaction. In the meantime, Khrushchev and Malenkov traveled to Bucharest, where they spoke with top Romanian, Czechoslovak, and Bulgarian officials. Not surprisingly, the delegations from all three East European countries vehemently endorsed the Soviet decision. The Czechoslovak leader, Antonin Novotny, and the Romanian leader, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, reemphasized the concerns they had been expressing over the past several days about the growing spillover from the revolution. They were joined by the Bulgarian leader, Todor Zhivkov, in arguing that "it is essential to adopt every appropriate measure, including military intervention, as soon as possible"

to combat "imperialist intrigues" and "preserve the system of people's democracy in Hungary."151

On 2 November, Khrushchev and Malenkov flew to Yugoslavia, where they met with Tito at his villa on the Adriatic island of Brioni from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. the following day. 152

When the two Soviet leaders were en route to Brioni, they were apprehensive-particularly after the recent session in Brest with Gomulka-that Tito, too, would strongly oppose the Soviet decision; but their concerns proved to be unwarranted. During the ten hours of talks, Khrushchev declined to provide Tito with a precise timetable for the invasion, but he made clear that Soviet troops would soon be intervening in Hungary to "defend socialism" and "halt the killing of honest Communists." The Yugoslav leader, for his part, left no doubt that he agreed with the Soviet decision, if only because it was the sole remaining way to "crush the counterrevolution" and "prevent the restoration of capitalism in Hungary." Tito's earlier support for Nagy had essentially disappeared by this point. 153

When the question came up of who should be brought in to replace Nagy, Khrushchev mentioned that Janos Kadar and Ferenc Munnich were the leading candidates, with a decided preference for the latter. Tito and other Yugoslav officials at the talks (Edvard Kardelj, Aleksander Rankovic, and the Yugoslav ambassador to Moscow, Veljko Micunovic) argued that it would be better to go with Kadar because of his credentials as a prisoner during the Stalin-era purges, and the Soviet leaders readily agreed. Tito also urged Khrushchev and Malenkov to be sure that the new "Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government" would condemn the Rakosi era and adopt reforms needed to win popular support. Khrushchev assented to these proposals (except for Tito's suggestion that the newly-formed workers' councils in Hungary be preserved), and in return Tito pledged to use his special contacts with Geza Losonczy (a close aide to Nagy) to try to persuade Nagy to step down immediately, before Soviet troops entered. That way, the existing Hun

garian government would collapse, and the Soviet intervention would not appear to be directed against a specific leader. 154 It turned out that Tito was unable or unwilling to fulfill his promise-a failure that caused great irritation in Moscow later on-but Khrushchev did not foresee that when he left Brioni. 155 Even if he had foreseen it, the very fact that Tito was so firmly supportive of the upcoming invasion was enough for Khrushchev to regard the talks as a "pleasant surprise."156

On the morning of 3 November, Khrushchev and Malenkov returned to Moscow having largely accomplished their task of overcoming any reservations that allied Communist states (with the exception of Poland) might have about the impending military action. Khrushchev had ample reason to be pleased when he briefly presented the results of the talks at a CPSU Presidium

meeting later that day. 157

The military side of the invasion proceeded just as rapidly as the political consultations. On 1 November, Marshal Konev was appointed the supreme commander of Soviet forces in Hungary. That same day, tens of thousands of Soviet troops, who had supposedly been withdrawing from Hungary, instead received orders to move back into Budapest to quell the uprising. They were reinforced by many tens of thousands of additional Soviet troops who had been congregating in Romania and the Transcarpathian Military District, along Hungary's southern and

eastern borders, 158 Some consider

ation was given to having Romanian and Bulgarian soldiers take part alongside the Soviet forces and to having Czechoslovak troops move in simultaneously from the north. 159 Romanian and Bulgarian leaders had told Khrushchev that "they wanted to have their own military units participate in ... the struggle against the Hungarian counterrevolution," and the Czechoslovak Politburo likewise expressed its "readiness not only to support intervention, but also to take an active part in it." 160 In the end, however, Khrushchev and his colleagues decided that the invasion should be carried out

In November our combat operations took place under more auspicious circumstances than at the end of October. Budapest was already under martial law; armed groups were less successful in carrying out sudden attacks; and our troops controlled the situation on the city streets. We also had a lot more forces and equipment at our disposal than in October. In addition, our troops were no longer hampered by contradictory directives issued by the Hungarian government (whether and when to open fire, etc.), which had seriously impeded our troops' actions and resulted in needless casualties. . . . The considerable experience acquired by our units in October also contributed to the greater success of our subsequent operations. 162

In addition to helping out with the final military plans, Lashchenko retained a key command role in Budapest. Responsibility for operations elsewhere in Hungary was assigned to General Mikhail Kazakov and General Mikhail

The West's failure to intervene left Nagy's government in a hopeless situation. Although Hungarian army units had been fighting mainly on the side of the rebels since 28 October (when a ceasefire was declared and a National Guard was formed), the military overall could no longer function as a cohesive whole. 165 In early November, Hungarian defense minister Pal Maleter began preparing as best he could to defend against a Soviet attack, but in the absence of Western military support Nagy was reluctant to order large-scale armed resistance, for fear of precipitating mass bloodshed without any possibility of victory. 166 Among other things, Nagy was well aware that the Soviet Union had systematically penetrated the Hungarian military establishment from the late 1940s on. He feared that dozens of Soviet agents who were still entrenched in the Hungarian officer corps and national defense ministry, as well as a "field staff for Soviet troops in Budapest that operated in direct contact with the Hungarians" from the outset of the crisis, would prevent most of the Hungarian army from being used to

ber, a final signal was given for Operation "Whirlwind" (Vikhr'—the codename of the invasion) to commence. The fighting in Budapest and many other cities on 4, 5, and 6 November was intense, and even in a small town like Dunapetele the defenders managed to hold out for four days despite being hopelessly outnumbered. 169 Eventually, though, Soviet forces crushed the resistance and installed a pro-Soviet government under Kadar and Munnich. Officials in Moscow were able to maintain direct contact with the new Hungarian government via Leonid Brezhnev and Anastas Mikoyan, who had been sent to Budapest on 3 November for precisely that reason. 170 Some limited fighting continued in Hungary until 11 November, especially in areas well outside Budapest (notably in Pecs, where some 200 fighters held out until the 14th), but the revolution was effectively over by the 8th. Marshal Konev had promised Khrushchev on 31 October that it would take Soviet troops three to four days to "destroy the counterrevolutionary forces and restore order in Hungary," and his forecast was largely borne out. 171

Further Rifts Within the Soviet Leadership

Even after the final decision to intervene on a massive scale was adopted on 31 October, the leadership struggle continued to buffet Soviet deliberations about Hungary. This was evident not only at the Presidium meeting on 1 November, when Mikoyan (having just returned to Moscow) tried to undo the decision to invade, but also at the meetings held during the first few days of 172 the invasion, on 4-6 November. Molotov and Kaganovich disagreed with the others about the best way to handle the post-invasion regime in Hungary. Initially, Molotov had wanted the former prime minister Andras Hegedus, who had escaped to Moscow on 28 October, to be made the head of a new "Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government." Such a step, Molotov claimed, would simply amount to the reinstatement of Hegedus's government as the legitimate authority in Hungary.

(Hegedus had been prime minister in the government that immediately preceded Nagy's return to power in October 1956.) Molotov averred that Janos Kadar was still a furtive supporter of Nagy and should not be given any top post. Although Molotov eventually backed down on this issue, he continued to insist that it was improper for Kadar's new government to condemn the "Rakosi-Gero clique" and to give a new name to the revived Hungarian Communist party. These differences produced a number of acerbic exchanges with Khrushchev and other Presidium members. On 4 November, Khrushchev declared that he "simply cannot understand Cde. Molotov; he always comes up with the most pernicious [vredneishie] ideas." Molotov responded by telling Khrushchev that he "should keep quiet and stop being so overbearing."173

The exchanges became even more acrimonious at the session on 6 November, where Molotov brought a flood of criticism upon himself by declaring his "vehement objection" to Khrushchev's ideas about the regime that Janos Kadar was establishing in Hungary. Maksim Saburov accused Molotov and

Kaganovich of being "rigid and dogmatic," and Mikoyan insisted that "Cde. Molotov is completely ignoring the concrete situation and is dragging us backward." Averki Aristov noted that "Cdes. Molotov and Kaganovich were always transfixed by Stalin's cult, and they are still transfixed by it." Severest of all were the criticisms that Khrushchev himself expressed, accusing Molotov and Kaganovich of wanting to indulge in "screeching and face-slapping." He expressed particular disdain for Kaganovich, asking him "when are you finally going to mend your ways and stop all this toadying [to Molotov]?"

In June 1957, when the leadership struggle reached its peak, the Hungarian crisis resurfaced. One of the accusations leveled by Molotov and other members of the "Anti-Party Group" against Khrushchev was what they described as his mismanagement of intrabloc affairs. Molotov argued that Khrushchev had committed "dangerous zigzags" vis-a-vis Eastern Europe and

had "ignored the impact of [the Soviet Union's] actions on other socialist countries"-charges that were not entirely without merit. 174 Khrushchev managed to deflect those allegations and to oust his opponents, but the events in both Hungary and Poland in 1956 had highlighted the risks of allowing dehighlighted the risks of allowing deStalinization in Eastern Europe to move too fast. Although Khrushchev cemented his status as the top leader in 1957, he pursued a much more cautious policy in Eastern Europe from then on.

Consequences and Costs

By reestablishing military control over Hungary and by exposing-more dramatically than in 1953-the emptiness of the "roll-back" and "liberation" rhetoric in the West, the Soviet invasion in November 1956 stemmed any further loss of Soviet power in Eastern Europe. Shortly after the invasion, Khrushchev acknowledged that U.S.Soviet relations were likely to deteriorate for a considerable time, but he indicated that he was ready to pay that dicated that he was ready to pay that price because the Soviet Union "had proved to the West that [it is] strong and resolute" while "the West is weak and

divided."175 U.S. officials, for their part, were even more aware than they had been in 1953 of how limited their options were in Eastern Europe. Senior members of the Eisenhower administration conceded that the most they could do in the future was "to encourage peaceful evolutionary changes" in the region, and they warned that the United States must avoid conveying any impression "either directly or by implication... that American military help will be forthcoming" to anti-Communist forces. 176 Any lingering U.S.

hopes of directly challenging Moscow's hopes of directly challenging Moscow's sphere of influence in Eastern Europe thus effectively ended.

Despite these obvious benefits for Soviet policy, the revolts in both Poland and Hungary in 1956 had demonstrated serious weaknesses in the region that would continue to endanger Soviet control. The bloodiness of the three-day conflict in Hungary, in which roughly 22,000 Hungarians and nearly 2,300 Soviet soldiers died or were wounded,

underscored the extent of popular opposition both to the Communist regime and to the Soviet role in Eastern Eu177 rope. Two years of intensive "normalization," including wholesale purges, arrests, deportations, and executions, culminating in the executions (by hanging) of Nagy and Pal Maleter in June 1958, were carried out to eliminate the most active opposition to Kadar's regime. By the time the process was completed, more than 100,000 people had been arrested, 35,000 had been tried for "counterrevolutionary acts," nearly 26,000 had been sentenced to prison, and as many as 600 had been executed.178 Similarly, in Poland the Poznan riots and the mass protest rallies that preceded and accompanied Gomulka's return to power were indicative of widespread disaffection with the extant political system. That discontent merely festered in subsequent years, as Gomulka gradually abandoned the reformist mantle and reverted to an orthodox Communist approach. Ironically, it was Kadar, not Gomulka, who ended up pursuing a more relaxed political and economic line once he had consolidated his hold on power; and as a result, Hungary experienced no further instances of violent upheaval and mass disorder. By contrast, Gomulka's eschewal of genuine reform left Poland as politically unstable as ever by the time he was forced out in December 1970.

The events of 1956 also made Soviet leaders aware of the urgent need for improved economic conditions in Eastern Europe, insofar as the unrest in both Poland and Hungary-and in East Germany three years earlier had stemmed, at least initially, from economic discontent. The danger of allowing "basic economic and social problems to go unresolved" was one of the main lessons that Khrushchev emphasized to his colleagues from the very start: "Ideological work alone will be of no avail if we do not ensure that living standards rise. It is no accident that Hungary and Poland are the countries in which unrest has occurred."179 Khrushchev also concluded that the rectification of "certain inequalities in our economic relations with the fraternal

countries" would be "crucial to the process of normalization" in both Poland and Hungary, 180 Although Kadar was eventually able to redress some of the most acute economic grievances in Hungary through the adoption of a New Economic Mechanism in 1968 and other reforms in subsequent years, his retention of state ownership and centralized economic management thwarted any hope of genuine prosperity. This was even more the case in Poland, where, despite some leeway granted for private activity (especially in agriculture, retail trade, and light industry), the economic policies under Gomulka and his successors spawned periodic outbreaks of widespread public unrest. No matter how often the Polish authorities claimed that they would pursue drastic economic improvements, they always proved unwilling to accept the political price that such improvements would have necessitated.

From a purely military standpoint, the invasion in November 1956 achieved its immediate goals, but in the longer term it exacted significant costs. When the revolution was crushed by Soviet troops, the morale and fighting elan of the Hungarian armed forces were bound to dissolve as well. The remains of the Hungarian army were regarded by Soviet commanders (and by Kadar) as politically and militarily unreliable. More than 8,000 officers, including a large number who had attended Soviet military colleges and academies, were forced out of the Hungarian armed forces in late 1956 and 1957.181 The country's army thus essentially disintegrated and had to be rebuilt almost from scratch, leaving a gap in Warsaw Pact military planning and combat preparations for many years thereafter.

From a diplomatic standpoint as well, the invasion entailed significant costs, at least in the short term. The large-scale use of force in Hungary alienated numerous Third World countries that had been sedulously courted by the Soviet Union. A top-secret memorandum prepared in December 1956 by Igor Tugarinov, a senior official at the Soviet Foreign Ministry, acknowledged that there had been a “sig

nificant increase in hostile statements about the Soviet Union" in key South Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), 182 and Indonesia. Tugarinov noted that the governments in these countries, and even many leftist commentators there, were publicly "drawing an analogy between the English-French-Israeli aggression in Egypt and the participation of Soviet troops in the suppression of the counterrevolutionary uprising in Hungary." The report cited an official protest from the Indian government in mid-December which declared that "the events in Hungary have shattered the beliefs of millions who had begun to look upon the USSR as the defender of peace and of the rights of the weakest people." What was even more disturbing, according to Tugarinov, was the "increased prestige that the United

States had derived from recent events in Hungary and the Near East." While Asian officials were condemning Soviet "aggression" in Hungary as "a direct violation of the spirit and letter of the Bandung Conference declaration," they were making "extremely favorable" references to the "U.S. position in both Hungary and Suez." Tugarinov reported that some Indian officials had even begun insisting that “it makes sense for India to reorient its foreign policy more closely toward the United States." This raised the "distinct possibility," in Tugarinov's view, that "there will be a major improvement in IndoAmerican relations, with a detrimental impact on India's relations with the USSR." Although the adverse effects of the 1956 invasion on Soviet-Third World relations proved, for the most part, to be relatively ephemeral, the suppression of the uprising did cause at pression of the uprising did cause at least temporary disruption in Khrushchev's strategy vis-a-vis the Non-Aligned Movement.

Finally, the fact that an invasion had been necessary at all underscored the dangers of Moscow's incoherent and drifting policy in Eastern Europe following Stalin's death. Khrushchev was well aware of the potential for recriminations, as he indicated during his conversation with Tito in early November:

[If we had failed to take action], there are people in the Soviet Union who would say that as long as Stalin was in command, everyone obeyed and there were no great shocks, but now that [these new bastards] have come to power, Russia has suffered the defeat and loss of Hungary.183

This point was further highlighted by the acrimonious exchanges during the CPSU Presidium meetings in early November (see the previous section) and by the accusations which the AntiParty Group lodged against Khrushchev in June 1957, as cited above. Ultimately, Khrushchev was able to overcome the political fallout from the two crises, but the events of 1956 clearly took their toll on the process of deStalinization in Eastern Europe. Even though Khrushchev suspected that the

Warsaw Pact countries would remain vulnerable to recurrent crises unless the

indigenous regimes became more "viable" and the Soviet Union forged a more equitable relationship, he was determined to proceed far more cautiously in the future. 184 Repressive leaders in Eastern Europe, such as Walter Ulbricht in East Germany, Gheorghe GheorghiuDej in Romania, Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, and Antonin Novotny in Czechoslovakia, were able to win even stronger backing from Khrushchev because they convinced him that their presence was the only safeguard against “unexpected developments" of the sort that occurred in Hungary and Poland. When faced with a tradeoff between the "viability" of the East European regimes and the "cohesion" of the Eastern bloc after 1956, Khrushchev consistently chose to emphasize cohesion, thus forestalling any real movement toward a more durable political order. 185

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This brief review of some of the latest findings about the 1956 crises leaves numerous topics unaddressed, but it should be enough to indicate that the new archival evidence does not just confirm what everyone knew all along. More often than not, the new evidence undercuts long-established views and