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in Russian. The final word in the fragment, translated here as "directly,” is samim, which literally means "by itself" or "by himself." The antecedent might be either the HWP Politburo or Mikoyan, or perhaps something or someone else. The ambiguity cannot be fully conveyed in English (which has separate words for "itself" and "himself'), but the translation tries to do so as best as possible.

48 Here again, Zhukov is referring to the center

of resistance around the Corvin cinema.

49 Khrushchev is referring here to the coalition government that was formed (or actually reorganized) on 27 October. This government included, on an informal basis, representatives of parties from the pre-Communist era: Bela Kovacs, the former General Secretary of the Smallholders Party; Zoltan Tildy, the former leader of the Smallholders Party; and Ferenc Erdei, the former leader of the National Peasant Party. Not until 30 October, however, did Nagy announce the formal restoration of a multi-party state, with full participation by the Smallholders, the National Peasant Party (renamed the Petofi Party on 1 November), and the Social Democratic Party as well as the Communists. (Other non-Communist parties soon sprang up as well, including the Hungarian Independence Party, the People's Democratic Party, the Catholic People's Party, and the Catholic National Association.)

50 Scattered defections of Hungarian troops to the insurgents had begun on the first day of the uprising, but Khrushchev was concerned that the whole army would switch sides. In later years, official Soviet accounts of the 1956 uprising acknowledged that "during the most trying days," a substantial number of "soldiers and officers from the Hungarian People's Army" had joined the insurgents in fighting "against Soviet soldiers who had been called in to help." See P. A. Zhilin, ed., Stroitel'stvo armii evropeiskikh stran sotsialisticheskogo sodruzhestva, 1949-1980 (Moscow: Nauka, 1984), p. 93. Formerly secret documents in the main Russian military archive (TSAMO, F. 32, Op. 701291, D. 17, Ll. 33-48) include the Soviet defense ministry's complete list of Hungarian army units that took the side of the insurgents. Many other valuable documents about the role of the Hungarian army are now available in the 1956 Collection (1956-os Gyujtemeny) of the Hungarian Military History Archive, Hadtortenelmi Leveltar, Honvedelmi Miniszterium (HL/HM). For a useful volume drawing on these documents, see Miklos Horvath, 1956 katonai kronologiaja (Budapest: Magyar Honvedseg Oktatasi es Kulturalis Anyagellato Kozpont, 1993). For an equally valuable survey of the Hungarian army's role in 1956 based on archival sources, see Imre Okvath, "Magyar tisztikar a hideghaboru idoszakaban, 1945-1956," Uj Honvedsegi szemle (Budapest), No. 1 (1994), pp. 14-27. See also Bela Kiraly, "Hungary's Army: Its Part in the Revolt," East Europe, Vol. 7, No. 6 (June 1958), pp. 3-16.

51 This sentence is incomplete in the original. 52 This refers to the new Hungarian government's declaration on 28 October, which Nagy would read over the radio at 5:20 p.m. that same afternoon. Among other things, the declaration called for the dissolution of the state security organs, amnesties for those involved in the uprising, the

restoration of the Kossuth emblem as the national

emblem, and the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest as well as subsequent negotiations on a full withdrawal from Hungary. The statement also rejected previous characterizations of the uprising as a "counterrevolution," saying that the events were representative of a "broad national-democratic movement" that was seeking to achieve “national independence and sovereignty" for Hungary. Unfortunately, the draft of this declaration that the CPSU CC Presidium was presumably considering at this meeting has not yet been located by scholars.

53

nal.

Nothing follows Bulganin's name in the origi

54 Most likely, the “you” (Vas) in this sentence should have been "them" (ikh), referring to Mikoyan and Suslov, the former of whom was still in Hungary. If so, Voroshilov was saying that their mission in Hungary had been worthless. It is also remotely possible that Voroshilov was claiming that Mikoyan himself had said these sorts of things about the Soviet troops who were sent to Budapest on the night of 23-24 October. Whatever the case may be, it is clear that Voroshilov was expressing strong disapproval of Mikoyan's performance in Budapest.

55 Kaganovich and other speakers are referring to possible changes in the Hungarian government's draft statement, which was broadcast in final form at 5:20 p.m. on 28 October (see Note 52 supra).

56 Malenkov's surname appears here without the standard title "Cde." The full designation "Cde. Malenkov" appears a few lines further down in a continuation of Malenkov's remarks.

57 This clearly refers to the Hungarian statement of 28 October (see Note 52 supra), not to the Soviet declaration of 30 October. At this point, Khrushchev and the others had seen the Hungarian statement only in draft form. 58 Most likely, Molotov is referring here to Rakosi, who was already in Moscow, and other hard-line HWP officials who were about to be spirited to the Soviet Union. See below. 59 This sentence is incomplete in the original.

60

Kaganovich is referring to the draft Hungarian statement of 28 October, not to the declaration adopted by the Soviet authorities on 30 October (which was considered at the Presidium meeting that day; see Document No. 7 infra). 61 Khrushchev is probably referring here to the benefits they hoped to gain for Soviet-Hungarian relations, and in international opinion generally, by announcing a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest.

62 Khrushchev is referring to the political, not military, problems that the French and British governments had been encountering. At this point, military action in Suez was imminent, but had not yet begun. On 26 July 1956 the new Egyptian leader, Gamel Abdel Nasser, had nationalized the Suez Canal Company. He stuck by that decision despite coming under vigorous diplomatic pressure from Great Britain, France, and the United States. On 27 and 28 October, Israel mobilized its army for an operation that was broadly coordinated with France and Great Britain. On 29 October, Israeli troops moved rapidly into Egyptian territory. The French and British joined the Israeli incursions on 31 October by

launching air raids against Egyptian cities and imposing a naval blockade.

63 Here again, Khrushchev is referring to proposed corrections in the draft Hungarian statement. It is doubtful there was enough time for most such changes to be included.

64 In line with this decision, the CPSU Presidium sent a message to Gomulka and Cyrankiewicz expressing support for Nagy's new government and for the statement Nagy issued on 28 October. The Polish authorities followed up with an appeal to the HWP and the Hungarian people, published in the PZPR daily Trybuna Ludu on 29 October, which expressed “shock,” “pain,” and “deep disquiet" at "the tragic news coming from [Hungary]" and called for "an end to the bloodshed, destruction, and fratricidal struggle."

65 As a result of this decision, the CPSU Presidium dispatched a cable to Tito that was very similar to the cable sent to the Polish leadership. On 29 October the Yugoslav authorities published a message to the HWP, in the main Belgrade daily Politika, urging "an end to the fratricidal struggle" and warning that "further bloodshed would only harm the interests of the Hungarian working people and socialism, and would only promote the aims of reactionaries and bureaucratic deformation."

66 This sentence is incomplete in the original.

67 This is what appears in the original. Perhaps initially there was some consideration given to bringing these three officials to Bulgaria. As things actually worked out, however, the three men and their families, as well as the former defense minister Istvan Bata and his family, were spirited to Moscow in a Soviet military aircraft on the evening of 28 October. Hegedus and Piros remained in Moscow until September 1958, and Gero stayed there until 1960. Only Rakosi was never able to return to Hungary. For an intriguing article about Rakosi's many years of exile in the USSR, drawing on recently declassified sources, see V.L. Musatov, "Istoriya odnoi ssylki: Zhitie' Matiasa Rakoshi v SSSR (19561971 gg.)," Kentavr (Moscow), No. 6 (November-December 1993), pp. 72-81.

68

Judging from some of the statements below (e.g., "yesterday a government was formed") and from Suslov's presence (after he had flown back from Hungary), this portion of the meeting must have taken place either late in the evening on 28 October or early in the morning on 29 October. In either case, the CPSU Presidium members would already have heard about the statement that Nagy broadcast over the radio on 28 October. 69 The chronology is slightly awry here. The decision to send in Soviet troops was adopted on the evening of 23 October (see above), but the troops did not actually arrive until the early morning hours of 24 October.

70

The area around the Corvin cinema, on the corner of Jozsef Boulevard in downtown Pest (Budapest's 8th District), was the site of intense fighting that led to many casualties, both Soviet and Hungarian. For a useful account, see Bill Lomax, Hungary 1956 (London: Allison and Busby, 1976), pp. 118-119, 126-127. On 26 October the fighters in the Corvin district elected Gergely Pongracz as their leader. Suslov presumably is referring to Pal Maleter when he mentions "a colonel from the Horthyite army." Early on

the morning of 24 October, Maleter had been ordered by the then-defense minister Istvan Bata to move with five tanks against the insurgents in Budapest's 8th and 9th Districts, providing relief for the Kilian Barracks in the 9th District. When Maleter and his tank unit arrived on the scene, they decided to support the rebels' cause instead. Maleter then assumed command of insurgent forces in the Kilian barracks.

71 The original reads the 24th, but this incident actually occurred on the 25th. A peaceful demonstration of some 25,000 people was held on 25 October outside the Parliament Building (where Nagy's office was located, though Nagy was not inside). The precise sequence of events cannot be conclusively determined, but most evidence suggests that Hungarian state security (AVH) forces suddenly opened fire on the unarmed crowd, with additional shots being fired by Soviet tanks deployed around the building. Roughly 200 people were killed and many more were injured. As news of the incident spread around Budapest, the reported scale of the bloodshed quickly became exaggerated and most of the blame for the deaths was attributed erroneously, it seems to the Soviet tanks. No Soviet or Hungarian officials were held accountable for the deaths, but Suslov's statement indicates that CPSU leaders were aware that their own troops were believed to be culpable.

72 The last few parenthetical words of this sentence are ambiguous in Russian. A word has been omitted here for the sake of clarity in English, with no effect at all on the substance of the phrase. Suslov is referring to the formation of workers' councils, which had begun taking shape spontaneously on 26 October in Csepel and other industrial areas. The government formally condoned the establishment of workers' councils in instructions released on the evening of 26 October, which were then published in major Budapest newspapers the following day.

73

As noted above, this is precisely what the Hungarian government's statement on 28 October did. It described the recent events as a “national-democratic uprising" and condemned those who had depicted the situation as a "counterrevolution." 74 Nagy issued an order for a “general and im

mediate ceasefire" before his radio address on 28 October. Hungarian army units were ordered to "fire only if attacked."

75 Hegedus was excluded from the six-member

HWP Presidium that was formed on 28 October, and he was then spirited to Moscow aboard a Soviet military aircraft on the evening of 28 October.

76 As with the previous session, the pages in the original file were slightly out of sequence. The order has been corrected in the translation.

77 Protocol No. 49 encompasses both this session and the session on the following day (see Document No. 8) under the rubric “On the Situation in Hungary" (O polozhenii v Vengrii). Point 1 (from 30 October) covers the Soviet declaration on ties with socialist countries, whereas Point 6 (from 31 October) covers the decision to invade. The relevant extracts from Protocol No. 49 are now stored in APRF, F. 3, Op. 64, D. 484, LI. 25-30 and APRF, F. 3, Op. 64, D. 484, L. 41, respectively.

78 Presumably, the reference here is to three docu

ments: one that arrived on the morning of 30 October, and two that arrived late at night on 29 October. The item that arrived on the morning of 30 October was a secure, high-frequency telephone message from Mikoyan and Suslov, which gave a bleak portrayal of the latest events. See "TsK KPSS," 30 October 1956 (Strictly Secret), in TsKHSD, F.89, Op.45, D.12, Ll.1-3. Of the two documents that arrived late at night on the 29th, one was a ciphered telegram from Mikoyan and Suslov reporting that they had attended a session of the HWP Presidium earlier that evening. They also commented on the takeover of the Szabad Nep building by a group of unarmed students and writers. Mikoyan and Suslov asserted that the Hungarian "comrades have failed to win over the masses," and that "the anti-Communist elements are behaving impudently." In addition, they expressed concern about what would happen to former agents of the Hungarian State Security (AVH) forces in the wake of Nagy's decision to disband the AVH. See "Shifrtelegramma: TSK KPSS," 29 October 1956 (Strictly SecretUrgent), from A. Mikoyan and M. Suslov, in AVPRF, F.059a, Op.4, P.6, D.5, LI.13-14. The other document that arrived late on the 29th was a situation report from Ivan Serov, dated 29 October, which Mikoyan and Suslov ordered to be transmitted to Moscow via secure telephone. Serov's report gave an updated overview of the insurgency and expressed deep concern about the likely repercussions from the dissolution of the AVH. See "Telefonogramma," 29 October 1956, from A. Mikoyan and M. Suslov, relaying I. Serov's memorandum, in APRF, F.3, Op.64, D.484, L1.158-161.

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80

As commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact, Marshal Ivan Konev assumed direct command of Soviet military operations in Hungary in November 1956. In a telephone message on the morning of 30 October (see Note 78 supra), Mikoyan and Suslov had urged that Konev be dispatched to Hungary "immediately” as a precautionary step. One of Konev's top aides during the invasion was General Mikhail Malinin, a first deputy chief of the Soviet General Staff, who commanded Soviet troops during the initial intervention on 23 October. As indicated in the previous line, Soviet leaders frequently consulted Malinin in the leadup to the invasion. 81 The "Chinese comrades" with whom Khrushchev had discussions were the members of the delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi (see Note 25 supra). Liu Shaoqi was in direct touch with Mao Zedong several times during the delegation's stay in Moscow, and thus he was able to keep Khrushchev apprised of the Chinese leader's views of the situation in Poland and Hungary. 82

Rokossowski had been removed from the Polish Politburo on 19 October. On 13 November he was replaced as Polish national defense minister by a Polish officer, Marshal Marian Spychalski. Rokossowski was then recalled to

the Soviet Union, where he was appointed a deputy defense minister. Evidently, Khrushchev had spoken with Gomulka by phone that morning.

83 The five principles of Pancha Shila―(1) mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, (2) non-aggression, (3) non-interference in internal affairs, (4) equality and mutual benefit, and (5) peaceful coexistence-were endorsed in a joint statement by Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai and Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi on 28 June 1954. The principles were intended to "guide relations between the two countries" as well as "relations with other countries in Asia and in other parts of the world." For the full text of the statement, see G. V. Ambekar and V. D. Divekar, eds., Documents on China's Relations with South and South-East Asia (19491962) (New York: Allied Publishers, 1964), pp. 7-8.

84 Zhukov is referring here to the Political Consultative Committee (PKK) of the recently-created Warsaw Treaty Organization. The PKK convened only seven times between 1955 and 1966, despite its statutory requirement to meet at least twice a year.

85

During major international crises in the postStalin period, the Soviet Presidium/Politburo occasionally would convene a Central Committee plenum to give the CC members a sense of involvement in decision-making and to ensure that the leadership's policies would be firmly obeyed at lower levels.

86 Saburov is referring here to Furtseva's suggestion that a CPSU CC plenum be convened for informational purposes.

87 This presumably refers to Soviet property transferred to Romania during World War II, rather than to Romania's war reparations, which by 1956 were no longer of great magnitude. 88 Khrushchev is referring here to the six-member HWP Presidium. The only holdout was Nagy. 89 The State Security Department (Allam-Vedelmi Osztaly, or AVO), which was reorganized in 1949 and renamed the State Security Authority (AllamVedelmi Hatosag, or AVH), was reincorporated into the Hungarian Internal Affairs Ministry in the autumn of 1953. Formally, the agency was given back its old name of AVO, but it was still almost always known as the AVH. One of the earliest and most vigorous demands of the protesters in October 1956 was for the dissolution of the AVH. On 28 October, Nagy promised to fulfill this demand, and the Hungarian government approved the dissolution of the state security organs the following day. Because the AVH had been instrumental in carrying out repression and terror in the late 1940s and 1950s, some state security agents became the targets of lynchings and other violent reprisals during the 1956 uprising. Hungarian state security officers would have joined up with Soviet troops mainly to seek protection, not to assist in counterinsurgency operations. On this matter, see the documents transmitted by Suslov and Mikoyan on 29 October, cited in Note 78 supra.

90 It is interesting that, when referring to Soviet troops deployed in Eastern Europe, Khrushchev does not mention the Soviet troops in East Germany, implying that they were not necessarily there "with the consent of the [East German] gov

ernment and in the interests of the [East German] government and people."

91

The final Declaration noted that "Soviet units are in the Hungarian and Romanian republics in accordance with the Warsaw Treaty and governmental agreements. Soviet military units are in the Polish republic on the basis of the Potsdam four-power agreement and the Warsaw Treaty." The Declaration then claimed that "Soviet military units are not in the other people's democracies," omitting any mention of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in East Germany. 92 Khrushchev presumably is referring here to both the military advisers and the state security (KGB) advisers.

93 When this editing was completed, the Presidium formally adopted Resolution No. P49/1 ("Vypiska iz protokola No. 49 zasedaniya Prezidiuma TsK ot 30 oktyabrya 1956 g.: 0 polozhenii v Vengrii," 30 October 1956, in APRF, F.3, Op. 64, D.484, Ll. 25-30) stating that it would "approve the text, with changes made at the CPSU CC Presidium session, of a Declaration by the Government of the USSR on the foundations of development and the further strengthening of friendship and cooperation between the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries." The resolution ordered that the "text of the Declaration be broadcast on radio on 30 October and published in the press on 31 October 1956." For the published text, see "Deklaratsiya o printsipakh razvitiya i dal'neishem ukreplenii druzhby i sotrudnichestva mezhdu SSSR i drugimi sotsialisticheskimi stranami,” Pravda (Moscow), 31 October 1956, p. 1.

94 It is unclear precisely when the Chinese changed their position from non-interventionist to pro-intervention. The statement recorded here, if correctly transcribed, would suggest that the change occurred before the final Soviet decision on 31 October, but almost all other evidence (including subsequent Presidium meetings recorded by Malin) suggests that it came after, not before, the Soviet decision. In any case, if the change did occur before, it did not have any discernible effect on the Soviet decision at this meeting to eschew intervention.

95 Molotov is referring here to major developments in Hungary. On 30 October, at 2:30 p.m. Budapest time, Nagy announced the formal restoration of a multi-party state and the establishment of an "inner cabinet" of the national government. The new cabinet consisted of Nagy, Zoltan Tildy, Bela Kovacs, Ferenc Erdei, Janos Kadar, Geza Losonczy, and Anna Kethly (from the Social Democratic Party). That same day, a "revolutionary national defense council" of the Hungarian armed forces was set up, which supported the demands of "the revolutionary councils of the working youth and intellectuals," and called for the "immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest and their withdrawal from the entire territory of Hungary within the shortest possible time.” The new Council also promised to disarm all agents from Hungary's disbanded state security forces (AVH), who had been notorious agents of repression during the Stalin era. A Revolutionary Armed Forces Committee also was formed on 31 October, and it was empowered by the government to create a new army. 96 These are five of the seven members of Nagy's

new "inner cabinet." Anna Kethly's name is not listed here because she had not yet been appointed. (Nagy mentioned in his speech on 30 October that "a person to be nominated by the Social Democratic Party" would be in the inner cabinet, and Kethly later turned out to be that person.) It is unclear why Malin did not list Ferenc Erdei's name here.

97 The pages for this session were in reverse order in the archival file. They have been put into correct order in the translation.

98

In the formal protocol of this session (cited in Note 77 supra), Point VI was given the title of "On the Situation in Hungary" (O polozhenii v Vengrii), the same as the previous segment. Malin's working notes do not provide a list of participants, but the following list is given in the formal protocol: Khrushchev, Zhukov, Bulganin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, and Saburov. It is also clear from Malin's notes that Furtseva, Pospelov, and Shvernik took part at certain points. 99 These "discussions with Gomulka" were conducted by Khrushchev over the telephone. The two leaders agreed that Khrushchev, Malenkov, and Molotov would meet the next day (1 November) in Brest with Gomulka and Cyrankiewicz. The formal protocol of the session (cited in Note 77 supra) notes that "in accordance with the exchange of opinions at the CPSU Presidium session, Cdes. Khrushchev, Molotov, and Malenkov are empowered to hold negotiations with representatives of the PZPR CC."

100 In a speech at a mass rally in front of the Parliament Building on 31 October, Nagy declared that his government had already "opened negotiations for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country and for the renunciation of our obligations under the Warsaw Treaty." Clearly, he was referring to the negotiations he had been holding that morning with Mikoyan and Suslov, who had generally seemed receptive to Nagy's demands. These negotiations are briefly recounted in Tibor Meray, Thirteen Days That Shook the Kremlin: Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution, trans. by Howard L. Katzander (London: Thames and Hudson, 1959), pp. 163165. See also the first-hand comments by Gyorgy G. Heltai, the Hungarian deputy foreign minister under Nagy's government, "International Aspects," in Bela K. Kiraly and Paul Jonas, The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in Retrospect, East European Monograph No. XL (Boulder, Col.: East European Quarterly, 1978), esp. pp. 52-53. It is conceivable that Nagy's expressed desire to renounce Hungarian membership in the Warsaw Pact, which was promptly transmitted to Moscow by telephone, was one of the factors that led to Khrushchev's change of heart at this session. Although Nagy had spoken in earlier years (especially after he was ousted by Rakosi in 1955) about the desirability of neutrality for Hungary, his decision to raise the matter with Mikoyan and Suslov at this critical moment must have come as a jolt to Soviet leaders.

101 Early on the morning of 31 October, the French and British launched bombing raids against Egyptian cities and imposed a naval blockade against Egypt, thus aiding Israeli's ground incursions. By the time the Presidium met on the 31st, reports of the French and British operations were pouring in, conveying a greater impression

of "success" than later events warranted. 102 The inclusion of Saburov's name in this list is odd, as will become clear in his remarks below. Initially, he was disinclined to reverse the Presidium's non-interventionist stance of the previous day.

103

It is unclear at what point Soviet officials approached Kadar about becoming the head of a provisional government. Kadar's statements at the CPSU Presidium meeting on 2 November (see Document No. 12 infra) suggest that he was not yet aware he had been chosen to perform this function.

104 On the evening of 1 November, the day after this Presidium meeting, Kadar and Munnich were secretly flown to Moscow aboard a Soviet military aircraft. They were brought back to Hungary when Soviet troops launched Operation "Whirlwind" three days later.

105

It is extraordinary that even as Khrushchev was calling for a full-scale invasion, he was still apparently willing to consider including Nagy in the soon-to-be-formed Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government.

106 It is interesting that Soviet leaders were concerned most of all about informing the Poles. As indicated above, a meeting with the Polish leadership had already been set up for the following day in Brest. Informing the leaders of these other countries was important, but not as high a priority. Soviet Presidium members informed the visiting Chinese delegation about the decision on 31 October, just before the Chinese officials flew back to Beijing. After the meetings in Brest on 1 November, Khrushchev and Malenkov continued on to Bucharest, where they met with Romanian, Bulgarian, and Czechoslovak leaders. The two Soviet officials then traveled to Brioni to confer with Tito on 2-3 November. Khrushchev and Malenkov returned to Moscow on the morning of the 3rd.

107 The formal protocol for this session (cited in Note 77 supra) states that “taking account of the exchange of opinions at the CPSU CC Presidium session, Cde. Zhukov is instructed to devise an appropriate plan of measures connected with the events in Hungary, and to report on them to the CPSU CC."

108 The formal protocol from this session (cited in Note 77 supra) notes that "Cdes. Shepilov, Brezhnev, Furtseva, and Pospelov are instructed, on the basis of the exchange of opinions at the CPSU Presidium session, to prepare all necessary documents and submit them for the consideration of the CPSU CC." Among the key documents they prepared over the next few days were: an “Appeal of the Hungarian Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government to the Hungarian People," which Kadar announced when he was installed in power on 4 November; an "Appeal by the Command of Soviet Troops in Hungary to the Hungarian People and the Officers and Men of the Hungarian Army," which was broadcast in translation over Hungarian radio and distributed via leaflets at the outset of the invasion; and Order No. 1 issued by Marshal Konev (the supreme commander of the invasion) to all Soviet officers just before the start of Operation "Whirlwind." The English-language texts of the first two items and other “propaganda documents" prepared in Moscow can be found in Paul E.

Zinner, ed., National Communism and Popular Revolt in Eastern Europe: A Selection of Documents on Events in Poland and Hungary, February-November 1956 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), pp. 473-481.

109 For the final text of this order, see "Prikaz Glavnokomanduyushchego Ob❞edinennymi vooruzhennymi silami No. 1, 4 noyabrya 1956 goda," reproduced in Lieut.-General E. I. Malashenko, "Osobyi korpus v ogne Budapeshta" (Part 3), Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal (Moscow), No. 12 (December 1993), p. 86.

110

It is unclear what "group," if any, was actually sent. Presumably, the reference here is to a group of Presidium members.

111 The three former Hungarian officials listed here Rakosi, Hegedus, and Gero-had fled to the Soviet Union within the past few days. No doubt, Khrushchev had solicited their views beforehand about the proper course to pursue in Hungary. It is also possible that the three were asked to take part in this phase of the CPSU Presidium meeting, and that they offered their views directly.

112 The five Hungarian officials listed here were among those who were slated to take part in a forthcoming "provisional revolutionary government." The first three were still in Budapest (though Kadar was spirited out the next evening), Boldoczki was in Moscow (in his ambassadorial post), and Horvath, the foreign minister in Nagy's government, was on his way to a UN General Assembly session, but was delayed in Prague. 113 Kiss's name is incorrectly rendered in Malin's

notes as Kisskar.

114 The formal protocol for this session (cited in Note 77 supra) "affirms the text of the telegram to the Soviet ambassador in Belgrade for Cde. Tito." A copy of the telegram is attached to the protocol, which further notes that "if the answer [from the Yugoslav side] is positive, Cdes. Khrushchev and Malenkov are authorized to hold negotiations with Cde. Tito." For the Yugoslav response to the Soviet telegram, see Document No. 9 infra.

115 See Document No. 10 infra. 116 This telephone message is unattributed and undated. Presumably, the message came from Molotov just before he returned to Moscow from Brest on 1 November. It had been arranged beforehand that while Khrushchev and Malenkov would continue on to meet with other East European leaders, Molotov would return to Moscow and brief the CPSU Presidium on Gomulka's position.

117 Protocol No. 50 (in APRF, F. 3, Op. 64, D. 484, L. 58) contains directives from the sessions on both 1 and 2 November (see Note 146 infra). 118 On the evening of 31 October-1 November, Mikoyan and Suslov returned to Moscow, presumably accompanied by Serov. This was the first Presidium meeting in which Mikoyan had taken part since 23 October. In Khrushchev's absence, Bulganin presided over this session. 119 Other than Mikoyan and Suslov, who were still in Budapest, all the Presidium members took part in the 31 October decision and the subsequent discussions with the Chinese delegation. Hence, Bulganin provided this information for the benefit of Mikoyan and Suslov.

120

It is not entirely clear what Bulganin is refer

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122

This is how the sentence reads in the text. Presumably, Malin meant to say that “we are not attacking."

123 It is unclear precisely who was "worried that we're giving away Hungary." Furtseva may have been referring to one of several groups: orthodox Hungarian Communists who had sought refuge in Moscow; neighboring East European (especially Czechoslovak and Romanian) leaders; Chinese officials; members of the CPSU Central Committee and the heads of union-republic Communist parties and of regional and local CPSU organizations; and employees of the Soviet embassy in Budpaest. By this point in the crisis, all of these groups had expressed concerns very similar to the ones that Furtseva mentions. 124

Presumably this refers to the decision at the end of October to evacuate the families of Soviet embassy employees to the USSR. For a brief account of the evacuation, see the highly tendentious but occasionally useful memoir by Vladimir Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, vol. 1, p. 57. 125

Presumably, Suslov is referring to the plan to bring Janos Kadar and Ferenc Munnich to Moscow.

126

The formal protocol for the session, “Vypiska iz protokola No. 50 zasedaniya Prezidiuma TsK ot 2 noyabrya 1956 g.: O polozhenii v Vengrii," in APRF, F. 3, Op. 64, D. 484, L. 58, states that "taking account of the exchange of views at the CC Presidium, Cdes. Zhukov, Suslov, Konev, Serov, and Brezhnev are to work out the necessary measures in connection with the events in Hungary and report their proposals to the CPSU CC."

127 A passage from Kryuchkov's memoir (Lichnoe delo, vol. 1, pp. 57-58) sheds light on what may have been discussed here: "At the end of October and beginning of November . . . the situation around Soviet buildings [in Budapest] deteriorated significantly; the embassy was under siege, and any attempt to exit the building was fraught with danger. The diplomats long ago had essentially shifted over to a barracks-type operation, spending the night in their offices and only rarely once our troops had returned [to Budapest-taking a half-hour ride home one by one in armored personnel carriers to see their families, who were holed up in living quarters several blocks from the embassy.... Ordinarily, knowledge of Hungarian allowed me to engage in conversations with Hungarians and to receive

fresh infomation directly from the center of events ... but [by late October] attempts to strike up a conversation often caused me to have to flee, since they could tell by my accent that I was a Russian. The fulfillment of official instructions, which entailed visits to appropriate buildings and agencies, also was a difficult matter, both in somehow getting there and in then returning to the embassy while holding on to the needed documents. This did not pass off without a number of serious incidents."

128

It is unclear precisely what Shelepin is referring to here, but this seems to be an indication of Moscow's growing concerns about a spillover into the rest of Eastern Europe. Urgent warnings to this effect had been pouring in from the Czechoslovak authorities since late October. See, for example, "Stenograficky zapis ze zasedani UV KSC," 5-6 December 1956 (Top Secret), in SUA, Arch. UV KSC, F. 07, Sv. 14, Archivna jednotka (A.j.) 14; "Zabezpeceni klidu na uzemi CSR a statnich hranic s Mad`arskem," Report from Col.General Vaclav Kratochvil, chief of the Czechoslovak General Staff, and Lieut.-General Jaroslav Dockal, chief of operations, 29 October 1956 (Top Secret), in Vojensky historicky archiv (VHA) Praha, Fond Ministra narodni obrany (MNO) CSR, 1956, Operacni sprava Generalniho stabu cs. armady (GS/OS), 2/8-39b; and "Souhrn hlaseni operacniho dustojnika Generalniho stabu cs. armady," Notes from Col.-General Vaclav Kratochvil, chief of the Czechoslovak General Staff, to the KSC Central Committee (Top Secret), 27 October 1956, in VHA, F. MNO, 1956, GS/OS, 2/8-49b.

129 Mikoyan's references here to "comrades” and "them" are to Nagy's government. His mention of "three days" in the line above indicates that the timetable for the invasion (code-named "Whirlwind") had already been set. Mikoyan was hoping that some last-ditch attempt could still be made to head off the military operation. 130 No formal protocol for this session has been found (unlike the other session on 2 November recorded in Document No. 13 infra).

131 These initial comments are not attributed to anyone in Malin's notes, but it is clear that the speaker was Kadar. The notes of Kadar's remarks contain a few third-person references to himself, but this is because Malin sometimes jotted down the speaker's name rather than using the pronoun "I."

132 Jozsef Dudas, a former Budapest city official who had been imprisoned during most of the Communist period, was one of the most radical leaders of the October-November uprising. He was in charge of the rebel forces headquartered in the Szabad Nep building. Dudas and other rebel leaders insisted that Nagy must meet the protesters' demands. Dudas was detained by Hungarian police on 1 November. After Soviet troops intervened on 4 November, he took a leading part in the military resistance. He was arrested by Soviet troops on 21 November and was executed two months later. His name is incorrectly rendered as "Dusak" in Malin's notes; the spelling is corrected in the translation.

133 Kadar is referring here to negotiations that he, Munnich, and others had held in the parliament with one of the insurgent groups headed by Istvan Angyal. Angyal was not as radical as most

of the other rebel leaders, but he was insistent on the need for far-reaching changes. Angyal was executed in November 1958. See Laszlo Eorsi, ed., "Angyal Istvan sajat kezu vallomasai, 1956 december," Multunk (Budapest), Vol. 40, No. 4 (1995), pp. 133-182.

134

The references here are to the Soviet declaration of 30 October and to the declaration of neutrality adopted by the Hungarian government on the evening of 1 November. Nagy announced the declaration in a nationwide radio address. 135 On 3 November, Anna Kethly was named as the Social Democratic representative in the government. See Note 96 supra.

136 On 31 October the Hungarian government announced that, on the previous evening, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty had been freed from house arrest in Felsopeteny. He had been detained there for some 15 months after his release from prison. As the Primate of the Hungarian Catholic Church, Mindszenty had been sentenced to life imprisonment during an anti-religious campaign in February 1949. Mindszenty's statements in the autumn of 1956 were restrained, but clearly supportive of the revolution. When Soviet troops intervened on 4 November, he sought refuge in the U.S. legation in Budapest. Subsequently, Kadar's government prohibited Mindszenty from performing clerical duties of any sort from the legation.

137 It is unclear precisely what Kadar was saying here. (Malin inadvertently may have omitted some comments just before this line.) At the noontime meeting, the Hungarian government reached no final decision on whether to demand the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops and whether to issue the declaration of neutrality. Those decisions were not approved until the evening session, as Kadar explains below. 138 Ferenc Nagy, one of the former leaders of the Independent Smallholders' Party who had been living in exile in the United States, came to Vienna in late October to display solidarity with the insurgents. On 31 October, however, the Austrian authorities forced him to leave the country on the grounds that his presence might be deemed incompatible with Austria's neutral sta

tus.

139 Bela Kovacs had been recuperating in Pecs from his nine years of imprisonment. The government's evening session on 1 November was the first activity in which he took part in Budapest.

140 On the alarm generated by the Soviet troop movements, see Andropov's ciphered telegrams from 30 October, 1 November, and 2 November in AVPRF, F. 059a, Op. 4, P. 6, D. 5, Ll. 15-16, 17-19, and 20-22, respectively.

141 The name "Kovacs" here refers to General Istvan Kovacs, not Bela Kovacs. General Kovacs had become chief of the Hungarian General Staff on 31 October and was also a member of the Revolutionary Defense Committee. He was arrested on 3 November along with the other members of the Hungarian delegation that were negotiating the withdrawal of Soviet troops. He was not released from prison until 1960. 142

Andropov's own account of his attendance at the inner cabinet's evening session, which tallies very well with Kadar's version, is in "Shifrtelegramma," 1 November 1956 (Strictly

Secret), in AVPRF, F. 059a, Op. 4, P. 6, D. 6, LI. 17-19.

143 The word used here for "nationalism" is natsionalizatsiya, which normally means "nationalization" (i.e., the assertion of state control over property), but Kadar seems to have in mind the notion of reasserting Hungarian national control over Hungary's internal affairs, rather than leaving important matters under Soviet control. 144

This again is a telling indication that East European and Soviet leaders were fully aware of the popular resentment caused by Soviet preponderance in Eastern Europe.

145 Presumably, Munnich is referring to nationalistic slogans that had been shouted during Soviet-Hungarian soccer matches and to the influence of Radio Free Europe and other Western broadcasts. The Hungarian scholar Janos M. Rainer adds the following explanation for the reference to "soccer": "It was widely believed at the time that the celebrated Hungarian [soccer] team of the period, the `Golden Team', which won against nearly every country it played, was not allowed to beat the Soviet Union for political reasons. (Their matches usually ended in a draw.) In actual fact, the first Hungarian win against the Soviet team took place some weeks before the revolution." See Janos M. Rainer, "The Road to Budapest, 1956: New Documentation of the Kremlin's Decision To Intervene,” pt. 2, in The Hungarian Quarterly Vol. 37, No. 143 (Autumn 1996), p. 31 n. 28; readers interested in following the exploits of a fictionalized Hungarian basketball team of this era are advised to read Tibor Fischer's novel, Under the Frog (Penguin: London, 1993).

146 The protocol in question is "Vypiska iz protokola No. 50 zasedaniya Prezidiuma TsK ot 2 noyabrya 1956 g.: O meropriyatiyakh v svyazi s sobytiyami v Vengrii," in APRF, F. 3, Op. 64, D. 484, L. 58. It reads simply: "To approve the plan for measures concerning the events in Hungary.")

147 On 1 November, in accordance with Protocol No. P50/I (“Vypiska iz protokola No. 50 zasedaniya Prezidiuma TsK ot 1 noyabrya 1956 g.: O polozhenii v Vengrii," in APRF, F. 3, Op. 64, D. 484, L. 47), five Soviet officials (Zhukov, Suslov, Konev, Serov, and Brezhnev) had been instructed to "work out the necessary measures concerning the events in Hungary and present them to the CPSU CC." This session allowed them to complete the task. 148

All four phrases in this point were incorporated (with modifications) into Order No. 1 issued by Marshal Konev in the name of the Warsaw Pact Joint Command (see Note 109 supra). 149 Those sent to Hungary (at varying intervals) included Suslov, Averki Aristov, Serov, and Zhukov.

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this telegram from Soviet ambassador Aleksei Epishev, but the content leaves little doubt that the Romanian embassy in Budapest was relying at the time on the Soviet embassies in Budapest and Bucharest to relay information. 152 Aleksei Alekseevich Epishev had been a commissar in the Soviet army during World War II. After the war he served in a number of regional party posts, and from 1955 until 1962 he was the Soviet ambassador to Romania and then Yugoslavia. In 1962 he was given the military rank of army-general and appointed the head of the Soviet Army's Main Political Directorate, a post he retained until his death in 1985.

153

The surname of Aurel Malnasan (who was then a deputy foreign minister in Romania) is correctly spelled in the original Malin notes, but for some reason the published versions of the notes (in both Hungarian and Russian) mistakenly render Malnasan's surname as Malnasanu. The editors of the published versions erroneously claim that Malin's notes misspelled the name. 154 On 2 November in Bucharest, Khrushchev and Malenkov briefed the Romanian leader, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, and his Czechoslovak and Bulgarian counterparts about the forthcoming invasion. On the eve of the invasion, Malnasan held lengthy talks with Nagy. Gheorghiu-Dej's motivation in sending Malnasan to Budapest must have been to keep Nagy occupied and to prevent him from taking any steps to counter the imminent military operation. For brief reports by Malnasan on the talks, see the newly declassified cables from the Romanian Foreign Ministry archive in Corneliu Mihai Lungu and Mihai Retegan, cds., 1956 Explozia: Perceptii romane, iugoslave si sovietice asupra evenimentelor din Polonia si Unguria (Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 1996), pp. 181182.

155 For some reason, Malin did not list Khrushchev's name among the participants. Also not listed here are Janos Kadar, Ferenc Munnich, and Imre Horvath, who took part in the segment on the formation of a new Hungarian government. This portion of the meeting began at 8:45 p.m., with Khrushchev and Malenkov in attendance after their return from Brioni.

156 The reference here is to documents issued by the Kadar government after it was installed in power.

157A Hungarian scholar, Janos Rainer, recently found a document in the Hungarian National Archive that sheds important light on this part of the CPSU Presidium's deliberations. Notes taken by Imre Horvath, one of the Hungarian officials who were present, reveal that Khrushchev offered an opening statement here, which for some reason was not transcribed by Malin. The notes Horvath took of Khrushchev's speech are translated below (see Document No. 16) as a supplement to the Malin notes, but they may be worth reading at this point before finishing Malin's rendition of the meeting. Although Horvath's notes were written hurriedly in mixed Hungarian and Russian, they provide a good flavor of what Khrushchev said.

158A secret report from the Soviet ambassador in Hungary, Yurii Andropov, in May 1956 was much less positive, alleging that "the work of the

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