Richard Lettis: The Hungarian Revolt

WAITING FOR DISASTER

BUDAPEST
It was Sunday, the fourth of November. For three days Budapest had gloried in its triumph. But now the storm was coming back. The Russians, they said, were on their way in; and this time in strength.
All day and all night I had resisted the implications of these rumours and more than rumours. I myself early on Saturday morning had seen Soviet tanks moving into position outside Budapest. I had talked to a Hungarian staff officer who had himself interrogated a captured Russian tank commander; and the Russian had said that the attack was planned for dawn on Sunday.
I had been told a few hours earlier by a senior member of Nagy's Government that there was no hope. But I still allowed myself to hope, in spite of all.
And now it was Sunday. I got back to my hotel, shaken and exhausted, at 2 a.m., only a few hours before the avalanche began. I had a last look at my young friends -some thirty wounded boy- who were quartered in an improvised field-hospital in the hotel -the Gellert. They were all wide awake. And they waited for inevitable disaster.
They knew the Russians were coming back. They did not wish to be consoled. They only regretted that they were not fit to fight
After that I had joined a handful of Hungarian intellectuals, who had lost their homes and found refuge in the hotel, to listen to the B.B.C. news. [229/230]

They were the elite of Hungarian cultural life. The news was chiefly about the Anglo-French action in the Middle East, which seemed very far away and irrelevant. From their bitter but restrained comments it was clear that they felt that Hungary had been "let down".
At 2.30 a.m. I had a telephone call from London -a friend asking who was in charge of Hungarian relief- where and to whom to send medical supplies. This was the last call from London.
Though I had hardly slept for a fortnight, I could not sleep now. Instead, I sat on the balcony of my room, looking out over the city. It was a grey dawn. With flickering candles in the windows, the city was deathly quiet.
Then, suddenly, there was the rattle and rumble of tracked vehicles. A Hungarian artillery formation, with medium guns and anti-tank guns, was moving past to take up defensive positions on the southern outskirts of the city. It was 8:30. Not much longer to wait. Soon the skies were flickering with the flash of gunfire, and the roar of guns shook the air. The Battle of Budapest had begun.
The hotel entrance hall was packed with people, mostly women with tiny children. They were waiting for an important announcement to be made by Premier Nagy...
We crossed the Ferencz Jozsef Bridge at 6.30, just before it was closed by a tank unit of the Hungarian Regular Army. We stopped to make sure that they really were Hungarians, for the Hungarian Army is equipped with Russian-made T-54 tanks, and its uniform is very similar to that of the Soviet Army. They were Hungarians all right. They had taken up their positions covering the bridges on the Pest side of the Danube. And they were supported by truck-loads of infantry
Before we got to the British Legation we saw a strong formation of Soviet T-54s moving swiftly towards Parliament Square. There was no doubt this time about their being Russian. Their blind firing, with hatches battened down, right and left at every building as they roared down the avenue made this quite clear. They had reached the centre of the city much earlier than the Hungarians had expected. As I heard later in the day, they had broken into Budapest through the northern suburbs from the Vienna road...
Lajos Lederer, The Observer (London), 18 November

"IF YOU HAVE ANY ANSWER, PASS IT ON"

BUDAPEST
[Hungarian News Agency message by teletype line to the Associated Press bureau in Vienna.]
Russian gangsters have betrayed us. The Russian troops suddenly attacked Budapest and the whole country. They opened fire on everybody in Hungary. It is a general attack...
I speak in the name of Imre Nagy. He asks help . . . Nagy and the Government and the whole people ask help.
If you have anything from the Austrian Government, tell me. Urgent, urgent, urgent
Long live Hungary and Europe! We shall die for Hungary and Europe!...
Any news about help? Quickly, quickly, quickly!...
The Russian attack was started at 4 a.m.
Russian MIG fighters are over Budapest. Russian MIG fighters are over Budapest. Gyor is completely surrounded by the Russians. Szekesfehervar does not answer.
Associated Press Vienna, if you have something, please pass it on to me. The Government waits for your answer!
We have no time to lose, we have no time to lose!...
The news of the capture of the Hungarian military leadership was confirmed by the Government spokesman, Mr. Hamori.
Mr. Nagy is at a safe place now. Mr. Zoltan Tildy is in the Parliament now.
The time is 5:45 and the Russians stopped their fire for a minute. The street-lamps are on and the town shows a peaceful sight, but everywhere Russian tanks are in the street. A Russian infantry division is going toward the Parliament.
Nagy is speaking to the people on the radio. He said some elements tried to overthrow our lawful Government. Our troops are in a fight with the Russians.
Pecs was attacked by the Russians at 2 a.m. They tried to seize the uranium mines and the airfields, but the Hungarians stopped them. Now the town is in their hands, but all the highways are ours .
If you have any answer, pass it on. Any answer, pass it on. Imre Nagy personally asks help. Nagy personally asks help. And diplomatic steps, diplomatic steps...
[A series of teletype messages to The Associated Press from the office of the Budapest newspaper Szabad Nep.)
Since the early morning hours Russian troops are attacking Budapest and ourpopulation....
Please tell the world of the treacherous attack against our struggle for liberty ...
Our troops are already engaged in fighting ...
Help!-Help!-Help!
SOS !-SOS!-SOS!
The people have just turned over a tram to use as a barricade near the building. In the building, young people are making Molotov cocktails and hand grenades to fight the tanks. [230/231]

We are quiet, not afraid. Send the news to the public of the world and say it should condemn the aggressors.
The fighting is very close now and we haven't enough tommy guns in the building. I don't know how long we can resist. We are fixing the hand grenades now.
Heavy shells are exploding nearby. Above, jet planes are roaring, but it doesn't matter...
[8.30 a.m.] At the moment there is silence. It may be the silence before the storm. We have almost no weapons, only light machine-guns, Russian-made long rifles and some carbines. We haven't any kind of [heavy] guns.
People are jumping up at the tanks, throwing hand-grenades inside and then slamming the drivers' windows. The Hungarian people are not afraid of death. It is only a pity that we can't stand for long.
A man just came in from the street. He said we should not think that because the street is empty the people have taken shelter. They are standing in the doorways, waiting for the right moment.
One Hungarian soldier was told by his mother as she said goodbye to him: "Don't be a hero, but don't be cowardly either!"
[A little later] Now the firing is starting again. We are getting hits.
The tanks are getting nearer and there is heavy artillery. We have just had a report that our unit is receiving reinforcements and ammunition. But it is still too little. It can't be allowed that people attack tanks with their bare hands.
What is the United Nations doing? Give us a little encouragement.
[There were between 200 and 250 people in the newspaper building with him, the reporter wrote; about 50 of them were women.)
[9 a.m.] The tanks are coming nearer. Both radio stations are in rebel hands. They have been playing the Hungarian National Anthem.
We will hold out to our last drop of blood. The Government has not done enough to give us arms. Downstairs there are men who have only one hand grenade.
[At 9.15 the first Russian bombers were reported over Budapest. There were obout 15 planes accompanied by fighters. Occasionally, the reporter would tap out a quick note.]
I am running over to the window in the next room to shoot. But I will be back if there is anything new, or you ring me.
Don't be mad at the way I am writing. I am excited. I want to know how this is going to end. I want to shoot, but there is no target so far. I will file to you as long as possible.
[He continually inquired what the United Nations was doing. When informed of a Washington despatch that Cardinal Mindszenty had taken refuge in the United States Legation in Budapest, he asked. "Is that all they have achieved?"]
[Then] A Russian plane has just fired a machine-gun burst. We don't know where, just heard and saw it.
The building of barricades is going on. The Parliament and its vicinity is crowded with tanks . . . Planes are flying overhead, but can't be counted, there are so many. The tanks are coming in big lines.
Our building has already been fired on, but so far there are no casualties. The roar of the tanks is so loud we can't hear each other's voices.
[He broke off typing] Now I have to run over to the next room to fire some shots from the window. But I'll try to be back if there is anything new.
[When he returned he wrote] They just brought us a rumour that the American troops will be here within one or two hours.
[Then, in the midst of the fighting and as bullets hit his own building, he asked the Associated Press to transmit for him a personal message to a relative in Britain which said: "Sending kisses. We are well and fighting."]
The tanks are now firing toward the Danube. Our boys are on the barricades and calling for more arms and ammunition. There is most bitter fighting in the inner city.
[9.45 a.m.] Now things are silent here, except for a few rifle shots. The tanks rolled away from our building and have gone somewhere else.
[10 a.m.] A shell just exploded nearby. Now there is heavy firing in the direction of the National Theatre, near us in the centre of the city.
In our building we have youngsters of 15 and men of 40. Don't worry about us. We are strong, even if we are only a small nation. When the fighting is over we will rebuild our unhappy country.
We hope the U.N. meeting won't be too late.
Send us any news you can about world action in Hungary's behalf. Don't worry, we burn your dispatches as soon as we have read them.
[10.50 a.m.] Just now the heaviest fighting is going on in the Maria Terezia Barracks. There is heavy artillery fire...
[Five minutes later the connection was cut. The reporter did not come back.-A. P.]
Associated Press, 4 November; New York Times, 5 November;
Daily Telegraph (London), 5 November [231/233]

"40,000 ARISTOCRATS"

BUDAPEST
It was dawn . . . the day the Russians struck again.
We were awakened by the roar of heavy guns. The radio was a shambles. All we got was the national anthem, played over and over again, and continual repetition of Premier Nagy's announcement that after a token resistance we must cease fighting and appeal to the free world for help.
After our ten days' war of liberty, after the pathetically short period of our "victory", this was a terrible blow. But there was not time to sit paralysed in despair. The Russians had arrested General Maleter, head of the Central Revolutionary Armed Forces Council. The Army had received cease-fire orders. But what of the fighting groups of workers and students?
These courageous civilian units now had to be told to put up only token resistance in order to save bloodshed. They had been instructed not to start firing.
I called up the biggest group, the "Corvin regiment." A deputy commander answered the phone. His voice was curiously calm:
"Yes, we realised we should not open fire. But the Russians did. They took up positions around our block and opened fire with everything they had. The cellars are filled with 200 wounded and dead. But we will fight to the last man. There is no choice. But inform Premier Nagy that we did not start the fight."
This was just before seven in the morning. Premier Nagy, alas, could not be informed any more. He was not to be found.
The situation was the same everywhere. Soviet tanks rolled in and started to shoot at every centre of resistance which had defied them during our first battle for freedom.
This time, the Russians shot the buildings to smithereens. Freedom fighters were trapped in the various barracks, public buildings and blocks of flats. The Russians were going to kill them off to the last man. And they knew it. They fought on till death claimed them.
This senseless Russian massacre provoked the second phase of armed resistance. The installation of Kadar's puppet government was only oil on the fire. After our fighting days, after our brief span of liberty and democracy, Kadar's hideous slogans and stupid lies, couched in the hated Stalinite terminology, made every. one's blood boil. Although ten million witnesses knew the contrary, the puppet government brought forward the ludicrous lie that our war of liberty was a counter-revolutionary uprising inspired by a handful of Fascists.
The answer was bitter fighting and a general strike throughout the country. In the old revolutionary centres -the industrial suburbs of Csepel, Ujpest and the rest- the workers struck and fought desperately against the Russian tanks.
Posters on the walls challenged the lies of the puppet Government: "The forty thousand aristocrats and fascists of the Csepel works strike on!" said one of them.
"The general strike is a weapon which can be used only when the entire working class in [sic] unanimous -so don't call us Fascists)" said another.
Armed resistance stopped first. The Russians bombarded to rubble every house from which a single shot was fired. The fighting groups realised that further battles would mean the annihilation of the capital. So they stopped fighting.
But the strike went on.
The Workers' Councils, the Writers' Association and the Revolutionary Council of the Students decided at last that the general strike must be suspended if Hungary were not to commit national suicide...
George Paloczi-Horvath, Daily Herald (London), 12 December [233/235]

MINDSZENTY'S ESCAPE

BUDAPEST
Early on Sunday morning Mindszenty had awakened, as we all had, to the sound of cannonading. A few minutes later Mindszenty was called to the telephone. An excited voice told him that Nagy and his Cabinet were meeting in Parliament. Could he come immediately?
The Cardinal and Turchanyi slipped quickly into their cassocks, summoned several other aides and left in two cars. As they crossed the Danube and turned into Liberty Square they were confronted by the Soviet tank ring around the Parliament building. A Russian-speaking priest in the lead car explained to a Soviet officer without mentioning the Cardinal's presence, that the Hungarian Government had requested them to appear. The officer smiled tauntingly and said, "I am afraid we are in control here, not the Hungarian Government."
The alarmed Turchanyi suggested that he reconnoitre alone. He entered the building after receiving permission from the officer. No sooner was he inside than two blue-uniformed members of the dreaded A.V. H. -Hungarian Communist Security Forces- rushed towards him with drawn revolvers. Turchanyi wheeled and ran from the building. As he panted towards Mindszenty, the pursuing A.V.H. men held their fire for fear of hitting Russians.
Mindszenty ordered the driver to start the car. He held open the door for Turchanyi, who leaped inside as their chauffeur drove the car around the square at full speed. Turchanyi directed him to the bank building where a temporary refuge could be found. The Cardinal and his secretary dashed inside as the car roared down the dark street to throw off any pursuers.
By telephone and through trusted intermediaries Turchanyi immediately started negotiations with the American Legation to grant the Cardinal asylum...
"But in taking refuge with the United States, won't you be separated from your people?"
"No one can separate me from my people, not even the entire armed might of the Soviet Empire. If I seek temporary asylum I do so as a last desperate measure.
Leslie B. Bain, Daily Express (London), 7 December [235/241]

DIARY OF "A SORDID CRIME"

BUDAPEST
[12:30] Violent fighting in the SzenaTer section of Buda. Regrouping of Hungarian forces in the interior of Pecs. Soviet artillery are bombarding Csepel...
[13:55] The Russian occupation of the East Station. Szolnok has been bombarded by Soviet aircraft. Fighting continues in the Gellerthegy part of Buda.
[14:15] Four Soviet armoured cars followed by trucks near the [French] Legation.
[15:00] Soviet troops, coming from Czechoslovakia, are passing through Komarom and Gyor.
[15:15] According to a Hungarian source, Zoltan Tildy was arrested this morning by Russians occupying Parliament. On the other hand, three "Nagyist" writers who were inside Parliament at the time got away: Eorsi, Gyula Hay, and Lajos Tamasi.
[15:25] Fighting continues around the railroad stations.
[15:40] Soviet aircraft are flying over the city. Artillery fire on the heights of Buda.
[16:00] A battle around the Astoria Hotel, 5th city district.
[16:15] Acker, whose observation post is on the Embassy roof, reports fires burning in the 15th district. Violent fighting near the Austrian and French Embassies in Buda. Mortars and violent explosions nearby.
[16:30] Two sixteen year-olds are ambushed behind the Duna hotel and one of them attacked a tank with a hand-grenade. He was slightly wounded. This is news from Chatelot. Girard furnishes details on the battle at Hotel Astoria. His car came up against two Soviet tanks. Bombs and shells bursting two hundred meters in front and three hundred meters behind. Numerous bottles of gasoline thrown on the tanks . . . The avenue is in flames.
[17:50] A violent explosion near the Legation. Soviet leaflets about "the liberation" distributed by troops in the streets.
[18:00] Soviet mortars installed near the Legation are firing on the city.
[18:20] A Hungarian source: Battle raging around the National Theater between the 7th and 8th city districts...
[19:00] Violent engagements between the Soviets and insurgents in the Krisztinavaros quarter...
[21:15] The Russians are occupying the Buda citadel which overlooks the city.
[21:30] No more electricity in the 5th district (southern portion). Soviet armoured cars are withdrawing toward the suburbs in order to avoid being taken by surprise in the center of town by teams of dynamiters during the night... [241/242]

[22:20] New explosions . . . a violent exchange of machine-gun fire .... - The approach of tanks makes the walls shake ... Street being torn up by the tread of tanks has been renamed twice. Formerly called Andrassy Road. It became Stalin Road. Then after the insurrection, covered with blood, it became the Street of Hungarian Youth. Will it be changed again?
Soviet tanks are concentrated around the two buildings that house the Soviet Embassy . . . It is bitter and ironical to hear the East Berlin radio broadcast on the intentions of "patriots to liquidate the counter-revolutionaries." Never has so much afirontery been associated with so sordid a crime . . . And the drama is only beginning...
[Midnight] The insurgents retire to positions in the South Station. The Russians attack with armoured cars. The Varhogy district was bombarded at regular intervals by artillery....
Agence France Presse (Paris), 15 November [242/245]

A CRY OF WAILING

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN FRONTIER
Hope had been so deceptive. Shouldn't we have known better? We were awakened by the news on the blackest Sunday of modern European history, shattered, speechless. In Vienna the people seemed almost to be paralyzed by the red headlines of the extra editions: "Ungeheures Verbrechen! Der gemeinste Verrat aller Zeiten! Sie greifen an!" All day, and half the night, as we drive from frontier post to frontier post along the Hungarian border, we hear the news in our car radio, in the jammed saddened inns along the way . . . The Austrian Red Cross, with surprising and heartening efficiency, has moved in to take care of the thousands of refugees now pouring across. Camps, barracks, refugees. In the eleventh year of peace. Once again women and children running for their lives like hunted animals. Once again the same old folding cots, the same field-grey blankets. How often had one seen this- the Alsatians fleeing from the battles of the Rhine in the winter of '44, the Jews from the concentration camps, the DP's trying to make their way home, the liberated prisoners-of-war, the expellees from Poland and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet-zone refugees in West-Berlin . - . Near Hegyeshalom an Austrian nurse tries to calm a group of children; a little boy begins to tremble and scream, for some one had opened a window and the traffic of the street sounded as if a battle were still raging . . . In Eisenstadt we listen to the news: the UN General Assembly is altogether likely to meet again soon; a hundred people in the crowded café stand up, wave their hands angrily, helplessly, and walk out. I talk with a student from Sopron who mumbles. "We shouldn't have burned the Russian books, Tolstoy was among them.. . " In Klingenbach we run into an Hungarian lieutenant and six of his men, embarassment and bad conscience in their eyes, who tell us that the Soviet attack had cut them off; but who is to sit in judgement, even if they had run away? At the border crossing at Drassburg a foreign car manages to come over: [245/246]

"We thank you," says a Hungarian, rifle still slung across his shoulder, "we thank you for sharing our suffering with us!... Somebody else cries out: "But why don't you help us? Don't give us words or food, give us munition!" And a third: "In the name of betrayed Hungary, come back to us!" ... On the road back to Nickelsdorf we listen to the Viennese radio: a variety program called "Take It Easy." Radio Budapest,. we are told, has come on the air again, with music, "Alexander's Ragtime Band." In Margersdorf: a few radio men who are still monitoring messages from Gyor, the last SOS-calls of the dying October Revolution...
From every side, from the excited students, from over-wrought women, from confused young officers in their clay-brown uniforms, one hears the stories, "atrocity stories" if you will. In the epoch of primitive war propaganda a whole generation learned to mistrust all tales of
atrocities; then came the generation, in the era of the Gestapo and the GPU, who came to know the truth of even the wildest most unbelievable inhumanities. How could one distinguish, along this panicky fear-ridden frontier, history from hysteria? A pale young girl tells of tanks running over children; students relate how their university buildings in Sopron had been set afire; a lieutenant reports how officers and soldiers had been executed along the road of the Soviet offensive. But then two old men tell touching anecdotes of Russian soldiers who "fraternized," and of a few who deserted because "the cause of Hungarian freedom was also the cause of the Russian people".
At the end of the day of the brutal Soviet counter-attack I looked out of the window of a little Hungarian frontier check-point at the "Stalin" tanks which had moved up to cut off the flight of soldiers and civilians. Everything had become quiet. And I thought of a passage I had once read in Xenophon, describing how, one night in 405 B.C., people in Athens heard a cry of wailing, making its way up between the long walls from the Piraeus, and coming nearer and nearer as they listened. It was the news of victory and disaster.
"And that night no one slept. They wept for the dead, but far more bitterly for themselves. For they knew that they would suffer the same fate they had inflicted on others . . ."
Melvin J. Lasky, Der Monat (Berlin), December 1956 [246]

Richard Lettis: The Hungarian Revolt