356 ChaPter^7
tanks in only after Nagy announced that Hungary would be neutral, not pro-
Soviet, in East-West affairs and that he would leave the Warsaw Pact, the
European counterpart to NATO, two decisions Gomulka in Poland never
made. Given such dire circumstances for Russian policies, Soviet troops and
tanks poured into Hungary and ended the uprising and took control of the
government. The Soviets blamed “counterrevolutionary forces” which were
“taking advantage of the discontent of working people to undermine the
foundations of the people’s democratic order in Hungary and to restore the
old landlord and capitalist order.” Though the invasion was bloody, with per-
haps 10,000 killed, it stood in contrast to the U.S. responses in areas where it
held influence in that it tolerated a discussion of change of government, and
intervened, unlike in Poland, because the Hungarians were attempting to
abandon their relationship with the Soviets, a move no empire would tolerate.
Despite the bloody Soviet response, one can ponder the question, “which
would you rather be? A peasant in Guatemala or a worker in Poland or
Hungary?” The answer should be plain to see.
While no one is suggesting that the Soviet Union were the “good guys,”
it is important to recognize that the U.S., again because of the imbalance of
power, was able to be more authoritarian, and often ruthless, when its “satel-
lites” challenged it [as, we have pointed out, in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam],
whereas the Soviets actually had to act less harshly and with more flexibility.
Indeed, the U.S. hard line was not confined only to countries where it over-
threw governments or put dictators into power. In India, Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru was most definitely not a Communist, but he believed that
the U.S. was essentially replacing the British as an imperial power in India and
he wanted to be on good terms with both the Americans and the Russians.
But neutrality, to the Americans, was not much better than Communism, so
the U.S. began to send aid and weapons to India’s main rival, Pakistan, and
thereby set off an arms race in South Asia that continues and worsens to this
day, with drones now in the mix. Indonesia was another area of concern to
the U.S.
The leader there, Sukarno, was an advocate of neutralism much like Nehru
and Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt [who will be discussed in detail later], but
to Americans he was part of a “snow- balling communist trend.” Sukarno did
receive aid from the U.S. but got much more, about $100 million, from the
Soviet Union. To the Americans, this was proof that Sukarno was a Communist