The Presidential Years 275
The Hungarian RevolutionEvents took another turn. In Hungary, upset by the popular uprising, bourgeois
and even right-wing parties reappeared, and the newspapers were full of anti-
communist slogans. In Budapest, a statue of Stalin was destroyed for the first
time in Eastern Europe and there was an open hunt for communists, with
policemen as the primary target—in some cases they were lynched.^63 From the
West, Radio Free Europe stirred up the rebels, whereas in Moscow, where what
was going on was interpreted as a manifest intention to upset the international
equilibrium created in Europe after the Second World War, the press began
speaking about “counterrevolution.”
On 31 October 1956, Imre Nagy decided to restore democracy, declared the
withdrawal of his country from the Warsaw Pact, and proclaimed its neutrality
in the naïve hope that it might convince Moscow to grant it a status similar
to that enjoyed by Austria. The Soviet leaders, who knew that yielding would
mean the end of their hegemony in Eastern Europe (and their own power),
decided that same day to intervene with force. This proposal was favored be-
cause a French-British-Israeli attack against Egypt, where Nasser had nation-
alized the Suez channel, prevented the West from intervening effectively in
the Hungarian tragedy. Before taking such a risky step, Khrushchev wanted to
be sure about the agreement of all the “brotherly” parties, including the Yugo-
slavs. Since Tito declined to come to Moscow, Khrushchev went incognito to
Brioni on 2 November, escorted by Molotov.^64 In spite of a tur bulent journey
due to bad weather, he conferred the following night for ten hours with Tito
and other Yugoslav leaders, who were seriously alarmed by the events in Hun-
gary, and were even ready to intervene with their own troops to prevent the
collapse of socialism there, which could negatively affect the entire Danube-
Balkan area. As early as 30 October, Tito had admonished Nagy not to allow
the international reactionary forces to foment turmoil in Hungary, but he was
not ready to listen.^65 Unlike the Poles, who dared to disagree with Khrush-
chev’s bellicose intentions, the Yugoslav marshal approved the deployment of
the Red Army in a neighboring country without hesitation. He asked, however,
that the new government be led by Kádár who, in his opinion, was more apt
to realize the necessary reforms than Ferenc Münnich, the Soviet candidate.
In order to get Khrushchev’s approval, he offered his help him get rid of Nagy
and his collaborators, proposing political asylum for them in the Yugoslav
Embassy.^66
Subsequent events developed according to the scenario established in Mos-
cow: on 3 November 1956, Kádár (who two days before had fled Budapest to
the Soviet zone with the purpose of creating a new government) invited the