own position in Moscow. From a Soviet point of
view the danger Gomulka presented lay in his
Polish nationalism – another Tito could not be
tolerated. Then there was the even greater danger
that a national popular uprising would occur and
that the Polish leaders would lose control.
Gomulka convinced Khrushchev that only he and
the reformers could retain control, that while he
wished to correct the Stalinist errors of the past he
was a convinced communist, and that while Polish
nationalism required that Poland assert the right
to be treated as a sovereign nation Poland would
remain loyal to the Soviet alliance. What was
equally clear to Khrushchev was not only that
Gomulka enjoyed immense popular support for
his stand, but that the Polish army would be likely
to side with the Polish leadership, however hope-
less the struggle. Khrushchev had enough trouble
on his hands without inviting more, but he
returned home with misgivings. Before the end of
the year the Stalinists were purged from the Polish
party and the Russians agreed to abandon direct
interference in Polish affairs. The way was open for
‘national communism’. Gomulka also delivered
his side of the bargain. Poland remained a com-
munist state; it did not repudiate its membership
of the Warsaw Pact and did not intervene on
Hungary’s side. The Polish leaders recognised the
limits of Soviet tolerance. The Hungarians did not
and paradoxically it was Hungarian support for
Poland that radicalised the Hungarian unrest into
a full-scale rebellion against Soviet domination.
Hungary had suffered particularly under the iron
hand of the Stalinist first secretary Mátyás Rákosi,
having since the summer of 1949 been turned
into a communist state on the Soviet model.
Rákosi eliminated his communist rivals, even
hanging Laszlo Rajk, a former minister of the
interior. The peasantry was forced into collectivi-
sation and industry was placed under central state
control. The prisons filled and a vast and much
hated secret police enormously extended its
activities. To Khrushchev and the majority of the
Kremlin leadership an unreformed Rákosi was a
distinct liability. Rákosi in turn anxiously watched
the de-stalinisation developments in Poland and
was shaken by the apparent Yugoslav–Soviet rec-
onciliation. His response to demands for eco-
nomic reforms and for more freedoms within a
communist system, which were being advocated
by intellectuals and the more progressive com-
munists around Imre Nagy, was to clamp down
even more severely in the summer of 1956. In
July, however, the Kremlin forced him to resign.
There was no strong and popular communist
like Gomulka to replace him. The post of first sec-
retary was given to another, hardly less hated
Stalinist, Ernö Gerö. At least János Kádár, a cau-
tious reformer, who later was to play a critical role
in the revolution and the post-revolutionary his-
tory of Hungary, joined the Hungarian Politburo.
After July, the divided Hungarian leadership
and the still overwhelmingly Stalinist party
machine failed to provide any firm national com-
munist direction to those such as the students,
intellectuals and many urban Hungarians who
were looking for change. Imre Nagy was poten-
tially the only popular communist around whom
the nation might have rallied, but like a good com-
munist he refused to organise an opposition.
Concessions by the Politburo were interpreted as
signs of weakness. Opposition grew and took more
and more challenging forms under the influence of
the Polish October. On 23 October 1956 students
spearheaded a mass demonstration of support for
Poland in the Hungarian capital. A ban on the
demonstration, which looked as if it would have
been in vain, was lifted. At first everything pro-
ceeded peaceably. But during the evening the
hated Hungarian security police, the AVO, started
firing on demonstrators. The demonstrators were
joined by huge crowds calling for Imre Nagy. Gerö
then agreed to the intervention of Soviet troops to
restore order. At this stage they behaved with
restraint. On the following day, 24 October, the
Hungarian Politburo, in the hope of containing
the revolutionary situation, appointed Nagy pre-
mier but Gerö remained first secretary.
The party had lost the support of the people
and, although the greater part of the Hungarian
army did not join the rising, the Politburo felt too
uncertain of the soldiers’ loyalty to use them
against their fellow countrymen. The rising was
spreading through Hungary and was taking the
form of a national rebellion. That same evening
1
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