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143-408: Supporters of workers' councils (such as council communists , libertarian socialists , Leninists , anarchists , and Marxists ) argue that they are the most natural form of working-class organization, and believe that workers' councils are necessary for the organization of a proletarian revolution and the implementation of an anarchist or communist society . The Paris Commune of 1871 became

286-639: A democratic socialist political system based upon land reform and (public) state ownership in the economy ; Hungarian membership to the United Nations ; and all freedoms and rights for the citizens of Hungary. After Veres proclaimed the manifesto demanding Hungarian sovereignty, the crowd chanted the Hungarian patriotic poem National Song ( Nemzeti dal ) , which the Soviet-controlled Rákosi government of Hungary had banned from public performance;

429-726: A New Labour Movement" and Helmut Wagner's "Theses on Bolshevism". Council communists popped up in several other countries. The German emigrant Paul Mattick brought it to the United States where he published the International Council Correspondence . J.A. Dawson published the Southern Advocate of Workers' Councils in Australia and Laín Diez published council communist texts in Chile. The 1960s student movement led to

572-518: A brief resurgence of council communism, mainly in France, Italy, and Germany. After the decline of the 1968 movement , it mostly disappeared again, but for a few small groups in Europe and North America. While sharing a common general direction, council communists differed widely in their views on many issues. In contrast to reformist social democracy and to Leninism, the central argument of council communism

715-645: A bureaucratic system of state capitalism . During the Russian Revolution , the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno established a stateless territory in Eastern Ukraine on the principles of anarchist communism . The Makhnovists established a system of free soviets ( vilni rady ), which allowed workers, peasants, and militants to self-govern their communities through workers' self management and send delegates to

858-773: A combined conference in Budapest that decided to end the nationwide labour strikes and to resume work on 5 November, with the more important councils sending delegates to the Parliament to assure the Nagy government of their support. On 24 October 1956, the Politburo of the USSR discussed how to resolve the political revolts that had occurred in Warsaw Pact countries, specifically the Polish October and

1001-419: A communist society. Where the network of worker councils would be the main vehicle for revolution, acting as the apparatus by which the dictatorship of the proletariat forms and operates. The government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose authoritarian socialism . They also oppose

1144-522: A delegation to deliver their demands in the Parliament, but government guards and a company of the Ministry of Defence's armoured regiment, backed by seven Soviet T-54 tanks lined up in front of the Parliament, kept the demonstrators away from the building. The events at Astoria were repeated, with demonstrators trying to make friends with the Soviet soldiers, handing out bilingual leaflets and some climbing on top of

1287-414: A mass movement to failures by its proponents. They did not develop a politics that could survive under a stabilized capitalism. Council communists did not gain an understanding of the composition of the council movement, the reasons for its decline, and the influence of Leninism and democracy on workers. All this was exacerbated, according to Gerber, by council communists' dogmatism and a lack of leadership at

1430-621: A mistaken imitation of the Anglo–French intervention to Egypt. In Russia, on 30 October 1956, the Presidium of the CPSU decided to not depose the new Hungarian government. Marshal Zhukov said: "We should withdraw troops from Budapest, and, if necessary, withdraw from Hungary, as a whole. This is a lesson for us in the military-political sphere". The Presidium then adopted and published the Declaration of

1573-481: A model for how future workers' councils would be organised for revolution and socialist governance. Workers' councils have played a significant role in the communist revolutions of the 20th century. This was most notable in the lands of the Russian Empire (including Congress Poland and Latvia ) in 1905, with the workers' councils ( soviets ) acting as labor committees which coordinated strike activities throughout

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1716-692: A neutral country in the geopolitical cold war between the US and the USSR. Austria's declaration of geopolitical neutrality allowed the Communist government of PM Nagy to publicly consider "the possibility of Hungary adopting a neutral status on the Austrian pattern". In June 1956, the Polish Army violently repressed the workers' uprising at Poznań against the economic policies of the Polish People's Republic . In October,

1859-552: A party in its own right. The AAUD–E quickly became an assortment of individual groups and tendencies rather than a coherent organization. It lost its leading theorist Rühle in 1925, when he concluded that the political situation was too reactionary for revolutionary politics. In 1927, it merged with a group excluded from the KPD and a union organization to form the Spartacist League of Left Communist Organizations, which in turn merged with

2002-575: A permanent political form of self-governance" and were therefore sidelined by the Communist Party . Some socialists have argued this as an example of the Bolsheviks ' betrayal of socialist principles, while others have defended it as necessary for the social conditions at the time to maintain and advance the Revolution. Rosa Luxemburg was a vocal proponent of radical socialist democracy, and advocated for

2145-460: A significant influence on the development of Marxist and anarchist political theory and revolutionary praxis. Friedrich Engels named the Paris Commune as the first example of a dictatorship of the proletariat . The 1905 Russian Revolution saw the spontaneous emergence of workers' councils (otherwise known locally as soviets ) in the Russian Empire . Trotsky would assume a central role in

2288-497: A societal level. Council communists, such as the Dutch-German current of left communists , believe that their nature means that workers' councils do away with bureaucratic form of the state and instead give power directly to workers through a soviet democracy . Council communists view this organization of a revolutionary government as an anti-authoritarian approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat . The council communists in

2431-625: Is a Jew, he will play the card of Jewish finance-capital". The next major dispute in the KAPD concerned the formation of a new International opposed to the Comintern, the participation of the AAUD in wage struggles, and the role of the party's leadership around Karl Schröder . Schröder's leadership in the KAPD became increasingly controversial and he was perceived by some as attempting to exert dictatorial control. Politically, Schröder's faction argued that capitalism

2574-594: Is not a Party Matter , Rühle argued that the goal of the revolutionary movement was to take over production and therefore had no need for a party, which would necessarily become opportunist. Accordingly, Rühle and his supporters left the KAPD in November 1920 and, when it became clear that the pro-KAPD faction was in control of the AAUD in June 1921, they set up the AAUD–Unitary Organization (AAUD–E). The AAUD–E criticized

2717-521: Is referred to as anti-authoritarian and anti-Leninist Marxism. Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Soviet invasion and victory The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; Hungarian : 1956-os forradalom ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising , was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and

2860-489: Is that democratic workers councils arising in factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power, maintaining that the working class should not rely on Leninist vanguard parties or reforms of the capitalist system to bring socialism. Alternatively, the party would maintain a propagandic and "minoritarian" role. Council communists see the mass strike and new yet to emerge forms of mass action as revolutionary means to achieve

3003-566: Is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something – and something highly significant – of their near and inevitable future" and that certain features of the Russian Revolution were universally valid. Gorter took on the task of answering Lenin. His Open Letter to Comrade Lenin reiterated the argument that the differences in the class structure between East and West necessitated differences in communist tactics. Despite this dispute,

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3146-573: The 1905 revolution and serve as Chairman of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Delegates in which he wrote several proclamations urging for improved economic conditions , political rights and the use of strike action against the Tsarist regime on behalf of workers. Councils such as the Petrograd Soviet were formed by striking workers to coordinate the revolution, exercising political power in

3289-612: The Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. In 1918, Gorter said that the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin "stands out above all other leaders of the Proletariat" and that Karl Marx was Lenin's sole peer. In 1919, Pannekoek wrote that "in Russia communism has been put into practice for two years now". When the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed in December 1918, a majority in the party

3432-623: The Budapest University of Technology and Economics had reestablished the MEFESZ Students' union , which the Rákosi government earlier had banned for their politically incorrect politics. Initially, the Hungarian People's Republic was a socialist state headed by the Communist government of Mátyás Rákosi (r. 1947–1956), a Stalinist who was beholden to the USSR. To ensure ideological compliance within his Stalinist government, Rákosi used

3575-544: The Communist Workers' Party of Germany advocated organizing "on the basis of places of work, not trades, and to establish a National Federation of Works Committees." The Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest occupied this role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , between late October and early January 1957, where it grew out of local factory committees . Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin proposed that

3718-575: The Eastern Bloc , including the Hungarian People's Republic. The geopolitical principles of the Warsaw Pact defence treaty included "respect for the independence and [the] sovereignty of [the member] states" and the practise of "non-interference in their internal affairs". Then, on 15 May 1955, a day after the USSR established the Warsaw Pact, the Austrian State Treaty established Austria as

3861-533: The Hungarian Parliament Building to protest against the USSR's geopolitical domination of Hungary through the Stalinist government of Mátyás Rákosi . A delegation of students entered the building of Magyar Rádió to broadcast their sixteen demands for political and economic reforms to civil society, but were detained by security guards. When the student protestors outside the radio building demanded

4004-774: The Hungarian Social Democratic Party merged with the Communist Party and became the Hungarian Working People's Party , whose candidate stood unopposed in the 1949 Hungarian parliamentary election . Afterwards, on 20 August 1949, the Hungarian People's Republic was proclaimed and established as a socialist state, with whom the USSR then concorded the COMECON treaty of mutual assistance, which allowed stationing troops of Red Army soldiers in Hungary. Based upon

4147-613: The Hungarian Working People's Party ( Magyar Dolgozók Pártja ). The new government of Imre Nagy disbanded the ÁVH, declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact , and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October the intense fighting had subsided. Although initially willing to negotiate the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Hungary, the USSR repressed the Hungarian Revolution on 4 November 1956, and fought

4290-791: The Kingdom of Romania , and the Kingdom of Bulgaria . In 1941, the Royal Hungarian Army participated in the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia (6 April 1941) and in Operation Barbarossa (22 June 1941), the invasion of the USSR. In the event, by 1944, the Red Army were en route to the Kingdom of Hungary, after first having repelled the Royal Hungarian Army and the armies of the other Axis Powers from

4433-579: The Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents . During the Irish War of Independence & Irish Civil War a number of worker's councils were set up for various degrees of time, between 1919 - 1923. See: Irish soviets . The Spanish Revolution of 1936 saw the creation of anarchist communes across much of Spain. These communes operated under the principle " From each according to his ability to each according to his needs ". Decision-making in

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4576-577: The Sixteen Political, Economic, and Ideological Points against the USSR's geopolitical hegemony upon Hungary. The Hungarian Writers' Union ceremoniously proclaimed Hungary's anti-Soviet political solidarity with anti-communist reformers in Poland when they laid a commemorative wreath at the statue of the Polish hero Gen. Józef Zachariasz Bem who also was a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 ; likewise,

4719-557: The Stalin Monument in Budapest , which had been erected in place of a razed church, in 1951; and, by 21:30 hrs – an hour and a half later – the nationalist and anti-communist protestors had destroyed the eight-metre-tall statue of Josef Stalin. Also at 20:00 hrs, a crowd of nationalist and anti-communist protestors had gathered outside the Magyar Rádió building, which was guarded by the ÁVH secret police. Violence soon occurred between

4862-421: The bourgeoisie and other counter-revolutionary forces, and " wither away " after the counter-revolution is fully suppressed and as the state institutions begin to "lose their political character". Some academics and socialists disputed the commitments Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky had toward workers' councils after the Russian Revolution of 1917 , noting that workers' councils "were never meant to become

5005-628: The 1920s. Council communism emerged in the years after 1918, as some communists in Germany and the Netherlands concluded that the Russian Revolution had led to power being concentrated in the hands of a new political elite. Its most prominent early proponents were the German educator Otto Rühle , the Dutch astronomer Anton Pannekoek , and the Dutch poet Herman Gorter . They were initially enthusiastic supporters of

5148-409: The 1930s. According to Frits Kool, the term council communism was first used by Franz Pfemfert in 1921. According to van der Linden, council communism was defined by five basic principles: The German and Dutch left was part of a broader left communist movement that pushed back against the imposition of the Bolshevik model on Western Europe. In Vienna, Georg Lukács emphasized the importance of

5291-633: The AAUD–E. In 1925, the Essen KAPD's main leaders including Schröder left to rejoin the SPD as they thought the revival of the council movement of the revolutionary period unlikely. In 1927, Gorter died and by 1929 the group could not afford to publish its newspaper. The Berlin KAPD, having lost its leadership and theorists to the Essen KAPD, spent the next years issuing repeated and widely ignored calls for insurrection. In 1927, it lost its AAUD affiliate which declared itself

5434-764: The American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was seen by some as the union federation affiliate of the KAPD . In 1918, Gorter wrote the pamphlet The World Revolution pointing to differences between the situations in Russia and Western Europe. Pannekoek asserted in World Revolution and Communist Tactics , a pamphlet he published in 1920, that communist tactics in Western Europe were necessarily different from those in Russia. He argued that in Western Europe

5577-450: The Berlin AAUD in 1931 to create the Communist Workers' Union of Germany, but this organization had a membership of just 343. By the early 1930s, council communism as a large-scale movement had come to an end. According to John Gerber, council communism was a product of the post-war turmoil and, as a result of the end of the council movement, the council communists' politics became abstract. He also attributes council communism's decline as

5720-431: The Civic Party , headed by President Zoltán Tildy and Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy . Nonetheless, on behalf of the USSR, the Hungarian Communist Party continually used salami tactics to wrest minor political concessions, which continually diminished the political authority of the coalition government – despite the Communist Party only having received 17 percent of the votes in the parliamentary election of 1945. After

5863-401: The Comintern. At the Second World Congress of the Comintern in 1920, the Comintern leaders Lenin, Leon Trotsky , and Grigory Zinoviev unanimously rejected the KAPD's positions. An open letter by the Comintern's executive committee informed the KAPD that the Comintern fully supported the KPD in its dispute with the left. Some KAPD delegates left the congress early in protest. Lenin criticized

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6006-444: The Essen tendency. Pannekoek was exasperated by the factionalism in the movement and stayed out of the dispute, though he mostly sympathized with the Berlin tendency. After the KAPD withdrew from the Comintern in 1921, its leadership decided to make plans for the formation of a new International. Schröder and Gorter supported this, but many in the organization were skeptical that the time was right for this move. In April 1922, after

6149-415: The German council communist movement consisted mostly of intellectuals who had already been part of the left wing of the SPD before World War I as well as younger intellectuals, people with a Bohemian background and academics, who were radicalized by the war. Its membership consisted mostly of younger workers who had not been politically active before the war and former soldiers embittered by the brutality of

6292-418: The Government of the USSR on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist States , which said that "The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic, and [with] other members of the Warsaw Treaty, on the question of the presence of Soviet troops in

6435-430: The Hungarian Army restored order in Csepel; two days later, the Hungarian Revolutionaries recaptured Csepel after the Hungarian Army's withdrawal on 29 October. In the Angyalföld area of Budapest, the communists and 350 armed workers and 380 communist soldiers defended the Láng factory. Anti-fascist Hungarian veterans of the Second World War participated in recapturing the offices of the Szabad Nép communist newspaper. At

6578-493: The Hungarian Communist Party retained the confidence of the Hungarian people, because the Hungarians were protesting unresolved socio-economic problems, not ideology. Meanwhile, in the West, the concurrent Suez Crisis (29 October – 7 November 1956) of the French and the British empires' seizure of the Suez Canal from Egypt voided the political possibility of Western military intervention to Hungary. On 28 October, Khrushchev said that Soviet military intervention to Hungary would be

6721-463: The Hungarian Communist Party, ÁVH policeman, and pro-Soviet Hungarian soldier they encountered; and most Red Army troops withdrew from Budapest to garrisons in the Hungarian countryside. Fighting ceased between 28 October and 4 November, as many Hungarians believed that Soviet military units were withdrawing from Hungary. According to post-revolution communist sources, there were approximately 213 Hungarian Working People's Party members executed during

6864-400: The Hungarian Communist Party. The Nagy government freed the political prisoner General Béla Király to restore order to Hungary with a National Guard force composed of policemen, soldiers, and Revolutionaries loyal to Hungary. On 30 October 1956, Gen. Király's National Guard attacked the building of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party and killed every pro-Soviet officer of

7007-401: The Hungarian People's Republic from receiving American financial aid through the Marshall Plan (1948). Socially, the imposition of Soviet-style economic policies and the payment of war reparations angered the peoples of Hungary, whilst the cumulative effects of economic austerity fuelled anti-Soviet political discontent as the payment of foreign debt took precedence over the material needs of

7150-519: The Hungarian Revolt. Led by Vyacheslav Molotov , the hardline faction of the CPSU voted for military intervention, but were opposed by Khrushchev and Marshal Georgy Zhukov who sought a political resolution to the Hungarian revolt. In Budapest, the Soviet delegation reported to Moscow that the Hungarian political situation was less confrontational than reported during the revolt proper. In pursuit of political resolution, Khrushchev said that Ernő Gerő's 23 October request for Soviet intervention indicated that

7293-428: The Hungarian Revolution against the USSR's control of Hungary, and negotiated ceasefire agreements with the revolutionaries; nonetheless, the Hungarian Revolution took many communist prisoners who were registered to lists that identified the prisoner either for summary execution or as an enemy of the people . In the Csepel area of Budapest, 250 communists defended the Csepel Iron and Steel Works, and, on 27 October,

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7436-447: The Hungarian Revolution against the USSR; from amongst the crowd outside the parliament, the armed revolutionaries shot at the roof-top ÁVH policemen. Meanwhile, nationalist and anti-communist loyalties had fractured the chain of command of the Hungarian Army in response to the communist government's order to militarily repress the popular demonstrations against the Soviet control of Hungary. The Hungarian Army units in Budapest and in

7579-404: The Hungarian anti-communist revolution, but Nagy's declaration of Hungarian neutrality decided his dispatching the Red Army into Hungary. The USSR invaded the Hungarian People's Republic, because: In the People's Republic of Hungary, the anti-communist militants concluded that "the [Hungarian Communist] Party is the incarnation of bureaucratic despotism " and that "socialism can develop only on

7722-491: The Hungarian people, yet their standard of living diminished because of the compulsory financial contributions towards the industrialisation of Hungary, which reduced the disposable and discretionary income of individual Hungarian workers. That poor economy was further diminished by the bureaucratic mismanagement of resources, which caused shortages of supplies, and the consequent rationing of bread and sugar, flour and meat, et cetera. The net result of those economic conditions,

7865-434: The Hungarian people. On 5 March 1953, the death of Stalin allowed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to proceed with the de-Stalinization of the USSR, which was a relative liberalization of politics that afterward allowed most European communist parties and the communist parties of the Warsaw Pact to develop a reformist wing – within the structures of the Philosophy of Marxism and orders from Moscow. Hence,

8008-414: The Hungarian revolutionaries until Soviet victory on 10 November; repression of the Hungarian Uprising killed 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet Army soldiers, and compelled 200,000 Hungarians to seek political refuge abroad, mostly to Austria . During the Second World War (1939–1945), the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946) was a member of the Axis powers – in alliance with Nazi Germany , Fascist Italy ,

8151-535: The KAPD for differing from the KPD only in its rejection of parliamentarianism. At the KAPD's second congress in August 1920, the National Bolshevik wing of the party was expelled. This wing was led by Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim . They supported a strong German nation that, after a successful proletarian revolution, would ally itself with the Soviet Union in a struggle against Western capital and militarism. They also invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes in their critique of Paul Levi, claiming that "because Levi

8294-456: The KAPD was replicated in the Bulgarian and Dutch organizations, as groups in each party supported the Essen KAPD and others the Berlin KAPD. After 1922, the council communist organizations declined and disintegrated. The German organizations were down to 20,000 supporters in 1923 and just a few hundred by 1933. The Essen KAPD declined most quickly. In 1923, a faction left to form the League of Council Communists, most of whose members then joined

8437-447: The KAPD's mass base and never had more than 200 members. In Bulgaria, too, there was a left communist wing in the Communist Party . Led by Ivan Ganchev and influenced by the KAPD, the left formed the Bulgarian Communist Workers' Party (BRKP) in January 1922. It had just over a thousand members, mostly workers and few intellectuals. In the United Kingdom, the former suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst , also opposed to parliamentary politics,

8580-418: The KAPD, Pannekoek, and other left groups in the 1920 pamphlet "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder , accusing them of spreading confusion. He claimed that a refusal to work in parliaments and labor unions would leave workers under the influence of reactionary leaders. He conceded that there were considerable differences between Russia and the more advanced countries in Western Europe, but held that "it

8723-448: The KAPD, and other similar groups, initially sought to change the international communist movement from within. At the Third World Congress of the Comintern in 1921, the KAPD failed to rally a left opposition and therefore withdrew from the International. The council communist critique of Bolshevism became more fundamental. Council communists concluded that the Bolsheviks were not in fact building socialism. In 1921, Pannekoek argued that

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8866-463: The MEFESZ student union held a parallel demonstration of Hungarians' political solidarity with the Poles. In the afternoon of 23 October 1956, approximately 20,000 protestors met beside the statue of General József Bem , a national hero of Poland and Hungary. To the amassed crowd of protestors, the intellectual Péter Veres , the president of the Writers' Union ( Írószövetség ), read a manifesto demanding Hungarian independence from all foreign powers;

9009-434: The MEFESZ, and ten anti-Soviet demands, e.g. free elections and the departure of Soviet troops from Hungary, etc.; days later, the university students at Pécs , Miskolc , and Sopron followed suit. On 22 October, at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics , one of the law students from the original group of twelve students, announced that the MEFESZ student union was again politically active, and then proclaimed

9152-411: The Nagy government in talks about withdrawing the Red Army from Hungary. Moreover, Mao Zedong influenced Khrushchev's decision to repress the Hungarian uprising. The deputy chairman of the Chinese Communist Party , Liu Shaoqi , pressed Khrushchev to militarily repress the Hungarian Revolution. Although Sino–Soviet relations were unstable, the opinion of Mao carried great weight among the members of

9295-425: The Nagy government's political and socio-economic reforms; by 18 April 1955, Rákosi had so discredited Nagy that the USSR deposed Nagy as head-of-state of Socialist Hungary. Three months of plotting and conspiring rid Rákosi and the Hungarian Communist Party of Imre Nagy, who was reduced to a political non-person. On 14 April Prime Minister Imre Nagy was stripped of his Hungarian Communist Party offices and functions and

9438-411: The Nazi government , encouraged Hungarian Catholics not to vote for the Arrow Cross Party , and was imprisoned for this dissent by the Arrow Cross-led Government of National Unity . In the 1950–1952 period, the ÁVH forcibly relocated more than 26,000 non-communist Hungarians and confiscated their housing for members of the Communist Party of Hungary, and so eliminated the political threats posed by

9581-426: The Polish communist politician Władysław Gomułka in Brest, Belarus; and then spoke with the Romanian, Czechoslovak, and Bulgarian leaders in Bucharest, Romania. Finally, Khrushchev went to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and spoke with Tito ( Josip Broz ) who persuaded Khrushchev to install János Kádár as the new leader of the People's Republic of Hungary, instead of Ferenc Münnich . Two months after

9724-419: The Polish government appointed the politically rehabilitated , reform communist Władysław Gomułka as First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party to deal with the USSR, and, by 19 October 1956, Gomułka had successfully negotiated greater trade agreements and fewer Red Army troops stationed in Poland. The USSR's concessions to Poland – known as the Polish October – emboldened Hungarians to demand from

9867-422: The Presidium of the CPSU. Initially, Mao opposed a second intervention, which was communicated to Khrushchev on 30 October, before the Presidium met and decided against a Hungarian intervention; later, Mao changed his mind and supported intervention to Hungary. In the 1–3 November 1956 period, Khrushchev informed the USSR's Warsaw Pact allies of his decision to repress the Hungarian Revolution. Khrushchev met with

10010-406: The Red Army. Also on that day, Imre Nagy became prime minister in place of András Hegedüs . In a national radio broadcast, PM Nagy asked a ceasefire between the Red Army and the Hungarian Revolutionaries, and agreed to initiate postponed political reforms decided in 1953. Despite the pleas of PM Nagy, groups of revolutionaries in Budapest armed themselves and continually fought the Red Army. At

10153-431: The Russian Revolution was but a bourgeois revolution like the French Revolution . Gorter characterized it as initially a dual revolution, a working-class revolution against capitalism and a capitalist revolution against feudalism, but argued that this dualism was resolved with the New Economic Policy of 1921 and that Soviet Russia had become unambiguously a capitalist state. By 1921, council communism had broken with

10296-631: The Russo–American Cold War. About 8000 political prisoners were released, most notably Cardinal József Mindszenty . Banned political parties, such as the Independent Smallholders and the National Peasant Party ("Petőfi Party"), reappeared to join the coalition. In 1,170 communities in Hungary, there were 348 cases of revolutionary councils dismissing the local administrators; 312 cases of revolutionary councils sacking

10439-610: The Soviet forces in Hungary were on their way to the headquarters of the Hungarian Workers' Party (MDP) on Akadémia Street, where they were to attend a meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC), which was to begin at 10 a.m. Under pressure from the Soviet delegates, the CEC relieved Ernő Gerő of his position as party leader and elected János Kádár in his place. Meanwhile, the crowd demonstrating at Kossuth Square elected

10582-647: The USSR like concessions for the Hungarian People's Republic, which much contributed to the Hungarians' greatly idealistic politics in October 1956. On 13 October 1956, a group of 12 students from the university faculties in Szeged met to play cards, and snubbed the DISZ, the official communist student union, by re-establishing the MEFESZ (Union of Hungarian University and Academy Students),

10725-505: The absence of the Tsar's governance. Despite Lenin's declarations that "the workers must demand the immediate establishment of genuine control, to be exercised by the workers themselves", on May 30, the Menshevik minister of labor, Matvey Skobelev, pledged to not give the control of industry to the workers but instead to the state: "The transfer of enterprises into the hands of the people will not at

10868-543: The abuses of power committed by Stalin and his inner-circle protégés, in Russia and abroad. Therefore, the de-Stalinization of Hungarian People's Republic featured Rákosi's dismissal as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Hungary, and his replacement by Ernő Gerő , on 18 July 1956. From the Western perspective, the countries of western Europe co-operated with the CIA's propaganda radio network, Radio Free Europe , to broadcast

11011-532: The assembled protestors from the roof of the building of the Agricultural Ministry. In the fog of war, some Red Army soldiers mistakenly returned the fire towards the roof, having mistakenly believed themselves the targets. The Hungarian revolutionaries armed themselves with weapons captured from ÁVH policemen and with weapons donated by anti-communist soldiers who had deserted the Hungarian Army for

11154-475: The basic units of such societies. Early conceptions of this theory have come from the writings of French anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . His theory of mutualism envisioned a society organised through workers' councils, cooperatives , and other types of workers' associations. At the First International , followers of Proudhon and the collectivists led by Mikhail Bakunin have endorsed

11297-555: The bosses; and 215 cases of the locals burning the communist administrative records of their communities. In 681 communities, anti-communist and nationalist Hungarians damaged and destroyed symbols of the hegemony of the USSR, such as the Red Star, and statues of Josef Stalin and of Lenin; 393 communities damaged Soviet war memorials; and 122 communities burned the books of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. Local revolutionary councils formed throughout Hungary, generally without involvement from

11440-455: The bourgeoisie was more established and experienced and that as a result class struggle must oppose bourgeois institutions such as parliaments and trade unions. He emphasized the importance of class consciousness among the masses and deemed the avant-garde party model advocated by the Bolsheviks a potential obstacle to revolution. Immediately after the KAPD's formation, it sought admission to

11583-441: The buildings on the other side of the square. Another Soviet tank coming from a nearby street fired aimed shots at the demonstrators trying to take cover. This action claimed the most lives. The number of the dead is still disputed, with estimates ranging from 75 to 1000. According to another version of the events, which already appeared during the revolution but still unproven, the ÁVH policemen and/or communist partisans fired into

11726-552: The call of the party organisation, swept the Danube-Tisza Interfluve six times, smashing everything". As Hungarian revolutionaries fought the soldiers and tanks of the Red Army with small arms and Molotov cocktails in the streets of Budapest, throughout Hungary, revolutionary workers' councils assumed government power and called general strikes to halt the economy and the functioning of civil society. In ridding Hungary of

11869-651: The cities due to repression of trade unions. During the Revolutions of 1917–1923 , councils of socialist workers were able to exercise political authority. In the workers' councils organized as part of the 1918 German revolution , factory organizations such as the General Workers' Union of Germany formed the basis for region-wide councils. Anarchists advocate for a stateless society based on horizontal social organisation through voluntary federations of communes, with workers' councils and voluntary associations acting as

12012-510: The communes were conducted through workers' councils ( comités trabajadores ). Algeria , in the aftermath of the Algerian War , oversaw the widespread practice of workers' self-management . This was subsequently suppressed by conservative forces in the country. During the May 1968 events in France , "[t]he largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country, and

12155-572: The cost of war reparations was "between 19 and 22 per cent of the annual national income" of Hungary, an onerous national expense aggravated by the hyperinflation consequent to the post-war depreciation of the Hungarian pengő . Moreover, participation in the Soviet-sponsored Council of Mutual Economic Assistance ( COMECON ) prevented direct trade with the countries of the West, and also prevented

12298-416: The countryside remained uninvolved in the Revolution, because local commanders avoided politics in order to avoid repressing the revolutionaries. Order was restored in the 24–29 October period after the Hungarian Army had fought 71 firefights with the nationalist and with the anti-communist revolutionaries in fifty communities. On 26 October, in the town of Kecskemét, outside the office of State Security and

12441-474: The crowd repeatedly chanted the refrain: "This we swear, this we swear, that we will no longer be slaves." At 20:00 hrs, the first secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party, Ernő Gerő broadcast a hardline speech condemning the political demands of the intelligentsia and of the university students. Angered by Gerő's rejection, some protestors realised one of their demands, and demolished

12584-469: The democratic student union banned by the Stalinist Rákosi government. The MEFESZ students distributed hand-written notes in classrooms to inform faculty and students of the time and place for the meeting on 16 October 1956. A professor of law was chairman of committee who formally reestablished the MEFESZ student union, with the proclamation and publication of a twenty-demand manifesto, ten demands about

12727-456: The dictatorship of the proletariat should come in the form of a soviet republic . He proposed that the socialist revolution should be led by a revolutionary party , which should seize state power and establish a socialist state based on soviet democracy. Lenin's model for the dictatorship of the proletariat is based on that of the Paris Commune , and is meant to fulfil the task of suppressing

12870-473: The economic model of the USSR, the Hungarian Working People's Party established the socialist economy of Hungary with the nationalization of the means of production and of the natural resources of the country. Moreover, by 1955, the relatively free politics of Hungary allowed intellectuals and journalists to freely criticise the social and economic policies of the Rákosi government. In that vein of relative political freedom, on 22 October 1956, students from

13013-466: The education system with a toiling intelligentsia who would assist in the Russification of Hungary; thus the study of Russian language and communist political instruction were mandatory at school and at university; religious schools were nationalized and church leaders replaced with communist officials. In the early 1950s, the Rákosi government's socialist economics increased the per capita income of

13156-612: The election in 1945, control of the State Protection Authority ( Államvédelmi Hatóság , ÁVH) was transferred from the Independent Smallholders Party of the coalition government to the Hungarian Communist party. The ÁVH repressed non­­‑communist political opponents with intimidation and false accusations, imprisonment and torture . The brief, four­­‑year period of multi-party democracy ended when

13299-575: The enterprise while protecting workers' interests, establishing a socialist economy free of rigid party control. Local control by the councils was not always bloodless; in Debrecen , Győr , Sopron , Mosonmagyaróvár and other cities, crowds of demonstrators were fired upon by the ÁVH, with many lives lost. The ÁVH were disarmed, often by force, in many cases assisted by the local police. In total, there were approximately 2,100 local revolutionary and workers councils with over 28,000 members. The councils held

13442-524: The first wildcat general strike in history", the Situationists , against the unions and the French Communist Party that were starting to side with the de Gaulle government to contain the revolt, called for the formation of workers' councils ( comités d'entreprise ) to take control of the cities, expelling union leaders and left-wing bureaucrats, in order to keep the power in the hands of

13585-560: The foundations of direct democracy." For the anti-communists, the struggle of the Hungarian workers was "for the principle of direct democracy" and that "all power should be transferred to the Workers Committees of Hungary." In response, the Presidium broke the de facto ceasefire and repressed the Hungarian Revolution. The Soviet Union's plan was to declare a "Provisional Revolutionary Government" led by János Kádár, who would appeal for Soviet assistance to restore order to Hungary. Kádár

13728-442: The guard tanks. At a few minutes after 11 a.m., General Serov decided to inspect the situation on Kossuth Square, accompanied by several Soviet and Hungarian officers and a tank. Seeing several Soviet soldiers fraternising with the demonstrators, Serov ordered the firing of warning shots, which caused a mass panic on the square. In the ensuing confusion, the Soviet tanks lined up in front of the Parliament building responded by targeting

13871-527: The head of the Budapest party committee, Imre Mező, also was killed. Within hours, news reportage and filmed scenes of the Hungarian anti-communist revolt that occurred in Republic Square were broadcast in the USSR; and the CPSU made propaganda of the images of the communist victims of the Hungarian Revolt. The leaders of the Hungarian Revolution condemned the attack upon the ÁVH headquarters and asked

14014-408: The idea of a revolutionary party since council communists believe that a party-led revolution will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communism and other types of libertarian Marxism such as autonomism are often viewed as being similar to anarchism due to similar criticisms of Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and the rejection of the idea of a vanguard party. As such, it

14157-418: The influence of and control from the USSR, the revolutionaries destroyed the symbols of Communism, such as the red star and Red Army monuments, and burned communist literature. Moreover, Revolutionary militias, such as the 400-man militia led by József Dudás attacked and murdered pro-Soviet Hungarians and ÁVH policemen. The Hungarian Army armoured division stationed in Budapest, commanded by Pál Maléter led

14300-492: The left majority out of the party and about half of its 100,000 members left. In April 1920, the left formed the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) with an initial membership of about 38,000. The move was partly motivated by the fact that the left perceived the KPD's reaction to the Kapp Putsch as weak. The same year, the General Workers' Union of Germany (AAUD) was formed as a revolutionary labor union partly modeled on

14443-437: The local jail, Hungarian Army's Third Corps, led by Major General Lajos Gyurkó , shot seven anti-communist protestors and arrested the organizers of the anti-Soviet protest. On Gyurkó's order Hungarian Air Force fighter planes shot up demonstrators with cannon fire in various towns (see hu:Tiszakécskei sortűz ), earning the praise of János Kádár after the defeat of the "counter-revolution" as "the only division commander who, at

14586-499: The lower levels. After the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, organized council communism disappeared, although a few groups continued in the resistance to the regime . It continued in several small groups in the Netherlands. The Group of International Communists (GIC) became a coordinating center for international debates until the late 1930s. It published the movement's central texts, most prominently Henk Canne Meijer 's "The Rise of

14729-521: The mass demonstration outside the Astoria , accompanied by three Soviet tanks, which the demonstrators climbed on, fraternising with the crews. At the same time a column of Soviet tanks carrying two delegates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) sent to Hungary, Politburo members Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov , as well as KGB Chairman Ivan Serov and Mikhail Malinin , commander-in-chief of

14872-504: The national crisis, PM Nagy would: On 1 November, the Nagy government formally declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and Hungary's international status as a politically non-aligned country. Because of being in power for only ten days, the National Government did not explain their policies in detail; however, contemporary newspaper editorials stressed that Hungary should be a multiparty social democracy uninvolved in

15015-453: The nationalist and anti-communist intelligentsia and by the local bourgeoisie . According to their particular politics, anti-communist Hungarians were either imprisoned in concentration camps or were deported to the USSR or were killed, either summarily or after a show trial ; the victims included the communist politician László Rajk , the minister of the interior who established the ÁVH secret police. The Rákosi government politicised

15158-413: The necessity of a struggle to win workers over and they were more open to flexibility in tactics such as participation in wage struggles, which Schröder dismissed as reformism. In March 1922, this dispute led to a split into an Essen tendency, led by Schröder, and a Berlin tendency, each with its own AAUD affiliate. The Berlin tendency was stronger, but most intellectuals in the KAPD including Gorter joined

15301-547: The offices of the communist newspaper Szabad Nép , the ÁVH guards fired upon unarmed protestors; in turn, anti-communists attacked and drove out the ÁVH policemen from the newspaper building. The Hungarian revolutionaries then avenged themselves against the ÁVH policemen. On 25 October, a crowd gathered in Kossuth Square in front of the Hungarian parliament building, which was a mixed group of civilian demonstrators including women, children, and elderly. Most of them came from

15444-464: The official communist movement and formed a distinct current, according to the historian Marcel van der Linden . Many authors agree with van der Linden in dating the emergence of council communism to the early 1920s, but others, like Philippe Bourrinet and John Gerber , refer to the tendency as the Dutch–German form of left communism during this period and date the advent of council communism to

15587-554: The only Communist Hungarian leader with political credibility among Hungarians, the political actions of the Nagy government allowed the USSR to view the Hungarians' anti-Soviet protests as a popular uprising, rather than as an anti-communist counter-revolution . On 28 October 1956, the Nagy Communist government announced the ceasefire among the nationalist, the anti-communist, and the Communist Hungarians, and that, to resolve

15730-607: The party split, the Essen KAPD and the KAPN formed the Communist Workers' International (KAI). The BRKP and the CWP joined later. The KAI also claimed to have a Russian affiliate, but in reality it only consisted of two Russians living in Berlin. Gorter wrote the KAI's program. Its organizational structure was similar to the Comintern's, but it never attained any significant influence or activity. The split in

15873-402: The period. The new communist government of Prime Minister Imre Nagy was surprised by the rapidity with which the Hungarian Revolution extended from the streets of Budapest to all of Hungary, and the consequent collapse of the old Gerő–Hegedüs communist government. As head of government, PM Nagy asked every Hungarian to exercise political forbearance in order to restore civil order to Hungary. As

16016-523: The policies caused by the government's subordination to the Soviet Union (USSR). The uprising lasted 12 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on 4 November 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter of a million Hungarians fled the country. The Hungarian Revolution began on 23 October 1956 in Budapest when university students appealed to the civil populace to join them at

16159-465: The political purging of Hungarian society. At 02.00 hrs., on 24 October 1956, Soviet defence minister Georgy Zhukov ordered the Red Army to occupy Budapest – the capital city of a Warsaw Pact country. By 12.00 hrs of 24 October, Red Army tanks were stationed outside the parliament building, and Red Army soldiers held the bridges and crossroads that controlled access to Budapest, while Hungarian revolutionaries barricaded streets to defend their city from

16302-553: The preoccupied National Government in Budapest, and assumed various responsibilities of local government from the defunct Communist party. By 30 October , the councils had been officially sanctioned by the Hungarian Working People's Party, and the Nagy government asked for their support as "autonomous, democratic local organs formed during the Revolution". Likewise, workers' councils were established at industrial plants and mines, and many unpopular regulations such as production norms were eliminated. The workers' councils strove to manage

16445-400: The present time assist the revolution [...] The regulation and control of industry is not a matter for a particular class. It is a task for the state. Upon the individual class, especially the working class, lies the responsibility for helping the state in its organizational work." Council communists criticize the Bolsheviks for superseding the soviet democracy formed by the councils and creating

16588-418: The protestors to cease and desist from mob violence. On 30 October, at Budapest, Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov spoke with Prime Minister Imre Nagy who told them that Hungarian geopolitical neutrality was a long-term political objective for the Hungarian People's Republic, which he wanted to discuss with the presidium of the CPSU. Khrushchev considered the geopolitical options for the USSR's resolving

16731-646: The reformist communist Imre Nagy became prime minister (1953–55) of the Hungarian People's Republic, in replacement of the Stalinist Mátyás Rákosi (1946–56), whose heavy-hand style of communist government had proved counter-productive to the interests of the USSR in Hungary. Despite not being prime minister of Hungary, Rákosi remained politically powerful as the General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, and so undermined many of

16874-506: The release of their delegation, a group of police from the ÁVH ( State Protection Authority ) fatally shot several of the students. Consequently, Hungarians organized into revolutionary militias to fight against the ÁVH; local Hungarian communist leaders and ÁVH policemen were captured and summarily executed; and political prisoners were released and armed. To realize their political, economic, and social demands, local soviets (councils of workers) assumed control of municipal government from

17017-444: The revolution to be led by workers' and soldiers' councils. She was also openly critical of the actions of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution, arguing that their approach was anti-democratic and totalitarian. At several times, both in late modern and in recent history , socialists and communists have organized workers' councils during periods of unrest. Examples include: The Paris Commune of 1871 ( La Commune de Paris )

17160-402: The sides when the protestors heard rumours of the arrest and detainment of a delegation of students who had entered the radio station in effort to broadcast their political demands to the entire country. The situation escalated after protestors heard rumours that the ÁVH had killed their delegation of comrades sent to broadcast the anti–Soviet message. In response, from the windows of the building,

17303-536: The speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences to the countries of eastern Europe, expecting that, as Secretary of the CPSU, Khrushchev's anti–Stalinist speech would substantively contribute to the destabilisation of the internal politics of the Warsaw Pact countries. On 14 May 1955, with the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance , the USSR established the Warsaw Pact with seven countries of

17446-458: The spontaneity of the working class. In Italy, Amadeo Bordiga was opposed to electoral politics, but had little regard for councils as the basis for a reorganization of society and advocated vanguard parties as Lenin did. In Russia, the Workers' Opposition criticized the bureaucratization of working-class organizations and sympathized with the KAPD. According to Hans Manfred Bock, the leadership of

17589-489: The symbols of Russian communism in Hungary. On 23 October 1956, the Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party, Ernő Gerő, asked for the USSR's military intervention in order "to suppress a demonstration that was reaching an ever-greater and unprecedented scale", which threatens the national security of the Hungarian People's Republic . To that end, the USSR already had planned the invasion and occupation of Hungary, and

17732-537: The territory of Hungary." In Hungary, on 30 October, consequent to hearing rumours of that the secret police had anti-communist prisoners, and rumours of the ÁVH shooting anti-communist demonstrators in the city of Mosonmagyaróvár armed protestors attacked the ÁVH detachment guarding the headquarters building of the Hungarian Working People's Party in Köztársaság tér (Republic Square), in Budapest. The anti-communists killed more than 20 ÁVH officers and ÁVH conscripts;

17875-571: The territory of the USSR. Fearful of the Red Army's occupation of the Kingdom of Hungary, the royal Hungarian government unsuccessfully sought an armistice with the Allies, which was a betrayal of the Axis powers. The Germans launched Operation Margarethe (12 March 1944) to establish the Nazi Government of National Unity of Hungary; the short-lived puppet government existed for less than a year and Hungary

18018-457: The town of Szarvas , armed guards defended the Hungarian Communist Party and the communist government of Hungary. In the event, the Revolutionaries' successful attacks upon the Parliament collapsed the communist government of Hungary; and First Secretary Ernő Gerő and ex-PM András Hegedüs fled Hungary to the USSR; Imre Nagy became prime minister, and János Kádár became the first secretary of

18161-493: The use of workers' councils as a means for participatory urban planning as well as decentralised planning of the economy. Council Communism is a libertarian Marxist current that advocates for a system of workers councils, as opposed to a communist party or trade union , to coordinate class struggle . Workers directly control production and construct higher organizational bodies from below. Recall-able delegates can be elected from individual workplaces to represent workers on

18304-494: The use of workers' councils both as a means for organising class struggle and for forming the structural basis of a future anarchist society. Writing for the French anarchist journal The New Times  [ fr ] , Russian theorist Peter Kropotkin has praised the workers of Russia for using this form of organisation during the Revolution of 1905. Modern anarchists, such as proponents of participatory economics , advocate for

18447-446: The war. In September 1921, the Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands (KAPN) was formed as a Dutch analog to the KAPD. Gorter was supportive of this decision and became its chief spokesman, but Pannekoek was skeptical because he felt conditions for a new organization were not ripe in the Netherlands. The KAPN was modeled on the KAPD and its program was nearly identical to the German party's. It did not, however, manage to replicate

18590-513: The weapons for themselves. The Hungarian Army sent soldiers to support the ÁVH policemen defending the Magyar Rádió building, but some of the soldiers tore off the red-star insignia on their caps and joined the side of the anti-government protestors. ÁVH policemen used guns and tear gas, while the protestors set police cars afire and distributed weapons captured from the military and police forces, and acted on their anti–Soviet politics by destroying

18733-568: The workers with direct democracy . Council communism Defunct Council communism or Councilism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution , council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy . It is regarded as being strongest in Germany and the Netherlands during

18876-543: The working class's revolutionary dynamic. As Weimar Germany stabilized in the early 1920s and the council movement of the German Revolution ebbed, the disputes became more pronounced. As early as the KAPD's founding congress, Rühle and Franz Pfemfert , the editor of the journal Die Aktion , were opposed to any centralized party structures and the traditional division of the labor movement into political parties and economic labor unions. In his 1920 brochure Revolution

19019-523: The ÁVH ( State Protection Authority ) to purge 7,000 politically dissident " Titoists " and " Trotskyists " from the Communist Party of Hungary , for being "Western agents" whose participation in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) interfered with Stalin's long-term plans for world Communism . Among the Stalinist governments of the Eastern Bloc , the Rákosi government of the Hungarian People's Republic

19162-409: The ÁVH threw tear gas grenades at and fired upon the many anti-communist and nationalist protestors assembled outside the Magyar Rádió building, and soon required resupply and reinforcement. In suppressing the Hungarians' anti-government protestations, the ÁVH smuggled weapons and ammunition in an ambulance for delivery to them at the Magyar Rádió building, but the protestors hijacked the ambulance and

19305-513: Was a revolutionary government that seized control of the city of Paris , which governed the city for two months based on socialist principles through the combined efforts of social democrats , anarchists , Blanquists , and Jacobins . The commune was headed by the Commune Council ( French : conseil de la Commune ), which was composed of delegates who were each subject to immediate recall by their electors. The events of this period has been

19448-564: Was excluded from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in September 1921. She formed the Communist Workers' Party (CWP) in February 1922. It claimed to have 500 members, but likely had far fewer. From its inception, the KAPD was beset by disputes and internal turmoil. The party was composed of a wide variety of political tendencies and it did not create stable organizations, as its proponents feared they could become bureaucratic and hold back

19591-628: Was in Moscow in early November, and was in communication with the Soviet embassy whilst still a member of the Nagy government. The USSR sent diplomatic delegations to other communist governments in Eastern Europe and to the People's Republic of China in effort to avoid misunderstandings that might provoke to regional conflicts, and broadcast propaganda explaining their second Soviet intervention to Hungary. The Soviet diplomats disguised their intentions by engaging

19734-400: Was in a final crisis that would lead to its demise, but that workers were not yet ready for capitalism's end as they were still under the control of reformist leaders. From this they concluded that the KAPD's role was to firmly adhere to strict revolutionary principles so it could lead workers at a later time. Schröder's opponents agreed that capitalism was in decline, but for them this implied

19877-524: Was most repressive of political, sexual, and religious minorities. In 1949, the Rákosi government arrested, tortured and convicted Cardinal József Mindszenty in a show trial for treason against Hungary, for collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Holocaust in Hungary – the religious persecution of Hungarian Jews, and the political persecutions of Hungarian communists and of Hungarian anti-Nazis . Mindszenty had, in fact, been an active opponent of

20020-579: Was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945 after the Siege of Budapest . At the end of the Second World War (1939–1945), the Kingdom of Hungary was in the geopolitical sphere of influence of the USSR. In the political aftermath of the War, Hungary was a multiparty democracy , in which the 1945 Hungarian parliamentary election produced a coalition government composed of Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and

20163-564: Was opposed to electoral politics and trade unionism. These positions placed it to the left of Bolshevik orthodoxy. In 1919, the Communist International (Comintern) was formed to promote Bolshevik policies internationally. In October 1919, Paul Levi , the head of the KPD leadership, pushed through a new party line that followed the Comintern's policies. This line called for participation in parliamentary elections and fighting for control of established labor unions. In effect, this forced

20306-516: Was sacked as prime minister on 18 April. Despite having been out of political favor with the USSR since January 1955, Nagy had refused to perform the requisite communist penance of ' self-criticism ', and refused to resign as PM of Hungary. In February 1956, as the First Secretary of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev initiated the de-Stalinization of the USSR with the speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences , which catalogued and denounced

20449-625: Was that the Hungarian workers' disposable income in 1952 was two-thirds of the disposable income of Hungarian workers in 1938. Besides paying for the Red Army occupation of socialist Hungary, the Hungarians also paid war reparations (US$ 300 million) to the USSR, to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic , and to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . In 1946, the Hungarian National Bank reported that

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