 After
Tito-Stalin split there was a purge of
communists in Eastern Europe
 1949 Polish culture was organized on the
Soviet model
 After Stalin’s death 1953 people began to
voice their anger at the communist party
 1956 Polish leader, Boleslaw Bierut dies with
no one to take his place
 Public
protests erupted, the
party refuses to elect a
Soviet loyal leader
(Rokossowski) and instead
elect Wadislaw Gomulka
 Gomulka had been kicked
out of the communist party
in 1951 for “nationalist”
tendencies and had not
been rehabilitated
 There’s
a surprise visit by Soviet leaders at a
meeting of the Polish Communist Party, the
Poles refuse to let them in
 Soviets accuse them of anti-Soviet behavior
and threaten an invasion.
 Gomulka promises:
(1) Poland will remain in the Soviet Bloc
(2) Communism would stay in power
(3) Poland would remain in the Warsaw Pact
and support Soviet policies
 Persuaded
Soviets to forgive Poland’s debts
to USSR
 Ended collectivization
 Made a compromise with the Roman Catholic
Church (becomes important in the fall of
communism in Poland in the 1980’s)
 Reinstated censorship of the arts
 Public feels betrayed and becomes cynical &
apathetic
Rakosi was an ultra Stalinist leader,
kills or imprisons over 200,000 after
Tito-Stalin split
 After Stalin’s death Rakosi was kicked
out and the more liberal Imre Nagy
took control
 Nagy relaxes censorship and
oppression
 Rakosi regains control and cracks
down on the people. Soviets replace
him with Erno Gero, who was more
liberal

 University
of Budapest
students organize meetings,
inspired by the Poles
 Gero made a Stalinist speech
that infuriates the people
who expected more freedom
 Mass demonstrations occur
against the government, a
statue of Stalin is destroyed
 Hungarian Secret Police fire
on the crowd when they try
to take over the Radio station
 More
demonstrations occur calling for Nagy
to be in power, troops sent to break them up
end up joining them
 Hungarian Politburo panics and appeal to
Soviets for help and appoint Nagy as Prime
Minister, yet keep Gero as the real leader
 Soviets arrive and agree to remove Gero and
replace him with Janos Kadar
 Revolutionary
feelings sweep through
Hungary, inflamed by American radio
broadcasts suggesting help from the West…it
never comes
 October 27th Nagy creates a coalition of
communists, October 28th Soviet forces begin
to withdraw…
 October 31st, Soviets were told Hungry would
become a multi-party state and would leave
the Warsaw Pact, becoming a neutral country
 Soviets
could not afford to let this happen
 Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Chinese
leaders call for Soviet intervention
 France, England and Israel attack Egypt over
the Suez Canal, diverting World attention
away from Hungry
 November 1st Soviets put Kadar in power and
denounce Nagy as a counter-revolutionary
 November
3rd, Hungarian defense minister
was arrested by the Red Army and Soviet
forces advance on Budapest
 Fighting
broke out between protestors and
Red Army, 20,000 are killed
 Nagy seeks refuge in the Yugoslavian embassy
in Budapest. He is lured out by the KGB
 Nagy and his friends were taken to Romania
where they are executed and buried in an
unmarked grave
 180,000 Hungarians flee across the border
into Austria
 Marshall
law is imposed and mass arrests
occur
 Soviets allow Kadar to provide more
consumer goods to the people and a very
gradual relaxation of tension
 The people never forgot or forgave what
happened to Nagy, whose memory helps to
bring down communist rule in 1989
 Worldwide communists begin to question
their beliefs and the Soviet Union
 1956
US spy planes illegally fly over USSR
taking pictures of their defense sites
 A US research program was created to
observe USSR from space
 1957 British explode their 1st hydrogen bomb
 1957 Both USA and USSR have
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s)
that can travel 6,000 miles
 July
1960 US creates the Polaris
Submarine, able to fire nuclear
missiles and get really close to
the USSR
 1 Polaris Sub could carry more
destructive power than ALL the
bombs dropped in WWII
 1961 President Kennedy
announces program to build
nuclear bomb shelters &
pamphlets are given out on how
to survive a nuclear attack
 US
military worked on the Single Integrated
Operational Plan (SIOP), a plan on how to
win a first strike against the Eastern Bloc,
launching 3,200 nuclear missiles at 1,060
targets…= 285 MILLION DEAD
 Eisenhower
and Dulles create policy of MAD:
Mutually Assured Destruction to deter from a
nuclear war. If everyone dies, then don’t
start a war
 Another foreign policy for the US was Massive
Retaliation: If one of our friends is attacked
we will NUKE you.
 Thus the communists should not try anything
or they will destroy the world because we
will nuke everything…
phew, I feel much safer