The Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring
A Comparative Investigation of Causes;
Why 1956, and Why 1968?
By
Linda Broekhof
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree
Master of Comparative History
Utrecht University,
Utrecht, The Netherlands
November 2006
ABSTRACT
The Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring
A Look at Causes;
Why 1956, and Why 1968?
By
Linda Broekhof
While the Hungarian Revolt in 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968 occurred
under substantially different contexts, a comparison of the general causes of
these two uprisings against the Soviet-imposed Communist system will be
presented in this research.
Similarities which have been uncovered in the liberalization processes
during the run-up to the two uprisings consist of; reform leadership, popular
uprising of the intellectuals and economic difficulties, placing strain on the
general population.
This study uses the method of comparative historical analysis to
research three main questions; why was there no revolt in Czechoslovakia in
1956, as there was in both Hungary and Poland? What changed in the
Czechoslovak situation between 1956 and 1968 to produce circumstances
conducive to change? And finally, what conclusions can be drawn from the
overall comparison of the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring?
1
Table of Contents
I.
II.
III.
An Introduction
I. a. A General Introduction
I. b. Thesis Question
I. c. Can Hungary and Czechoslovakia be Compared?
I. d. Term Identification; the meaning of Reform, Revolt,
Revolution and Liberalization
I. e. The Scientific Importance of this Study
I. f. An Argumentative Defense of Structure
I. g. The Historiographical Debate
I. h. The Research Method
The Cold War Context
II. a. The Warsaw Pact; Eastern European Alliances
II. b. Soviet Foreign Policy post-WWII;
National Security and the Satellites
II. c. Western Involvement in the Eastern European Liberalization
Movements and Uprisings
The Hungarian Case
III. a. The Hungarian Revolt;
23rd October-11th November, 1956
III. b. The Political Causes of the 1956 Revolt
1. The Development of Hungarian Communism;
Integration within the USSR, 1944-1949
2. Post-1953 de-Stalinization and Imre Nagy’s New Course
III. c. The Social Causes of the 1956 Revolt
1. The Writer’s Revolt
2. The Student Uprising in Budapest; October 23rd, 1956
III. d. The Economic Causes of the 1956 Uprising
1. Economic and Industrial Development post-WWII
III. e. Western Involvement in 1956
IV. The Czechoslovak Case
IV. a. The Prague Spring; the Events of 1968
IV. b. The Social Causes of the 1968 Uprising
1. The Context of the Czechoslovak Liberalization Movement
2. Social Liberalization; the Writers’ and Student Movements
of the 1960’s
IV. c. The Political Causes of the 1968 Prague Spring
1. Entering the Communist Party-State System;
Czechoslovakia’s Integration within the USSR, 1943-1948
2. Czechoslovakia’s Political Development post-WWII,
1948-1968
2
Pg. 4
Pg. 6
Pg. 7
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Pg. 15
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Pg. 46
Pg. 49
Pg. 52
Pg. 54
Pg. 56
Pg. 59
IV. d. The Economic Causes of the Prague Spring
1. Czechoslovakia’s Economic and Industrial Development
Post-WWII
2. Czechoslovakia’s Economic Liberalization;
the New Economic Model, 1965-1968
IV. e. Western Involvement during the 1968 Prague Spring
V. A Comparison of the Causes of the Liberalization Movements
in Hungary and Czechoslovakia
V. a. The Political Causes of the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring
1. The Context of de-Stalinization, or ‘Thaw’
2. The Importance of Reformist Leadership;
Imre Nagy and Alexander Dubček
V. b. A Comparison of the Social Causes of the Two Uprisings
1. The Intelligentsia and Writer’s Movement
2. The Student Movement
3. The Workers Involvement
V. c. The Economic Causes - Failed Economic Reform;
the New Course and Ota Šik
V. d. The Impact of the Hungarian Revolt
on the Political Decisions of Alexander Dubček in 1968
VI. Conclusion
VI. a. Why Budapest, not Prague? The Events of 1956
VI. b. What changed within Czechoslovakia between 1956 and 1968,
which allowed for the eventual development and implementation
of a political liberalization movement?
VI. c. What Conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of
1956 and 1968?
VII.
Bibliography
VII. a. Works Cited
VII. b. Works Consulted
Pg. 62
Pg. 64
Pg. 65
Pg. 67
Pg. 69
Pg. 70
Pg. 71
Pg. 72
Pg. 73
Pg. 74
Pg. 76
Pg. 77
Pg. 83
Pg. 85
Pg. 91
Pg. 93
VIII. Appendices
VIII. a. Andropov Report, 28th October, 1956
VIII. b. The Brezhnev Doctrine
3
Pg. 96
Pg. 97
Chapter I. Introduction
I. a. A General Introduction
Between the end of the Second World War, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in
1991, the nations of Eastern Europe formed an ideological battleground for the two
superpowers of the Cold War era. While the United Sates implemented its policy of
containment, and sought to undermine Soviet influence in the Eastern bloc countries, the
Soviet Union vehemently protected its grip on the communist authorities in nations such
as Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.
As John Lewis Gaddis states in his work We Now Know1, the main framework
within which we must place the rivalry between the USSR and the United States is that of
(national) security. For the United States security was inextricably linked to democracy,
and cooperation between states. For the USSR their idea of security dealt with building a
buffer, or cordon sanitaire2, between their national borders and the capitalist nations to
the West, through the expansion of their territory and sphere of influence. This is one of
the main reasons the satellite-nations were of the utmost importance to them, and it was
this idea of national security which guided their interactions: “Post-war Soviet foreign
policy towards the satellite countries was motivated by two factors: security
considerations for the empire, and the mission to further world revolution.”3
Both the United States and the USSR realized the importance of the Eastern
European nations; however, it was the Russians who had the advantage at the end of
WWII, seeing as it had been the Red Army which had liberated much of Eastern Europe.
Geir Lundestad, a Norwegian contemporary historian, whose research focuses on transAtlantic relations during the Cold War, specifically between America and Western
Europe, claims that the difference between the two so-called 'empires', that of the United
1 Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know, Rethinking Cold War History. OUP, 1997.
2
O’Sullivan, Donal. Stalin’s Cordon sanitaire; Die Sowjetische Osteuropapolitik und die Reaktionen des
Westens 1939-1949.
3
Rainer, Janos. “The New Course in Hungary in 1953.” Working Paper No. 38. June 2002. The Cold War
International History Project. Pg. 6
4
States and of the Soviet Union, was the fact that one was an empire by invitation, and the
other an empire by imposition4.
It is against the backdrop of this Cold War dynamic that eventually liberalization
and reform movements emerged throughout Eastern Europe. Although many events
during the Cold War have been branded as being pivotal turning points by historians and
political analysts alike, events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and
Berlin as the international focal point of US-Soviet Relations, the focus of this research
will be restricted to the cases of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which will be analyzed in
an attempt to better understand the causes of the Hungarian Revolt in 1956, and the later
Prague Spring of 1968.
After the death of Joseph Stalin on the 5th of March 1953, the USSR was left with
a power vacuum, which was eventually filled by Nikita Khrushchev. It was Khrushchev
who allowed the satellites more freedom, and power, independent of the Soviet Union.
This taste of freedom whet the appetite of many Eastern European nations for more
extensive independence and liberalization, allowing them to imagine a nation free of a
Soviet-imposed communist regime, although not necessarily of the communist system as
such, which is an issue to be dealt with in the following chapters. It was this policy of deStalinization, initiated by Khrushchev, which spawned the revolutionary movements of
nations such as Poland and Hungary in 1956. “The controversial years of 1953-6, the
Soviet-led de-Stalinization, became a period of genuine eruption of popular
dissatisfaction and moral crisis within the elite, and of even mass movements in some
countries.”5 Often this more lenient attitude towards increased social and political
independence is referred to as a “thaw”, a liberalization process which began to evolve
after Stalin’s death, and 1956 is considered a watershed year in the history of statesocialism.6
In Hungary the face of reform became Imre Nagy, who was appointed Premier
shortly after 1953. However, though Khrushchev had seemed less totalitarian in his
Lundestad, Geir. “Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952”. Journal of
Peace research. Vol. 23.
5
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Cambridge, CUP, 1996. Pg. 94-95
6
Ibid. Pg. 95
4
5
control of the satellites than Stalin had, he did not approve of Nagy's proposed reforms,
and had him removed from office on the 18th of April 1955. Nagy was re-instated as the
premier of Hungary on the 24th of October 1956, during the ‘bloody revolt’, in a last, and
as it would turn out futile, attempt to placate the outraged public.
The Prague Spring, on the other hand, was a revolutionary movement which
swept through Czechoslovakia during 1968, and figured Alexander Dubček as its leader.
His goal was not to oust the seated communist government; rather, he wanted to create
'socialism with a human face', as he felt that the Czechoslovak Politburo had lost sight of
its socialist roots, and sought to re-instate many of the original ideals of socialism.
As the Prague Spring did not occur until 1968, while the liberalization movements
in Hungary and Poland reached their peak in 1956, it is possible to assume that these two
preceding uprisings in some way influenced the manner in which the Czechoslovak
government dealt with the popular call for reform in 1968, as well as the manner in which
the Soviet Union responded to Czechoslovakia’s continued process of liberalization. The
fact that Dubček repeatedly reassured Moscow that he had no intention of seceding from
the Warsaw Pact was almost certainly influenced by his interpretation of the Soviet
intervention during the Hungarian uprising; we may assume that Dubček believed that if
he could only prove his dedication to the Soviet Union and the communist system that
Czechoslovakia would not be in danger of such a violent intervention.
Further research regarding the influence of the earlier Hungarian revolt on the
development of the Czechoslovak resistance movement is necessary, and will be dealt
with in Chapter V. Why the liberalization movement took over a decade longer to evolve,
of come to the fore, in Czechoslovakia will be discussed in chapter VI.
I. b. Thesis Question
This research will delve into the causes of the Hungarian revolt and the Prague Spring.
The research question will deal with the causes of the two revolutions, and will look into
whether they can be compared, and contrasted, based on the socio-political circumstances
within the two nations. This will include an investigation into the importance of the
6
Hungarian Revolt to the later Prague Spring, and how it influenced the manner in which
the Czechoslovaks dealt with their growing feelings of discontent towards the reigning
Communist Party-state system.
The question I will be attempting to answer is threefold: firstly, why was there no
uprising in Czechoslovakia in 1956, as there was in Poland and Hungary? Secondly, what
changed within Czechoslovakia, politically, economically and socially, in order for the
eventual Prague Spring to take place in 1968? And, lastly, what conclusions can be drawn
from the comparison of the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring?
To this end I will research the different political, social and economic
developments, in Hungary and Czechoslovakia respectively, during the period leading up
to both liberalization movements. Chapters III and IV, will deal with both nations
individually, after which the similar and disparate causes will be placed side by side in
the comparison, and, finally, a conclusion will be formulated based on the findings of this
research.
I. c. Can Hungary and Czechoslovakia be Compared?
How can a comparison of the events of 1956 and those of 1968 be justified? While the
situations in 1956 differed greatly, as there was no revolt in Czechoslovakia which
resembled those in Poland and Hungary, the developments during the decade that
followed created circumstances in Czechoslovakia, in 1968, which can be considered
similar to those which existed in Hungary in 1956. This will be shown during the two
concluding chapters of this work.
As the situation in Prague developed during the course of 1968, many pointed out
the similarities with the events of 1956 in Budapest. Whereas the opinions as to whether
the developments towards liberalization should be considered positive or negative differ,
there is broad consensus that should liberalization be allowed to run its course, it would
snowball into a popular revolt similar to that of Hungary in October 1956.
7
I. Alexandrov, in an article written in Pravda in July of 1968, implies that the 2,000
words7 manifesto was an attack on socialism, using tactics that “…were resorted to by the
counterrevolutionary elements in Hungary that in 1956 sought to undermine the socialist
achievements of the Hungarian people. Now, 12 years later, the tactics of those who
would like to undermine the foundations of socialism in Czechoslovakia are even more
subtle and insidious.”8 It was thus, not until the actual liberalization movement in
Czechoslovakia was spiraling out of the control of the government, that parallels to the
Hungarian revolt began to be drawn. As Brezhnev saw the situation in Czechoslovakia
evolve he “invoked Hungary in 1956 as proof that assaults on the party always begin with
seemingly benign little groups of writers”9 and that they were out for nothing less than a
destruction of socialism.
The analysis of the political, social and economic factors, contributing to both the
Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring, will attempt to show that there are similar
patterns to be deduced, and that in both cases there was an analogous development
towards a popular reform movement, involving not only the intelligentsia and the
students and writers movements, but also elements within the national government.
I. d. Term Identification; the meaning of Reform, Revolt, Revolution and
Liberalization
Before commencing this study several terms encountered in the academic literature on
this topic must be clarified. The most striking example of the importance of term
identification is the differentiation which is made, in most of the literature, between the
terms revolt and revolution. While in the case of Hungary almost all literature refers to
the 1956 uprising as a 'revolt', the Prague Spring of 1968 is most often referred to as a
Ludvík Vaculík’s Manifest of "2000 Words", a document published in Prague, explaining the democratic
non-communist values of the Masaryk period. It received widespread publication, and inspired many
other intellectuals to take up the call for reforms.
8
Alexandrov, I. “Attack on the Socialist Foundations of Czechoslovakia”. Pravda, July 11th, 1968.
9
Williams, Kieran. The Prague Spring and its Aftermath. CUP, 1997. Pg. 72
7
8
'revolution', or an ‘uprising’, and in both cases the process leading up to the climactic
events of 1956 and 1968 are considered to be ‘reform’ or ‘liberalization’ movements.
As for the literal, historical meaning of the term revolution: “Throughout most of
history, sudden changes in government were treated by historians and political analysts as
cyclical phenomena (hence the term 'revolution').10 It is these attempted changes in
government, or in this case, the changing attitudes towards liberalization and reform
within the existing Communist governments, which will be dealt with.
The term revolt is different in its connotation as it refers to an, in many cases
localized, uprising, which demands some form of change but lacks the long-term
planning, or foresight, which is often ascribed to a revolution. I, however, will not be
incorporating this foresight into my definition of a revolution; as Skočpol states in her
Social Revolutions in the Modern World: “…in any revolutionary crisis, differentially
situated and motivated groups become participants in a complex unfolding of multiple
conflicts that ultimately give rise to outcomes not originally foreseen or intended by any
of the particular groups involved.”11 This unintended ‘snowball’ effect will be illustrated
in Chapters III and IV.
Both revolution and revolt refer to an uprising against, or rejection of, (state)
authority, and in the case-studies used in this research the authority which is being
revolted against is the communist state authority, supported, if not put in place, by the
Soviet Union.
This study will be using the term reform, in the cases of Hungary and
Czechoslovakia, in the sense of liberalization. In both cases the reforms which were
implemented during the run-up to the Revolt in '56, and the Spring in ’68, fell into the
wider context of a liberalization of the communist system. “The word ‘reform’ has been
devaluated by overuse, both in the writing of Western journalists and scholars and in the
rhetoric of Communist leaders. In Lenin’s day, “reformism” was the ultimate
transgression for Communists; now it is their saving grace. In Western usage, the term
10 Mahoney, James and Dietrich Rueschemeyer Eds. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social
Sciences. Cambridge: CUP, 2003. Pg. 52
11
Skočpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. CUP, 1994. Pg. 111 (own emphasis)
9
has been pressed into service to describe everything from a mere adjustment of economic
policy to a fundamental transformation of the system, political as well as economic.”12
The term revolution will be used in the sense of clash between reformists, either
within or outside the government, who call for political change and liberalization in order
to affect more widespread social and economic change, and those elements which seek to
postpone, or avoid such change.
As described by Dale Yoder “…the real revolution occurs far below the surface of
the social life. It is the change in attitudes of the citizenry toward the underlying basis of
the institutions or customs which have come to stand in the way of a tolerable lifeexperience. The real revolution is the change in the social attitudes and values basic to the
traditional institutional order. The political, religious, industrial, or economic changes are
but overt manifestations of the deeper change which has previously taken place.” 13 In
this sense both the Hungarian and Czechoslovak cases present us with this ‘real’
revolution; social attitudes towards the communist institutional order had changed,
something which is particularly evident in the case of Prague.
Aside from categorizing both the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring as
‘interrupted’ revolutions, although this may not have been the initial aim of those who
started the process, this work also makes use of the terms liberalization and reformmovements. Liberalization and reform will be used interchangeably, as ‘reform’ of the
Communist system in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia implied liberalization, and vice
versa.
There is a difficulty in the combination of the terms liberalization and revolution,
as explained by Williams: “Liberalizers were certainly not without ambitions; like
revolutionaries they understood the need to overcome societal disequilibrium and achieve
a new integration of institutions, values, and expectations. Given, however, its aim of
preserving and improving, not destroying, existing institutions, liberalization should not
be studied in the same terms as revolution.”14 While this study will show that the
12
Ash, Timothy Garton. The Uses of Adversity. New York: Random House, 1983. Pg. 279-280
Yoder, Dale. “Current Definitions of Revolution”. American Journal of Sociology, Volume: 32 Issue: 3
(November 1926). Pg. 441
14 Williams, Kieran. The Prague Spring and its Aftermath. Pg. 3
13
10
intention of both Nagy and Dubček was indeed one of preserving the existing Communist
Party-state institution, the period leading up to the two uprisings will be referred to as a
period of liberalization. The time in which the government was still in control of the
reform movement, leading up to the climactic events of the Hungarian Revolt and the
movement of the Prague Spring, after which the Soviets intervened militarily, was a
period of liberalization.
Both Hungary and Czechoslovakia were referred to as satellite-states during the
period under discussion. The term refers to a nation which is dominated politically and
economically by another nation, in this case the Soviet Union. Lastly, the term
comparative historical analysis further referred to as CHA, will be covered during the
explanation of the research method.
I. e. The Scientific Importance of this Study
Central and Eastern European Socialism is now a closed chapter of history.15
- Ivan T. Berend
In many ways the scientific importance of almost all researches can be argued, if they add
new knowledge to the already existing oeuvre on the topic in question. However, seeing
as this is a comparative study, it must also be shown that this research interprets
“significant historical outcomes”16, and that it attempts to explain and interpret
macrosocial variation.17
While it is difficult to establish what a significant historical outcome is, I believe
that we can speak of one in both the cases of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In Hungary
the outcome, Soviet intervention, illustrated both to the Hungarian government and
people, as well as the other Eastern European nations, that the Soviet Union would not
15
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993; Detour from the periphery to the periphery.
Cambridge, CUP, 1996. Pg. ix, Preface.
16
Ragin, Charles C. The Comparative Method; Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Pg. 11
17
Ibid. Pg. 5
11
accept secession from the Warsaw Pact, and would use force to prevent excessive
liberalization. A realization which had a long-lasting impact on the peoples and
governments of East Central Europe who would not succeed in ridding themselves of the
Soviet yoke until the late eighties to early nineties. In the case of Czechoslovakia, while
Dubček believed that the times, and the political opinions of the Soviet Union, had
changed, it was once again shown that a diversion from the path of conservative
communism would not be tolerated. As this research creates a cross-societal comparison,
dealing with political, social and economic aspects in two nations, it may be considered
to encompass the interpretation and explanation of macrosocial variation.
The scientific importance of the study of revolutions, in this case specifically the
anticommunist revolutions throughout Eastern Europe during the second half of the
twentieth century, is to further our understanding of the attempted liberalization which
took place within the communist system during this period, its causes, and the reasons
why liberalization movements took root in one nation, but not in the next.
While, in the earlier days of the CHA of revolutions, much was published on the
more widely known, and studied, cases of revolution, such as the French revolution of
1789 and the Russian revolution of 1917, the revolutionary movements of the Eastern
European Soviet satellites were largely ignored until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
collapse of the Soviet Union. This was partially due to the lack of openness with regards
to Soviet and Eastern European archives and political documents, which have gradually
become available for study during the course of the 1990’s. It was after the lifted
classification of these documents that further analysis and research was made possible,
and led to the creation of New Cold War History, which will be discussed in Chapter I. g.
Comparative historical work on the subject of revolutions has long been of the
utmost importance: “It is striking that those works on the subject of revolutions that have
had lasting influence have been almost exclusively built around comparative casestudies.”18 Works dealing with revolutions, such as Barrington Moore Jr.’s Social Origins
of Dictatorship and Democracy and Samuel P. Huntington’s Political Order in Changing
18 Mahoney, James. Pg. 41
12
Societies, “build their arguments around a series of brief analytic case accounts, rather
than efforts at statistical analysis of large data sets.”19
Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences dates as far back as Adam
Smith, de Tocqueville and Karl Marx. “Even when social science began to organize itself
into separate disciplines in the early twentieth century, comparative and historical
investigation maintained a leading position, figuring in the research of such eminent
scholars as Otto Hintze, Max Weber, and Marc Bloch.”20
A key author with regards to this study is Theda Skočpol. Her work is some of the
most widely respected research in the comparative study of revolutions. Her States and
Social Revolutions21 was a seminal work taking into consideration the importance of the
state as an agent in social and political revolutions. As will be shown during this study,
the state played a major role in inspiring, or, in any case, proliferating, the uprisings in
both Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
While her earlier works might be considered outdated, as States and Social
Revolutions was originally published in 1979, she has since published a collection of
essays, Social Revolutions in the Modern World, which, she states, “…gives me an
opportunity to present…further thinking, to reflect upon, extend, and (here and there)
revise the arguments put forward years ago in States and Social Revolutions, taking into
account what has happened in scholarly debates and world politics since 1979.”22
New questions arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union; did a successful
liberalization depend upon the leadership in Moscow, and its willingness or reluctance to
intervene militarily? Was reform of the communist system even possible?23 Many claim
that, no matter how dedicated or perseverant liberal leaders such as Dubček and Nagy
were, the Soviet Party-state ‘system’ did not possess a capacity for fundamental change,
and that thus all reform movements were doomed to failure.
19
Ibid.
Ibid. Pg. 3
21
Skočpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: CUP, 1979.
22
Skočpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Pg. 4
23
Cohen, Stephen F. “Was the Soviet System Reformable?” Slavic review, Volume: 63, Issue: 3 (Autumn
2004), pp: 459-488.
20
13
Hopefully a comparative historical analysis of the two cases will give us insight into the
mechanics of these Eastern European liberalization movements, whilst remaining specific
enough to the relevant case-studies not to lose sight of the uniqueness of each nation. I
will expand on the method of CHA in Chapter I. h.
I. f. An Argumentative Defense of Structure
The general structure applied to this research is a chronological discussion of the causes
of the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring.
Chapter II will look briefly at external influences on the development and
proliferation of the Eastern European liberalization movements and governments; the
Warsaw Treaty Organization, and how the USSR consolidated its power throughout
Eastern Europe, Soviet foreign policy and U.S. involvement. These three sub-chapters
will help place the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring into the wider context of
Cold War dynamics.
Chapter three looks at the Hungarian Revolt, first dealing with the events of 1956,
after which the social, political and economic causes are listed by level of importance;
most important causes first, other causes in decreasing order of importance. As, for
Hungary, the political causes were the main catalyst of the events of 1956, its
incorporation into the communist system and the consecutive de-Stalinization of the
1950’s will be discussed first. After this, the social contributors to the revolt; namely the
student and writers’ uprisings will be analyzed. Lastly, the economic developments
which influenced popular support for the reform movement, and any international
involvement which could have contributed to the revolt will be looked at.
Chapter four deals with Czechoslovakia in a similar fashion; the actual events of
the Prague Spring in 1968 are recounted first, after which the causes are traced back in
order of importance. Again, the chapter is sub-divided into political, social and economic
causes. The social causes are analyzed first; as it will be shown that these were of
paramount importance, after which the political and the economic causes will be dealt
14
with. Similar to chapter three, international involvement is discussed last, as this was of
lesser importance than the internal developments.
Chapter five consists of the comparison of the causes of the Prague Spring and the
Hungarian Revolt. It is sub-divided into three sections; social, political and economic
causes, which are in turn sub-divided into the relevant factors for comparison.
After placing the causes side by side, I will be able to answer my stated thesis
questions in the conclusion, Chapter VI. This final chapter answers three questions;
firstly, why there was no revolt in Prague in 1956, as there was in Hungary. Secondly,
what changed in the Czechoslovak situation between 1956 and 1968 which allowed for a
reform movement to take hold there a decade after it had done so in both Poland and
Hungary. And, lastly, the conclusions which can be drawn from the comparison between
Hungary in 1956 and Prague in 1968 are enumerated.
I. g. The Historiographical Debate
As the Cold War was the major conflict, which spanned most of the second half of the
twentieth century, it is a favorite topic amongst historians and political-theorists alike. It
would be impossible, considering the scope of this research, to delve too deeply into the
vast amount of literature published on the entirety of the Cold War period, thus I will
mainly limit myself to the work specific to Eastern Europe.
Much of what has been published with regards to Eastern Europe has focused on
the individual development of the different nations, and one of the goals of this research
is to contribute to the comparative work being done on East Central Europe, specifically
concerning the liberalization and reform movements which evolved throughout the
1950’s and 60’s in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
As one of the main historical contexts with regards to the emerging liberalization
and reform movements in Eastern Europe, research with regards to the process of deStalinization provides a background against which the Prague Spring and the Hungarian
Revolt can be studied. Authors such as Ivan T. Berend and Jan Foitzik have recently done
extensive research regarding de-Stalinization, Both Foitzik’s Entstaliniserungskrise in
15
Ostmitteleuropa 1953-1956, and Berend’s Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993,
discuss the effects of de-Stalinization on the Communist system, and the peoples and
governments of Eastern Europe, and will be referred to during the course of this research.
Although much has been written on the study of revolutions, and much has been
written on Eastern European subjection to communism, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact
historiographical debate which combines these two aspects of Eastern European history.
Comparative historical work dedicated solely to the topic of anticommunist revolts such
as those in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland has become more prevalent over the
past decade, as the dissolution of the Soviet Union has led to an increased interest in the
history of the Eastern Bloc nations, as well as aforementioned access to formerly closed
Soviet and Eastern European archives.
There are four main currents of thought with regard to the historiography of the
Cold War; the traditionalist, the revisionist and the post-revisionist, as well as the current
New Cold War History.
The traditionalist view believes the start of the Cold War was a result of Stalin's
violation of the Yalta accord, and the imposition of Soviet dominated governments on
Eastern European satellites, it hardly takes into account the role of the United States, and
other circumstances, and is currently believed to be both outdated, as well as being biased
in favor of the United States.
The revisionist interpretation is greatly inspired by the Marxist tradition, and can
be illustrated by Walter LaFeber's work America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945198424. It is grounded in the idea that the mounting tensions and conflict between the
United Sates and the Soviet Union were based mainly on economic interests, rather than
ideological ones.
One of the first, and perhaps most known, post-revisionists is John Lewis Gaddis,
who attempts an analysis based on the policies and a actions of both the USSR and the
united States, their disparate beliefs on national security, ideology, and the fact that many
of the most pivotal moments throughout the Cold War period were based on
misinterpretations of each others actions and discourse, a theory which is proliferated in
24 LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1984. Knopf, 1987.
16
his work We Now Know. Recently there has been staunch criticism of Gaddis’ latest work
The Cold War; A New History25, in particular by Tony Judt, who argues that, while
Gaddis claims to treat both the United States and the Soviet Union equally, he is more
knowledgeable on the topic of American statesmen and foreign policy, and thus
downplays the Soviet perspective. He also does not do justice to the Eastern European
nations under the Soviet yoke, treating them briefly, if at all, and in some cases even
misinforming his readership.26
The causes of the Hungarian revolt and the Prague Spring will be discussed from
a New Cold War historical standpoint; mainly due to the fact that, as described above, in
recent years information on both the American and the Soviet influence on these
revolutions has become more readily available, and archives which had previously been
closed to the public have now become accessible. The New Cold History departs from
the premise that “…the Cold War was not caused by one side or another, but by the
conflicting and unyielding ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union.”27
The three older historiographies of the Cold War, the traditional, revisionist and
post-revisionist interpretations, have largely become obsolete, and “there is an increasing
consensus that shapes Cold War historiography. While scholars may have been blinded
by loyalty and guilt in examining the evidence regarding the origins of the Cold War in
the past, increasingly, scholars with greater access to archival evidence on all sides have
come to the conclusion that the conflicting and unyielding ideological ambitions were the
source of the complicated and historic tale that was the Cold War.”28
I. h. The Research Method
The research-method which will be used for this study is comparative historical analysis,
or CHA. “In social science the term comparative method typically is used in a narrow
25
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. Penguin, 2005.
Judt, Tony. “A Story Still to be told”. The New York Review of Books. Volume 53, Number 5, March
23, 2006.
27
White, T. J. “Cold War Historiography: New Evidence Behind Traditional Typographies”. International
social science review, Volume: 75, Issue: 3/4 (June 1, 2000). Pg. 36
28
Ibid. Pg. 42
26
17
sense to refer to a specific kind of comparison – the comparison of large macrosocial
units.”29 In this case, the revolutionary movements in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. This
study will be led by “the twin goals of comparative social science – both to explain and
interpret macrosocial variation.”30
One of the other factors which must be kept in mind during this study is that of
causal complexity. “Whenever social scientists examine large-scale social change, they
find that it is usually combinations of conditions that produce change.”31 This idea must
be applied to both the revolt in Hungary and the Prague Spring. “The basic idea is that a
phenomenon or a change emerges from the intersection of appropriate preconditions –
the right ingredients for change. In the absence of any one of the essential ingredients, the
phenomenon - or the change - does not emerge.”32 This will be investigated during the
discussion of why there was no successful liberalization movement, or uprising in
Czechoslovakia in 1956; which of these so-called ‘appropriate preconditions’ was
absent?
Although some might argue that to produce valuable results a much larger set of
case studies must be used, it has been shown that large-N studies have been relatively
unsuccessful.33 Perhaps this is due to the fact that large-N studies seek mainly to
generalize their results, and in many cases tend to lose sight of the individuality and
uniqueness of their case-studies. This is something I wish to avoid; I wish to remain casespecific, whilst at the same time seeking to generalize to a certain extent, staying within
the Eastern European sphere of anticommunist revolts. “...Case oriented methods force
investigators to consider their cases as whole entities. Researchers examine cases as
wholes, not as collections of variables.”34 This is precisely why I feel the comparative
method is suited for this study of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, as it “forms the core of
29
30
31
32
Ragin, Charles C. Pg. 1
Ibid. Pg. 5
Ibid. Pg. 24.
Ibid. Pg. 25. (own emphasis)
33
Ibid.
34 Ragin. Pg. 52
18
the case-oriented strategy”35 and asks “questions about empirically defined, historically
concrete, large-scale social entities and processes.”36
As an example of the successful application of the comparative method to the
study of revolutions, Skočpol can be referred to once again. She explains in her work
Social Revolutions in the Modern World; “As the mode of multivariate analysis to which
one necessarily resorts when there are too many variables and not enough cases,
comparative analysis is likely to remain the only scientific tool available to the
macrosociologist who is interested in national political conflicts and developments, and
who is also sensitive to the enormous impacts of world-contextual developments.”37
There are some limitations, however, to the application of the case-oriented
comparative method, the most important being the difficulties attached to the analysis of
a case as a whole: “Because case-oriented methods compare cases with each other and
consider combinations or conjunctures of causal conditions, the potential volume of the
analysis increases geometrically with the addition of a single case, and it increases
exponentially with the addition of a single causal condition.”38 While on the one hand
this offers the opportunity to become intimately familiar with all the aspects of a certain
case, thus allowing for an in-depth comparison of, in this case, the liberalization
movements, it also limits the number of cases which can be encompassed in a single
research. Hopefully the application of CHA will produce valuable insights with regards
to the similarities and differences between the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring.
35 Ibid. Pg. 12
36 Ibid. Pg. 13
37
Skočpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Pg. 114
38 Ragin. Pg. 51
19
Chapter II. The Cold War Context
II. a. The Warsaw Pact; Eastern European Alliances
In order to fully understand the degree to which both Czechoslovakia and Hungary were
subject to the USSR, the manner in which the Soviet Union sought to forge an intimate
bond between the 'mother' nation and its satellites must first be examined.
One of the most important ways in which this was affected was the signing of the
Warsaw pact in 1955. It is widely accepted that this treaty was signed to counteract the
perceived threat of the western NATO agreements; one of the most striking illustrations
of this is the signing of the Warsaw Pact in the same month that “West Germany was
formally granted full sovereignty, NATO membership, and the right to rearm.”39 The
capitalist threat seemed to be gaining ground, and Khrushchev realized he needed a
written agreement to solidify Soviet ties with East and Central Europe.
The official title of the Warsaw Pact was the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation
and Mutual Assistance, and it included all central and eastern European communist states
aside from Yugoslavia. One of the clauses in the Pact stated that there was to be a policy
of non-interference in the internal affairs of the different signatories, however, as will be
shown in chapters III and IV, the Soviet Union broke with this when it intervened in the
both the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring.
Another important effect of the Treaty was a factor which also contributed to the
interventions in the rebellious member states: “This alliance gave the Red Army a legal
right to be present in the Eastern European nations.”40
One of the reasons for the successful maintenance of the Warsaw Treaty
Organization, as described by Gaddis, is the existence of a bi-polar world during the Cold
War period: “...alliances, in the end, are the product of insecurity; so long as the Soviet
Union and the United States each remain for the other and for their respective clients the
39 Walker, Martin. The Cold War. Vintage, 1994. Pg. 104.
40 Havenaar, Ronald. Van Koude Oorlog naar Nieuwe Chaos. Amsterdam: Oorschot, 1993. Pg. 122
20
major source of danger in the world, neither superpower encounters very much difficulty
in maintaining the coalitions it controls.”41
In the early days of the Warsaw Pact, it was hailed as the Eastern EuropeanSoviet counterpart to NATO, based on similar ideals, however, “...after 1956 no one
could maintain the illusion that it was an Eastern European NATO: an alliance based on
voluntary participation and democratic methods of operation.”42 It is interesting to note
that the USSR felt the express need to publicly portray the Warsaw Pact Organization as
a democratic organization, based upon mutual assistance, while, as argued by Lundestad,
the Soviet empire was one of imposition rather than invitation. This illustrates on what
unstable foundations the Soviet empire throughout East and Central Europe was built, as
the USSR itself felt the need to imitate, at least outwardly, the ‘empire by invitation’ of
the United States.
While the Warsaw Pact in 1955 can be seen as the major treaty binding East and
Central European nations to Moscow, there had been a history of earlier attempts: “From
1948 communism in East Central Europe began to assume its extreme Stalinist form,
characterized by rigid uniformity in following the Soviet model and in subordination to
Moscow. A network of treaties, going back to the Soviet-Czechoslovak alliance of 1943
bound all the countries to Moscow and to each other”43 As early as 1949 economic
consolidation had been attempted; “the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA
or COMECON) was set up in response to the Marshall Plan, but remained inactive for
more than a decade. Its subsequent role of integrating the satellite countries through a
division of labor led to friction and failed to produce desired results.”44
Hungary became of specific strategic importance to the Soviet Union after the
signing of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955, which essentially created Austria as a
neutral, demilitarized state, and ended its occupation. This turned Hungary into one of the
most Western states within the Warsaw Treaty Organization, and the announcement by
Imre Nagy to withdraw from the organization during the Hungarian Revolt in 1956, after
41
42
43
44
Gaddis. The Long Peace. Pg. 222
Gaddis. We Now Know. Pg. 211
Wandycz, Piotr S. The Price of Freedom. London: Routledge, 2001. Pg. 247
Ibid. Pg. 248.
21
he had failed to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary, is widely
considered to be one of the catalysts for Soviet intervention; the USSR could not stand to
lose Hungary as an outpost for its Warsaw Pact troops, or part of Stalin’s so-called
“cordon sanitaire”.45
The crushing of the Hungarian revolt proved to the Warsaw Pact signatories that
the treaty was no guarantee for sovereignty and non-intervention, and that, in fact, much
of the text of the treaty was meaningless when it came down to the Soviet Union
protecting its national security, which in most cases involved the deployment of Red
Army forces on foreign soil.
II. b. Soviet Foreign Policy post-WWII; National Security and the Satellites
Soviet foreign policy after WWII revolved around its relations with, specifically, the
United States, as it was seen by the USSR as the largest threat to national security. This
perceived threat contributed to Moscow’s desire to create an Eastern European bufferzone, or ‘cordon sanitaire’, between Russian national borders, and the Western European
NATO allies, thus influencing the fate of nations such as Poland, Hungary and
Czechoslovakia. Soviet economic relations with these nations were based on a system
somewhat similar to that of supply and demand, with the major issue for the satellites
being their dependence on Soviet supply of raw materials, such as crude oil, for the reestablishment of their heavy industry which had taken a blow during the Second World
War.
There were two ways in which the Soviet Union exuded power over its satellites;
the first being the Comecon, which provided the framework for cooperation between the
planned economies of Eastern Europe, thus involving the USSR even more in the internal
affairs of its dependants. The second step towards assuring both the dependence of these
satellite-states on the Soviet Union, and safeguarding their alliance, was the creation of
the Warsaw Pact, the political counterpart to the Comecon, as described previously.
45
O’Sullivan, Donal. Stalins Cordon Sanitaire; Die Sowjetische Osteuropapolitik und die Reaktionen des
Westens 1939-1949. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2003.
22
While these agreements between Russia and the Soviet satellites were important in
increasing Stalin’s hold on Eastern Europe; “The effective takeover of the region was
accomplished neither by the entry of Soviet troops nor by the signing of bilateral
agreements guaranteeing the preponderance of Soviet interests, but rather by the
establishment of the political monopoly of communist party states.”46 Initially Stalin left
East Central Europe with an air of independence and sovereignty, an air which quickly
evaporated, as it became clear that “political priorities were set in Moscow by Stalin”47
and that “First secretaries were appointed and dismissed direct from Moscow, and all
appointments at the Politburo level had to be cleared with the Soviets.”48
In order to justify or legitimate these vertical imperial relationships, the Soviet
Union turned to Marxist theories of history. These theories include the idea of different
stages of historical development, the Soviet Union obviously being the more developed,
and the satellites looking up to it as an example.49
II. c. Western Involvement in the Eastern European Liberalization Movements and
Uprisings
Although direct U.S. involvement in Eastern European affairs after the Second World
War can be considered limited, there was extensive intelligence on the internal
developments of nations such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
U.S. Anxieties about a possible communist revolution which would spread
throughout the world, following the lines of the so-called domino-effect, had existed
within the United States since George F. Kennan’s “X-article” published in 1947:
“...when it became apparent in the months following the end of World War II that the
Soviet Union was still determined to dominate communists beyond its borders, anxieties
about a renewed crusade for world revolution – and about the possible inability of the
46
Janos, Andrew C. East Central Europe in the Modern World; the Politics of the Borderlands from pre- to
post-Communism. Pg. 231
47
Ibid. Pg. 234
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid. Pg. 236
23
United States to deal with it – began to surface once again.”50 As Gaddis also explains,
the United States quickly became aware of the importance of interfering in the
relationship between the Soviet Union and its satellites; this became a consistent element
in U.S. foreign policy and cold war strategy.
One of the main, and earliest, ways in which the United States attempted to
destabilize the relationship between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites
was the offering of Marshall Plan aid. “A second manifestation of the 'wedge' strategy
involved the use of Marshall Plan aid to strain the relationship between Moscow and its
satellites.”51 The offer of aid did not come as a complete surprise to the Soviet Union, it
did not even appear to be immediately and decisively rejected; “Stalin hoped for a
massive American reconstruction loan after WWII, and even authorized Molotov early in
1945 to offer acceptance of such assistance in order to help the United States stave off the
economic crisis that Marxist analysis showed must be approaching.”52 However, when
the offer was finally made in June of 1947, it seemingly created a lot of confusion within
the Politburo, which began questioning the sincerity of the offer, and began considering
the possibility that it was only a device to help the United States integrate Eastern
European countries into the Western economic system and gain political influence and
support throughout these nations. At first Stalin advised the Eastern Europeans to attend
the Paris conference, and then to withdraw from the meeting. Poland and Czechoslovakia
had “already announced their intention to attend. The Poles quickly changed their mind
but the Czechs procrastinated, more because of confusion than determined resistance.”53
This was to become Czechoslovakia's wake-up call, realizing its dependence on the
Soviet Union. As Gaddis states: “Stalin's intentions were now clear to all including
himself: there would be no East European participation in the Marshall Plan, or in any
other American scheme for the rehabilitation of Europe. “I went to Moscow as the
50
51
52
53
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Long Peace. Pg. 149.
Ibid. Pg. 152
Gaddis. We Now Know. Pg. 41
Ibid. Pg. 42
24
Foreign Minister of an independent sovereign state,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan
Masaryk commented bitterly, “I returned as a lackey of the Soviet government.”54
After the United States had failed to incorporate the Eastern European nations into
the Marshall Plan, it became clear that the Soviet Union would not stand for any
interference within its ‘sphere of influence’. The nuclear threat became an overshadowing
factor in relations between East and West, causing the United States to pull back on the
reigns when conflict eventually did arise between the Soviet Union and its satellites. It
was clear that overt U.S. support, let alone intervention, in any Eastern European attempt
at comprehensive liberalization which might lead to secession from the Warsaw Pact
would be interpreted by the Soviet Union as a direct threat to its national security, and
could possibly trigger the use of nuclear force, which is something both Washington, as
well as the Kremlin, sought to avoid. “It seems inescapable that what has really made the
difference in inducing this unaccustomed caution has been the workings of the nuclear
deterrent.”55
54 Ibid.
55 Gaddis. The Long Peace. Pg. 230.
25
Chapter III. The Hungarian Case
Defeating these enemies [in Iraq] will require sacrifice and continued patience - the kind
of patience the good people of Hungary displayed after 1956.
--U.S. President George W. Bush56
With celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolt underway in
Budapest, there is a renewed, if not continued, realization of the significance of the 1956
uprising, not solely for the events which took place across the Soviet Union in 1989,
1990, but also as a parallel to current events. The above statement was made by U.S.
President George W. Bush on June 22, 2006, in a speech which drew a comparison
between the Hungarian struggle for democracy and freedom, and the U.S.-headed war in
Iraq. “Earlier in the day, Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom told Bush that the United
States and Hungary share the same values that Hungarians fought for in 1956”57, values
such as freedom, self-determination, democracy and human rights.
In this chapter the events of October 1956 will first be described briefly, after
which the causes which led to the revolt will be enumerated in descending order of
importance. The most important factor contributing to the events of 1956 was the context
of de-Stalinization, which led Nagy to believe that extensive liberalization would be
accepted, especially after Gomułka’s successes in Poland, and Khrushchev’s speech at
the Twentieth Party Congress denouncing Stalin’s personality cult. After the political
causes, the social and economic causes which aided the liberalization movement will be
looked at successively.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “U.S.: Bush Honors Hungarian Uprising, Draws Parallels to Iraq.”
<http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/06/7309c080-d2af-42d6-905f-b6de3695f556.html>
57
Ibid.
56
26
III. a. The Hungarian Revolt; 23rd October – 11th November, 1956
58
Symbols of Communism became targets for Hungarian freedom fighters in October 1956.
“The outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution of October 1956 marked the climax of a
political crisis that had been going on for more than three years.” 59 The rally at the Bem
Square in Budapest, October 23rd 1956,60 had originally been staged by students to voice
their support for the Gomułka regime. However, as the day went on, “a spontaneous,
elemental, genuine people’s uprising erupted.”61 The Hungarian party-leadership,
realizing their precarious situation, and the need to regain control immediately called for
a Soviet intervention to assist in suppressing the uprising: “The Hungarian government
called in Soviet troops to suppress the rebellion, which had turned violent towards the
evening. Hence, the first Soviet intervention in Hungary on October 23-24 was actually
an invasion by invitation.”62 It was Hegedüs who sent the request for Soviet
BBC News. “The Hungarian Revolt in Pictures”. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6070552.stm>
59 Kecskemeti, Paul. The Unexpected Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961. Pg. 119
60
Berend. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 122
61
Ibid.
62
Granville, Johanna. “Satellites or Prime Movers? Polish and Hungarian Reactions to the 1956 Events:
New Archival Evidence”. East European Quarterly; Winter 2001, Vol. 35, Issue 4. Pg. 442
58
27
‘assistance’.63 It was because of this immediate retaliation by the Soviet army that the
uprising turned into a “desperate fight for independence.”64
On the second day of the uprising, what had started out as a peaceful
demonstration, turned into a march on Parliament, where the Hungarian State Security
Authority, or ÁVH, opened fire on the crowd. This reinvigorated the violent uprising
which lasted for nineteen days. The streets of Budapest became a veritable war-zone,
scattered with “destroyed and newly built barricades, burned out Soviet tanks and
armored vehicles, burned bodies of Soviet soldiers and hundreds and hundreds of young
people, insurgents who had fallen in the fight.”65
The Soviet Union had had a contingency plan in place ever since April of 1956, a
plan which took on the solid form of Soviet intervention as they witnessed Ernö Gerö
losing both the support and the control of his Party. The 23rd of October Soviet troops
were sent into Budapest, troops which were already stationed in Hungary, and had had
the task of defending the Soviet Union's Western borders against NATO interference.
Suddenly the objective of the troops changed completely, and there were reports of
confusion from Budapest as to how to respond to the insurgents. Some Soviet tanks even
acted as an escort for the rebels. However, orders quickly became clear, and the Soviet
tanks turned on the protesters.
The night of the 23rd, after a day of rioting and insurgency, the Central Committee
appointed the reformist Imre Nagy Prime Minister, in the hope that this would placate the
masses. “For the insurgents and most of the republic, he embodied hope and change. For
the obtuse and obstinate leaders of the old regime, he was a life raft, a reprieve – that
might enable them to carry on without or with only little change.”66
Nagy's first move was to urge the revolutionaries to lay down their arms, he called
for a halt to the violence which had erupted, but his calls fell on deaf ears, especially
since Soviet tanks were already rolling through the streets of Budapest. “Shifting his
allegiance to the side of the rebels, the new Hungarian Party leader, Imre Nagy,
63
See Appendix. A.
Berend. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 122-123
65
Ibid. 123
66 Molnár, Miklós. From Béla Kun to János Kádár. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1990. Pg. 164
64
28
negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Budapest on 28 October.”67 The
Communist intellectuals joined Nagy in his call for a peaceful end to the uprising; while
they had, for a long time, been the most fervent proponents of revolution, they were
shocked by the violent turn the movement had taken.
On the 30th October Nagy set up a coalition government, he also requested
reassurance from Yuri Andropov, Soviet ambassador to Hungary, that the Soviet Union
would not violently crush the rebellion; reassurance which he was given, even though
Andropov knew it was an empty promise. The Soviet Union would not stand for such a
disturbance.
There had been extensive debates in the Soviet Presidium regarding full-scale
intervention, Khrushchev opposing, and Molotov advocating, military intervention.
Intervention seems to have been decided upon even before Nagy announced Hungary's
intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, but most likely this was the ‘point-of-noreturn’ for the Soviet Union. “His [Nagy's] repudiation of the Warsaw Pact and his
dramatic message on the radio that the Hungarians were resisting the Soviet troops came
after the die had been cast.”68
Khrushchev feared a domino-effect of his own, one which would lead to a loss of
control over the satellites, and as the world’s attention was drawn to the mounting Suez
crisis, with Israel invading Egypt on the 29th of October 1956, he quickly secured
presidium approval for a military intervention to put a halt to the Hungarian uprising.
While Nagy was initially under the impression that he could still barter his way out of a
full-blown Soviet military intervention, his announcement of Hungary’s withdrawal from
the Warsaw Pact on the 1st of November proved to be the final straw for Khrushchev and
the Russian Politburo. On the 4th of November 1956 new Soviet troops were sent into
Hungary, this intervention was a coordinated strike effort, including ground troops, air
strikes and tank units; “...after three days of fighting in which some 20,000 Hungarians
and 3,000 Soviet troops were killed, Hungary was safely back in the Soviet camp.” 69 By
67 Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know. Pg. 210
68 Wandycz. Pg. 252
69 Ibid.
29
the 11th the Soviet Union announced its victory over the Hungarian ‘rebels’ or ‘freedom
fighters’.
The intervention in Hungary had certainly proved that the Soviet Union's 'empire'
was one of imposition, not of invitation; “...even the briefest experiment with deStalinization had set off centrifugal tendencies in Eastern Europe that ended in a
bloodbath.”70 After the intervention “Nagy was singled out as the principal object of
vengeance, and was executed with his closest associates”71 which happened on the 16th of
June, 1958.
III. b. The Political Causes of the 1956 Revolt
The major political cause of the Hungarian revolt was the process of de-Stalinization,
which had led politicians and intellectuals alike to believe a liberalization of the Party and
the communist system would be accepted by Moscow. Had there not been a general
tendency towards de-Stalinization, had Khrushchev not denounced Stalin’s personality
cult at the Twentieth party Congress, and had Poland not seen a relatively successful
liberalization under Gomułka, the Hungarian public, and the opposition within the
government, would most likely not have pushed for extensive reform.
The political integration of Hungary within the Communist system will first be
discussed, after which the political reforms brought about by the process of deStalinization will be explored.
III. b. 1. The Development of Hungarian Communism; Integration within the
USSR, 1944-1949
“The entry of Soviet troops into Hungary in the autumn of 1944 made the Hungarian
Communist Party virtually the decisive political power in the country.”72 While the
70 Ibid.
71 Wandycz. Pg. 252
72 Kecskemeti Pg. 9
30
Soviet Union could have forcefully, and immediately, put in place a totalitarian
communist government, it decided against this, allowing for a multi-party system, a
combination of both communist and non-communist parties. One of the reasons for this is
most likely the fear of alienating Western governments, as the war had not yet been won,
and both the United States and Great Britain still had a vast military force on the
continent.
One of the differences between Hungary and Czechoslovakia at the point of the
Communist seizure of power is the fact that “Hungary had almost no indigenous
communist movement to speak of”73 while in Czechoslovakia there had been an existing
communist party. Moreover, the Communist party of Hungary had been banned since
1919; “It was particularly impotent even as illegal parties go, because the short-lived
Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 had left unhappy memories in all social classes.”74
There were several communist party dictatorships, among them East-Germany, Hungary,
Poland and Bulgaria, “…which were said to have come to power, not through their
parties’ efforts, but through having been installed by the Soviet Union’s occupying
military forces.”75
Béla Kun's regime was a blemish on Hungary’s Communist past and during the
interbellum, the Hungarian Communist Party consisted mainly of the 1919 leadership in
exile in the Soviet Union.76 While there had been attempts during the 1920's and thirties
to reconcile the exiled leadership with sympathizers inside Hungary, little progress was
truly achieved until the Second World War, during which support for the communist
party gained ground, promoting peace, as well as antagonism towards the Nazi regime.
When Soviet troops finally entered Hungary in 1944, the Communists realized
they had to seize the moment to “launch political and organizational activity in the open
and on a grand scale.”77 While this was their intention, they struggled with the difficulty
of having only the exiled communist leadership of 1919 to work with, and no popular
73 Ibid. Pg. 10
74 Ibid. Pg. 10
75
Booker, Paul. Non-Democratic Regimes. Pg. 83
76 Kecskemeti. Pg. 11
77 Ibid.
31
support to speak of. “The group returning from Moscow – Rákosi, Ernö Gerö, Mihály
Farkas, József Révai, Zoltán Vass, and a few others, constituted the elite, and treated the
indigenous contingent with contempt.”78 The Moscow group reserved almost all of the
top positions within the new Hungarian Communist Party, as well as in the Politburo, for
themselves. There was a lot of shuffling of positions; ex-prisoners of concentration
camps, members of the underground party, as well as those returning from Moscow all
had to find a way in which to sculpt the new communist party into a heterogeneous
whole.
One of the most important positions was that of Minister of Agriculture, to which
Imre Nagy was appointed in 1944; “Possession of the Ministry of Agriculture was
essential to the Communists for reasons of political strategy: they counted upon winning
a mass following among the peasantry by taking credit for radical land reform, parceling
out Hungary's big landed estates among the landless.”79 The significance of Imre Nagy
will be discussed further on; first the manner in which the Communist Party took control
of Hungarian politics will be dealt with.
“Between the end of May 1946 and May 1947, most of the important
Smallholders leaders were arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the democratic
republic, charges for which evidence was manufactured by the police.”80 The
Smallholders Party had been one of the largest in Hungary, polling 57 percent of the vote
in the 1945 elections. Through this 'forced merger' the Communist Party sought to end
the Social Democratic Party. The so-called unification congress, held in June of 1948,
saw the remainder of the party vote for merger with the Communist Party. It was through
these ruthless tactics that the Hungarian Communist Party was able to oust both its main
political rivals. “The only thing that remained to be done to make the one-party regime an
accomplished fact was to hold elections with a single list of candidates.”81 The elections
held in 1949 saw over 94 percent of all voters voting for the single list. This process, as
78
79
80
81
Ibid. Pg. 14
Ibid. Pg. 15
Ibid. Pg. 17
Ibid. Pg. 17
32
Booker calls it, was one of ‘electoral misappropriation of power’82; though still adhering
to some superficial façade of the democratic process, the Communist sneaked their way
into Hungarian politics. The manner in which the Communists came to power after
WWII in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia, will be explored in chapters V and VI, as
this contributed to the public sentiment, whether positive or negative, and thus also to the
popular basis of the respective reform movements.
After the general victory in the 1949 elections, the Communist Party set out to
purge all unwanted members from its constituencies; “....virtually the entire indigenous
element in the Party was liquidated.”83 The purges lasted from 1949 to 1951. It was not
until Stalin's death in 1953 that the purged members of the Hungarian Communist Party
were set free, and in many cases exonerated from the accusations against them: “Those
responsible for the purges suddenly found themselves under attack; Stalin's death had
ushered in the period of the 'anti-purge purges.'”84 As Paul Kecskemeti goes on to state;
“The division of the Party's ranks caused by the reappearance of the purge victims was an
essential part of the “elite pattern” of the revolution.”85
“Stalin's successors made drastic changes in the government of Hungary: they
substituted dual leadership for Rákosi's centralized, one-man rule. By doing this they
unwittingly undermined the stability of the Hungarian Communist regime; for dual
leadership reopened the old issues that were seemingly settled forever, without permitting
them to be settled on a new basis.”86As will be shown, the split between the more
conservative Communists under Rákosi, and the ones seeking liberalization under Nagy,
led to tensions within the Hungarian Communist Party. This will be dealt with in the
following sub-chapter.
82
83
84
85
86
Booker, Paul. Pg. 89
Kecskemeti. Pg. 18
Ibid. Pg. 31
Ibid.
Ibid. Pg. 40
33
II. b. 2. Post-1953 de-Stalinization and Imre Nagy’s New Course
After failed economic policies, which will be discussed later in this chapter, Moscow
summoned the Hungarian Party leadership to Moscow for talks in 1953, from which
Nagy returned as the new Prime Minister. The current of de-Stalinization which swept
through Eastern Europe after Stalin’s death led Nagy to believe that a liberalization of the
strict Communist system would be possible, and he set out a New Course for Hungary.
There was a general tendency towards a ‘New Course’ throughout the Soviet Union after
Stalin’s death; “International tensions, East-West confrontation, and domestic political
extremism and terror were all equally challenged, and the ice of the Cold War and frozen
Stalinism began to melt.”87 It was this ‘thaw’ which inspired the reform movement of
Nagy, and the call for liberalization from the intelligentsia, writers and students. The
popular involvement in the liberalization movement will be dealt with later in this
chapter.
In both the Hungarian and the Czechoslovak cases the changes to the system,
implemented by the government, presented a threat to the system’s own continued
existence. As Rainer describes, below, the problems faced by Nagy’s implementation of
his New Course could be brought back to the structure, of the Communist Party State
system as a whole.
The paradigm of the desire to effect change is a contradiction. The agent of
change, seeing the operational problems, makes alterations designed to defend the
coherence of the system. In the event, these attack the integrity of the system and
act in the opposite direction, causing new, perhaps graver operational problems, in
the same place or elsewhere. The coherence is only apparent. It screens a fatal
inflexibility: the system cannot be corrected or correct itself, because its closed
nature leaves it unable to institutionalize any deviation from its teleological goals.
The only possibilities that remain are complete rigidity, or an equation of
continual correction (reform) plus deferment, postponement. In 1954, Imre Nagy
87
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 99
34
and the political camp forming around him waged a great struggle against those
who were even against correction. He tried to develop the corrective process
further, into a real reform.88
If this metaphor of ‘flexibility’ is played out, then the communist party-state system
would either collapse, or remain static, implying that reform or liberalization of the
system is not possible.89 This problem will be explored further in Chapter VI.
The fact remains that Nagy implemented the New Course, which alleviated much
of the harassment and persecution which the Hungarian people had been subject to under
the rule of Rákosi; many small-time political prisoners were set free, and he “promised to
do away with violations of legality perpetrated by the police organs of the regime.”90
In the urban areas throughout Hungary, Nagy's New Course was hailed as a great
improvement upon previous policies, as the city residents saw the immediate results of
his policy. In rural, agricultural areas, the peasants interpreted Nagy's New Course as an
admission of the failure of the collectivization policy of communism and, as they were
intent on decollectivization, they went on to divide the previously collectivized lands
amongst themselves, after which they refused to bring in the harvest. This ‘peasant
revolt’ was one of the first cracks in Nagy's New Course. Rákosi, on the other hand, took
advantage of the disturbance to mount a counterattack against Nagy's reforms. He “kept
his cohorts together and told them that Nagy was a dangerous schismatic against whom
the Party functionaries had to defend socialism.”91 While he found support amongst his
own supporters, the Communist intelligentsia generally supported Nagy’s New Course.
Rákosi, who had been condemned by Beria, now went back to Moscow, hoping that since
Beria had been liquidated, the Politburo of the Soviet Union would be more
accommodating. Khrushchev however, had no intention of rehabilitating Rákosi, and “the
Rainer, János. “The New Course in Hungary in 1953”. Working Paper No. 38. The Cold War
International History Project, June 2002. Pg. 54
89
Cohen, Stephen F. “Was the Soviet System Reformable?” Slavic review, Volume: 63, Issue: 3 (Autumn
2004), pp: 459-488
90 Kecskemeti. Pg. 45
91 Ibid. 48
88
35
Hungarian Party Congress dropped the three Rákosite Politburo members, and the policy
of rehabilitating the Communist victims of Rákosi's purges continued in force.”92
Rákosi was not about to be ousted so easily, and he plotted against Nagy by
informing Moscow of the failure of Nagy's economic policies. His warnings did not go
unheeded, and the Soviet Politburo summoned the Hungarian governmental leaders to
Moscow, in an attempt to salvage the vestiges of conservative Communism, which
seemed on the verge of collapse. While Moscow could not replace Nagy as Premier, as
there was no other candidate to fit the bill, the USSR did reprimand “Nagy for having
ruined the country's economy and damaged the Party's morale by his excessive
liberalization.”93
Nagy remained in office throughout 1956, and it was not until April that a new
Premier was appointed, Andras Hegedüs, an agricultural economist. Nagy had essentially
been ousted by the hardliners in the Hungarian government, who did not like the
direction the New Course was taking them, namely away from the centrally planned
totalitarianism of a Communist Party State. “With Hegedüs at the head of the cabinet,
Rákosi was again top man, for Hegedüs was not the one to pursue an independent line.”94
With Rákosi reinstated, there were growing stirrings throughout the Party, particularly
from those members who had been liberated from prison and internment camps where
they had been held during Rákosi's purges.
The main problem facing the Hungarian Communist Party after Nagy had been
ousted by Rákosi and the hardliners in the Politburo had to do with this growing
opposition within the Hungarian Communist Party. As Rainer describes below, Imre
Nagy had started a process which would become difficult to halt. Those who still
supported his New Course, even after his dismissal, could not be gotten rid of so easily,
mainly due to the fact that the general structures of the Communist Party state system had
not been changed. The New Course was a program which opted for within-system
change, an ‘improvement’ of communism, rather than its removal.
92 Ibid. 49
93 Ibid. Pg. 50
94 Ibid. Pg. 51
36
Imre Nagy, a new kind of leader at the head of unchanged structures…along with
a new kind of operation of the mechanisms, initially gave rise only to a sigh of
relief. Later it became an intelligible point of reference, and its politically
conscious representatives—the believers in the new course who were within the
system and became known as the party opposition after the spring of 1955—could
not be swept aside precisely because their alternative did not exceed the bounds of
the system. It also became a point of reference for those who would not accept as
an ultimate goal anything other than a change of system. To them, Imre Nagy and
“communism with a more human face” were the first step, from which the path
might lead even to the final objective. It offered—instead of the fear, the total
constriction and the illusory expectation of miracles that typified the Rákosi
system—the prospect of political thinking (and even action) on behalf of
intelligible, eligible goals. These public sentiments did not end with the reversal
in the spring of 1955, any more than the psychological and political disintegration
of the leadership. Generally, the most durable and important result of the Nagy
correction, and of the subsequent, short-lived experiment with reform, was that it
served as a point of departure and reference for later, more radical changes.95
It had been Nagy’s New Course which had led the liberalizers and reformists both within
the Communist government, and throughout the general population, to believe that,
should a far-reaching reform of the system be allowed, this would eventually lead to a
complete toppling of the Communist regime. To these more extreme elements throughout
Hungary, reform was only a stepping stone to a complete anti-Communist revolution,
even though Nagy had never intended anything other than within-system liberalization.
95
Rainer. Pg. 54-55
37
III. c. The Social Causes of the 1956 Revolt
Aside from Nagy’s supporters within the government, another group was beginning to
stir, a group which had also supported the New Course: “The Communist intellectuals
who had deeply sympathized with the New Course and were not reconciled to its
liquidation in the spring of 1955. They challenged the leadership on this issue with
increasing boldness, and the ferment stirred up by them contributed much to the
disintegration of the leadership's authority in the summer of 1956.”96
In this section the student, intellectual and writers’ involvement in the call for
liberalization, and their quest for a continuation, and expansion, of the New Course will
be explored. First the writer’s involvement will be dealt with, after which we go on to
assess the student movement.
III. c. 1. The Writer's Revolt
After WWII there were various groups of writers at work throughout Hungary. Some had
been held captive by Stalin and were no longer such staunch defenders of the communist
regime. There were those, on the other hand, who still saw the Soviet Union as their
savior, since they had been persecuted by the Nazi regime. There were authors who were
aligned with the Communist Party by being members, and others who were deemed
'bourgeois' by the Party, and thus silenced altogether. “The fact is that in 1952 none of the
young Communist poets and writers who later turned rebels showed the slightest
deviationist tendency.”97 It was the later New Course policy, or the ‘thaw’, which spread
throughout the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death in 1953 which would turn not only the
writers, but also the students and workers into ‘revolutionaries’.
One of the groups which was active in Hungary was the ‘Petöfi Circle’, a writer’s
movement formed after the Congress, and was named after the nineteenth-century poet
and revolutionary Sandor Petöfi, who symbolized Hungary's desire for freedom. It
96 Kecskemeti. Pg. 52
97 Ibid. Pg. 60
38
consisted of liberal writers, intellectuals, and some communists, and it has been credited
with generating many of the ideas which led to the Revolt of 1956. Aside from the Petöfi
Circle, the Writers’ Union was also actively involved in the formation of a popular
resistance movement against Rákosi and the established communist party. The Union
rejected Rákosi’s victory over Nagy, and “independently elected its secretary-general”98
in March of 1956. These two groups encompassed the main reform-communist writers in
the lead-up to the October revolution.
The meetings of groups such as the Petöfi Circle also drew international attention;
the BBC even broadcast reenactments of their meetings during the summer of 1956. 99
This was one of the many ways in which the Western press, groups such as Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty, were subversively involved in promoting anti-establishment
sentiments throughout Eastern Europe. The involvement of Radio Free Europe will be
discussed later on in this chapter.
A first major stumbling-block for the Communist writers was the change in policy
in June of 1952, as they had been defending the government’s previous policies to the
public. The change in policy essentially constituted an attack on their credibility, as they
now had to either change their opinions to match those of the Politburo, or continue to
defend their previous stance, which might lead to political disfavor. What the writers
generally sought after was a sense of continuity, and a return to the original ideals of
socialism and Marxism. “The question, then, was how to recapture the original purity of
the movement. Only if this were done could the intellectual still justify being a
Communist, both to himself and to the people.”100
As the intelligentsia, mainly the writers and poets, became acquainted with those
returning from the purges of the Rákosi regime, their initial defense and idealization of
communism became more and more difficult to uphold. As mentioned by Berend, there
was a sense of naiveté involved in the desire to reform the communist system; both Nagy
and the intelligentsia remained faithful to Leninism, while at the same time desiring a
98
Berend. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 119
Urban, George. Radio Free Europe. Pg. 55
100 Kecskemeti. Pg. 62
99
39
more democratic socialist state.101 The rigidity of the communist party-state system
however, was not built to deal with extensive reform. As will be discussed in the
concluding chapter of this research, the events of the late eighties and early nineties
illustrate the difficulties associated with liberalizing the Stalinist system.
When the New Course was eventually liquidated, they attempted to inform the
political elite of the general sentiment of the public, but their words fell on deaf ears: “Far
from appreciating the writers' warnings, the Party leadership resorted to repression.”102
After the dismissal of several prominent editors and members of staff of the Party
newspaper, as well as several other magazines and dailies, the writers “...sent the Central
Committee a memorandum protesting against these and other 'brutal' interventions in
cultural life...”103 While the Party pressured the writers to remove their signatures from
the memorandum, not all complied; those who did not, feared arrest, but they were
largely left alone.
As mentioned, it was at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party in
February of 1956 that Khrushchev finally gave the writers something tangible to work
with. He denounced Stalin's personality cult status, and his misdeeds, stating that these
had weakened the strength of the Communist Party. The writers took this as an indirect
attack on Rákosi and his associates, and “The trickle of writings attacking the regime
became a flood.”104
Rákosi, however, did not fear for his position after the Congress in ’56, he felt
that Khrushchev, in the end, would be proved wrong, and that he would once again
receive the deference he felt he deserved. “In the spring of 1956, however, the writers
were not to be intimidated. They felt that the spirit of the Twentieth Congress would
protect them. Indeed, no police measures were taken even after the most extreme
attacks.”105 Rákosi's fall became inevitable; public outcry against him made him a
liability to the success and continued existence of the Party, and he resigned in July of
101
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 118
102 Kecskemeti. pg. 67
103 Ibid. Pg. 68
104 Ibid. Pg. 70
105 Ibid. Pg. 72
40
1956. It is important to note here that the writers felt they could count on the support of
Khrushchev; “The 20th Party Congress seemed to justify everything the rebels demanded
... De-Stalinization was now respectable and, indeed, compulsory.”106 It also seemed to
pave the way for extensive intra-Party reform.
Even with the removal of Rákosi however, the writers and oppositional politicians
were not to be silenced. Ernö Gerö succeeded Rákosi as First Party Secretary, while the
opposition still called for a return to the New Course and the reinstatement of Nagy. Gerö
attempted to placate the opposition by offering political positions to non-Communists,
but the writers continued their crusade against the regime, and, even though the Politburo
restored Imre Nagy's Party membership, they could not allow him to replace Gerö,
which, in theory, might have prevented the ‘bloody revolt’ which was to follow. “During
the final stage, both sides in the intra-Party struggle were looking to the masses, and to
the industrial workers in particular. It was generally felt...that the further course of events
depended on whether the workers were stirred to action by the opposition or, on the
contrary, pacified by the government.”107 The workers, however, had little faith in either
side, not expecting the reformists to be able to truly improve their situation, as the
economic policies of the New Course so far had not benefited them, and they doubted the
conservative Party membership due to their elitism. They assumed a 'defeatist' attitude,
politically disinterested, as in their eyes little was going to change for the working
classes, whether there was a more liberal or a more conservative Party leadership.
III. c. 2. The Student Uprising in Budapest – October 23rd, 1956
Where the writer's uprising did not succeed in gaining the support of either the workers or
the peasants, it was the student demonstration of the 23rd October 1956 which eventually
led the masses to become involved in the full blown revolt. While the writers and
politicians represented the elitist branch of the revolution, the students, who manifested
106 Urban, George. The Nineteen Days, a Broadcaster's Account of the Hungarian Revolution. London:
William Heinemann Ltd., 1957. Pg. 7
107 Kecskemeti Pg. 78
41
their discontent through physical protest, by taking to the streets, were able to spur the
masses into joining their cause.
The start of the student rebellion was the secession of the students from the DISZ,
the Communist League of Working Youth, on the 16th of October 1956,108 and the
establishment of independent students’ organizations. “This organizational step was a
revolutionary act; it meant that the students were shaking off the tutelage of the regime's
control organs, since the Party had no voice in the independent student associations.”109
One of the most important inspirations for the student movement was Poland: “...in
Poland the intra-Party opposition, backed by the aroused masses, had just successfully
defied the Soviet leaders in a bold bid for national independence and social justice. To the
students, it was unthinkable that Hungary should not follow suit.”110 Gaddis even goes so
far as to state that it was Poland which was the catalyst of the rebellion: “The Russians
had authorized the removal of…Mathias Rákosi, in July; but unrest had continued to
build there and news of the Polish compromise turned it into an outright rebellion.”111
Others claim that it was the reinstatement of Gomułka that led both the opposition within
the Hungarian government and the general public to believe that Nagy would be given
the same opportunities112
While in general the student movement was considered to be part of the elite,
rather than the mass-movement towards liberalization and reform, the characteristics of
their resistance, and demonstrations of their discontent, quickly took on all the outward
appearances of a popular uprising. While their resistance remained nonviolent, as they
mainly expressed themselves through manifestations, and used the correct Party channels
to express their discontent, they “...had not been engaged in continuous, chronic defiance;
Somogy, Balazs. “A Nation Ascending.” Freedom Fighter ’56.
<http://www.freedomfighter56.com/en_stories_somogy.html>
109 Kecskemeti. Pg. 80
110 Ibid. Pg. 81
111 Gaddis. We Now Know. Pg. 210
112
Crescenzi, Mark J.C. “Violence and Uncertainty in Transitions”. Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.
43, Issue 2, Pg. 203
108
42
like the mass, they made a sudden jump from seeming discipline and quiescence to overt
insubordination.”113
The students had planned a peaceful demonstration for the 23rd of October, one
they had even asked official permission to hold, however; “The crowd's insistence upon
having the students' demands put on the air, and the radio authorities' stubborn refusal to
do so, finally led to a violent clash in which a new pattern of revolutionary behavior, the
mass pattern, came to the fore.”114
While the students' demands had at first been unclear and undefined, as in many
cases they themselves did not know exactly what they wanted to achieve with their
protests, on the 30th of October, after a week of conflict, they voiced their demands,
which included universal suffrage, revision of political trials, and full freedom of speech,
as well as freedom of the press.115
“By the end of October, intellectuals and students had…become fully committed
to their plea for freedom... The opposition movement quickly grew to include a large
share of the population, including laborers.”116 It is this final inclusion of the laborers into
what had, essentially, been an intellectual movement which contributed to the mass
protests, riots and violence seen on the streets of Budapest in late 1956.
As with the writer's uprising, the loudest dissenting voices in the students
movement came from within the Party-system; non-Communists, or non-Party members,
were in a much more vulnerable position, and only joined in the protest in the last weeks
if not days leading up to the revolution.
III. d. Economic Causes of the 1956 Uprising
As was also the case during the Prague Spring, the economic causes of the Revolt can be
considered to have been of lesser importance than the previously described Socio-
113 Kecskemeti. Pg. 81
114 Ibid. 82
115 Urban. The Nineteen Days. Pg. 14
116
Crescenzi, Mark J. C. “Violence and Uncertainty in Transitions”. Journal of Conflict Resolution,
Volume: 43 Issue: 2 (April 1999). Pg. 203
43
political ones. While it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the economic causes of
the revolt from Nagy’s New Course, as this programme included economic reform, in the
following sub-chapter an attempt will be made to enumerate the solely economic factors
contributing to the uprising in 1956.
III. d. 1. Economic and Industrial Development post-WWII
The Hungarian economy was by no means as developed as that of Czechoslovakia when
it became incorporated within the Communist Party-state system. One of the most
important economic sectors was agriculture, which was of particular interest to the
Communist Party, as rural areas have always provided fertile ground for communist
voters, and as the development and improvement of agriculture would win them the
support of the peasantry and agricultural workers, who made up a large part of the
population.
There were several economic problems witnessed throughout Eastern Europe
after the implementation of Communism: “The forced growth was causing severe
economic imbalances, and in most countries the initially modest post-war standard of
living had fallen sharply in 1951–2. The collectivization campaigns were producing the
same effects on a smaller scale in Hungary as they had in the Soviet Union in the 1920s
and 1930s. There were food shortages, rural depopulation, reductions in livestock herds,
land left uncultivated, etc.”117
The rule under Rákosi had seen the Hungarian economy focus on
industrialization, leaning towards heavy industry, for which Hungary did not possess
enough raw materials, such as iron ore and coal: “The county's economic situation was
extremely bad. Rákosi's overambitious industrialization projects were bleeding the
country white.”118 The Hungarian economy was headed for disaster, which led Moscow
to intervene in the spring of 1953, when Rákosi, Imre Nagy, as well as Gerö and several
other Hungarian Party functionaries were summoned to the Soviet Union to discuss the
117
Rainer. Pg. 6
118 Kecskemeti. Pg. 40
44
adoption of collective leadership. Imre Nagy returned from this meeting as the new
premier of Hungary, whose “primary task was to placate the peasantry by stopping the
collectivization drive.”119
Moscow drew up a new economic policy for Hungary, in an attempt to stave off
imminent disaster, in which there “would be greater emphasis upon consumer goods;
respect for personal rights would be restored, and the victims of police terror would be
freed.”120 Under Nagy, Rákosi’s forced industrialization was abandoned, in favor of his
New Course; “His name became associated with a flexible policy in agriculture, revision
of legal abuses, and respect of national rights.”121
As early as the summer of 1952, Gerö, the then deputy prime minister responsible
for the economy had warned Rákosi that, due to bad weather, famine was spreading
throughout the Hungarian countryside, and that, if the situation was not alleviated,
Hungary would become wholly reliant on loans and imports from the Soviet Union.122
Rainer describes Nagy’s New Course economic policy as consisting of three
“packages”. The first “reduced heavy-industrial investment and spent the sum released on
agriculture, light industry and food processing, and housing construction and
maintenance.”123The second package consisted of wage rises and price reductions. The
third and final economic change which took place was agricultural reform; demands had
become impossible to meet, and a new balance between quota’s and actual production
was drafted. With Nagy’s removal, however, the New Course had also been abandoned,
and the economic reforms were not brought to full term, which led to political confusion
as to what Hungary’s economic policy should consist of. In any case, the New Course
had failed to provide the much needed relief for the peasant population, which was a
factor contributing to their eventual absorption into the protest movement of late 1956.
119 Ibid. 43
120 Ibid.
121 Wandycz. Pg. 251
122
Rainer. Pg. 1-2
123
Rainer. Pg. 44
45
III. e. Western Involvement in 1956
The international response to, and involvement in, the events of 1956 will be described
below. While the United States had been involved in weakening Moscow's grip on its
satellites, it took no direct action during the revolt of 1956. “The specific efforts the
United States made to undermine Soviet authority elsewhere in Eastern Europe ranged
from the highly conspicuous to the highly secret. In the United Nations, the Truman
administration mounted a vigorous campaign against human rights abuses in Romania,
Bulgaria, and Hungary, using as its legal justification the provisions of peace treaties
signed with those nations in 1947.”124 Aside from this social involvement, the United
States attempted to economically weaken the satellites: “the administration sought the
cooperation of European allies and neutrals in restricting trade with the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe: the intent here was to strain Moscow's relations with its satellites by
forcing them to look to the Russians for industrial equipment the U.S.S.R. was in no
position to supply.”125
This illustrates, more or less, the extent to which the U.S. wished to become
involved; if a revolt was successful, so be it, but it was not willing to provide outright
support for the revolutionary movements in Eastern Europe: “Defections from one sphere
[of influence] would be exploited by the other only when it was clear that the first either
could not or would not reassert control. Hence, the United States took advantage of
departures from the Soviet bloc of Yugoslavia and – ultimately – the People's Republic of
China; it did not seek to do so in the case of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968,
or…Poland in 1981.”126
The United States was not so much concerned with the well-being of the
satellites, as it was with destabilizing Moscow's position. “It is tempting to see what
followed – a leadership crisis in Poland in October, the spread of unrest into Hungary that
same month, and the Soviet Union's brutal suppression of what had become an all-out
124 Gaddis. The Long Peace. Pg. 159
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid. Pg. 239
46
revolution in the latter country early in November – as an intended consequence of the
Eisenhower administration's efforts to strain the relationship between Moscow and its
satellites.”127 Tempting, perhaps, but most likely incorrect.
Another factor which contributed to America’s unwillingness to commit to
assisting Eastern Europe in its attempted liberalization was that during the 1950’s
tentative steps were being made towards improving the relationship between Moscow
and Washington, and the US feared its overt involvement in the Hungarian crisis would
result in a much worse scenario: “On the one hand, they [the United States] tried to
minimize the harm that their obligatory condemnation of the Soviet intervention would
do to the budding Moscow-Washington relationship. On the other, they were eager to
convince the world that the United States was not standing idly by while an Eastern
European nation was fighting for its freedom.”128 The manner in which the U.S.
eventually publicly displayed its concern for the situation in Hungary was by presenting
the matter to the UN Security Council on 28th of October 1956.
As for Western Europe, there was little to no interest in becoming politically
involved in the emerging Eastern European crises: “The role of the West European states
during the Hungarian revolution in 1956 was in many ways passive. The logic of the
Cold War seemed to paralyze Western Europe, both before and after the Soviet
intervention of 4 November, a paralysis which was caused not only by the threat of
nuclear war, but also by other considerations and interests.”129 One of these other
interests being the involvement of both France and Great Britain in the Suez crisis at the
time.
While we can state that outwardly Western political involvement in the Hungarian
crisis was minimal at best, and certainly not a major contributing factor, a more
subversive international influence, namely internationally funded media, such as Radio
127 Ibid. Pg. 190
128
Bekes, Csaba. “The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and World Politics”. Institute for the History of the
1956 Hungarian Revolution. Budapest, Hungary. CWIHP, Working Paper No. 16. September, 1996. Pg.
2
129
Hellema, Duco. “The Relevance and Irrelevance of Dutch Anti-Communism: The Netherlands and the
Hungarian Revolution, 1956-57.” Journal of Contemporary History. Volume: 30 Issue: 1 (January
1995). Pg. 169
47
Free Europe, did proliferate the dissemination of anti-communist propaganda; “From the
start, foreign media such as Radio Free Europe (RFE) played a key role in transmitting to
Hungarians Western hopes that the protests could help end Soviet control of
Budapest.”130 Radio Free Europe transmitted these hopes whilst knowing that the United
States would never intervene militarily in the internal affairs of Hungary and the Soviet
Union. This is also one of the most voiced criticisms of Radio Free Europe’s contribution
to public diplomacy; the fact that it propagated the continuation of violence, promising
Western intervention and military assistance.131
Radio Free Europe, whilst under the supervision of a board appointed by the U.S.
president, still maintained a general independence and sovereignty regarding policy and
decision making.132
Donovan, Jeffrey. “Hungary; World Marks 50 th Anniversary of 1956 Uprising.” Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.
<http://www.rferl.org/features/features_Article.aspx?m=10&y=2006&id=F872F361-8FFE-46ABBE72-93D44CCD96AF>
131
Urban, George. Radio Free Europe. Pg. 212
132
Ibid. Pg. 59
130
48
Chapter IV. The Czechoslovak Case
In this chapter the events of the Prague Spring of 1968 will be discussed, after which the
origins of the liberalization movement which developed during the fifties and sixties will
be traced back. The pattern followed is similar to that of the discussion of the Hungarian
revolt in the sense that the causes are subdivided into social, political and economic, and
are again dealt with in descending order of importance.
IV. a. The Prague Spring; the events of 1968
133
Protests take a violent turn on the streets of Prague, 1968.
The term Prague Spring refers to the period under Dubček's leadership between his
ascension to power on January 5th 1968, until the Soviet invasion on August 20th of that
same year. The political ideals of the Prague Spring were “…a combination of “formal
(parliamentary) democracy” with direct representation from different social groups and
minorities, including local self-government and workers’ self-management.”134
During the course of 1968 Czechoslovakia witnessed the culmination of an
ongoing period of liberalization, ideas and ideals which had been developed, in one form
133
134
The World in the Twentieth Century. <http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/world/welcome.html>
Berend. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 141.
49
or another, since the process of de-Stalinization had begun in 1953. The political program
which embodied these ideals was the Action Program, published in Rudé Právo in April
of 1968, and “it represented a first sincere attempt to present a concept of ‘a new political
system, a new model of socialist democracy.’”135 The publication of this program
heralded several months of optimistic calls for substantial reform and liberalization, both
from reform-communist and the general public.
As is often the case with reform movements, or revolutions for that matter, there
comes a point when the initiators of the reforms lose control of the process, when the
population itself takes over, or when there are simply too many unintended consequences
of the implemented liberalization for the original catalysts of the movement to oversee:
“In part this effect results from citizens' using the very freedoms granted them under
liberalization to pursue their own goals, which may not coincide with those officially
established by the state”136 the liberalization process started during the course of the
sixties gave the differing anti-Stalinist groups within Czechoslovakia the hope that
reform of the system would be possible, and the courage to act on this hope.
“As society stirs, albeit often with great self-restraint, the centrist, liberalizing
coalition can no longer be managed. Having joined it for a variety of reasons, their
members react differently to spontaneous unexpected developments. When the moment
arrives to transform the coalition from one initiating great reform into one sustaining it,
some founding members defect and, as in the Czechoslovak case, plot its undoing with
the help of outside intervention.”137 This seems to have been the breaking point for both
Hungary and Czechoslovakia; initiating the reform was simple, sustaining it, and finding
consensus both within the party and amongst the general population with regards to the
extent of liberalization was almost impossible.
As Moscow saw the situating spiraling out of the control of the party apparatus,
Dubcek was summoned to defend the Action Program and Czechoslovak liberalization.
The talks were held on the 29th of July, at Cierna, and, while Dubček defended his reform
135
Berend. Pg. 141
136 Williams. Pg. 28
137 Ibid.
50
movement, he, at the same time, assured the Soviet Union that Czechoslovakia would
remain loyal to the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. “The fact that it was the Party itself
which initiated a reform carried out in the name of socialism, combined with the absence
of anti-Russian feeling in the population, had convinced the Dubček leadership that their
comrades in Moscow would show understanding for a reform not directed against them
or against the system, but designed to improve it and make it more attractive.”138 Again a
similarity with the Hungarian case can be deduced, as previously described by Rainer; the
rigidity of the system, and the fact that initially the reform movements did not stray
outside the boundaries of the system made it difficult for the conservatives within the
Party to denounce the liberalizations. The similar intra-Party struggle, the liberals in the
Czechoslovak case siding with Dubček, created analogous political tensions.
The talks held at Cierna, however, did not convince the Soviet Union of
Czechoslovakia’s goodwill, and in June Warsaw Pact troops held ‘practice’ maneuvers
on Czech soil. It was not until the night of the 20th of August that an actual Warsaw Pact
invasion of Czechoslovakia took place, and while there were sporadic outbreaks of
resistance, on the whole the Czechoslovak army did not resist. In September of 1968 the
so-called Brezhnev Doctrine was published in Pravda, delineating the reasons and
justifications for the military intervention.139
Why the Soviets decided to intervene in Czechoslovakia's liberalization
movement remains a point of debate amongst scholars up to this day. “...some authors
emphasize the wider context of superpower relations on the eve of détente, and see the
invasion as a move to tighten the Soviet grip before bargaining with the West and to seize
an opportunity to station armies in Czechoslovakia.”140 Czechoslovakia was of the
highest strategical importance to the USSR as it was one of the farthest Western outposts
of the Soviet Union at the time. There were fears in Moscow that allowing the Czech
reforms to take hold would eventually trigger its break with the Warsaw Pact and the
Soviet Union, endangering the USSR's national security, and creating a precedent for
138
Rupnik, Jacques. The Other Europe. London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1989. Pg. 252
See Appendix B.
140 Williams. Pg. 29
139
51
other Eastern European nations to attempt the same, similar to the American fear of a
communist domino-effect.
IV. b. Social Causes of the 1968 Uprising
The Czechoslovak liberalization movement was essentially an intra-Party reform
movement which spiraled out of the control of the party apparatus; it was the
intelligentsia, writers and students who pushed political reform forward, beyond what had
initially been intended by the reform-communists within the government. In this chapter
the social causes of the 1968 uprising will be explored; the social change which took
place during the course of the sixties, and the developing student and writers’ movements
which contributed to the popular protests on the streets of Prague.
IV. b. 1. The Context of the Czechoslovak Liberalization Movement
One of the most important developments to discuss when looking at Czechoslovakia
during the lead-up to the events of 1968 is the process of liberalization. This is a term
perhaps best applied to what the Czechoslovak people, as well as the politicians sought
after during the Prague Spring; however, it was a process which had started to develop
long before 1968.
A key factor which contributed to the advent of liberalization throughout
Czechoslovak society was “the deep social change that had taken place since the
1950's.”141 “The political activity of the intelligentsia grew, as it did in Poland,
immensely in 1956, with a head start compared to Hungary.”142 Many of these 'new
intelligentsia', politicians, scholars, writers, poets and economists had been able to climb
the social ladder due to the communist egalitarianist ideals and the attempted dissolution
of class struggle. “The intelligentsia that was starting to challenge the existing order was,
by and large, a new one, consisting largely of people of working-class origin who had
141Rupnik. Pg. 4
142
Foitzik, Jan. Entstaliniserungskrise in Ostmitteleuropa 1953-1956. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2001. Pg. 231
52
moved up in the world thanks to class war, education, and the patronage of party godfathers.”143 This is one of the most important factors to keep in mind when looking at the
Prague Spring, as it was a reform-movement which sprung from the minds of people who
wanted, not a return to the pre-war situation, but a new, idealized, improved form of
communist, or socialist regime, a Marxist utopia.
Explanation of liberalization must also factor in the role of ideas, in particular the
attraction of the very idea of a principled redesign of the system. This holds true
especially for the middle generation of party functionaries, those who became
communists after 1938 or 1945, had vigorously served the post-war construction
of a new society on the Soviet model, and who began to have second thoughts
once they saw the fruits of their labour. Although the Stalinist model had lost its
allure, the idea of engineering, of the scientific construction of a better society,
had not. The country's policy style, while hesitantly shifting during the 1960's
away from imposition of decisions towards more consensual policy-making with
the help of outside consultants, remained formally committed to rationality,
planning, and anticipation of problems in keeping with the purported scientific
character of Marxist method.144
The above paragraph, taken from Kieran Williams' The Prague Spring and its Aftermath,
illustrates the general shift in the thought-process of many of the most influential
politicians in Czechoslovak government. It also shows the development which took place
from Stalinism and neo-Stalinism to Marxism during the late fifties and the sixties. The
reform movement of the sixties is also firmly grounded within the Marxist tradition,
showing that the Prague Spring was not an attempt at revolution per se; it rather sought to
reform the communist system in a way which would make it resemble its textbook ideal.
The fact that most of the proponents of reform were part of the intelligentsia, the
educated classes; teachers, philosophers, writers, economists, sociologists and political
143 Williams. Pg. 5
144 Williams. Pg. 7
53
theorists, was both a result of the communist party-state system as it had existed in
Czechoslovakia, as well as a cause of the character the reform movement took on during
the late sixties.
IV. b. 2. Social Liberalization; the Writers’ and Student Movements of the 1960’s
The writers and student movements in Czechoslovakia were of paramount importance
with regards to the escalation of the imminent crisis in 1968, perhaps even more so than
they had been in contributing to the Hungarian Revolt in ’56.
There had been an existing undercurrent of liberal thinking throughout
Czechoslovakia ever since the preliminary student and writers uprisings had been
suppressed by Novotný in 1956. While they might have been publicly silenced, there
were still those amongst the intelligentsia who met regularly to discuss the state of
affairs, and exchange ideas, much like the Petöfi Circle in Hungary. De-Stalinization may
have had a late start in Czechoslovakia, due to Novotný’s repressive tactics in 1956, but
by the early 60’s the Czechoslovak economy was flailing, and protesters once again came
to the fore.
One of the first events in the lead-up to the Prague Spring which sparked a
renewed public protest movement consisting of both writers and students was the
implementation of a new government issued press law in 1966145, which legalized
censorship under the communist party. The first major protests against this law did not
surface until February of 1968, after Dubček’s ascension as Party leader, since the
intelligentsia saw in Dubček a man who might listen to their complaints.146 Protesters had
already taken to the streets in Dubček’s defense in late 1967, when he had challenged
Novotný’s authority at the KSČ Party conference of October. One of the successes
booked was the amendment of this 1966 Press Law, officially abolishing censorship.
Smid, Milan. “History of the Czech Press Law; A Missing Definition of Public Interest – The Obstacle
to the New Media Legislation in the Czech Republic?” International Journal of Communications Law and
Policy, Issue 2, Winter 1998/99.
146
Frost, Matthew. “Czech Republic: A Chronology of Events leading up to the 1968 Invasion.” Radio
Free Europe. <http://www.rferl.org.>
145
54
After February the protests intensified, and by March public rallies were being held,
voicing the public’s discontent with the continued Presidency of Antonín Novotný, and
by May Day on May 1st of that same year the streets were filled with writers and students
using this traditional day of celebration to continue their attack on the conservative
practice of communism, and its totalitarian control and suppression of free speech and
public life.
The Czechoslovak popular drive for reform is seen by many as a result of
Czechoslovakia’s long history of democracy, and its liberal cultural tradition, which had
been suppressed by Novotný, but finally reached its climax in 1968, when the dissenting
voices could no longer be silenced. The slow process of de-Stalinization in the early
sixties coincided with the import of Western music, ideas and literature which embodied
the spirit of the sixties abroad; Rock and Roll, beat poetry and the general tendency to
question authority, in whatever way, shape or form.
While there was still a vast amount of censorship in the Communist nations,
pieces of this movement were trickling through the iron curtain: “Rock'n'roll and big-beat
music replaced the falsely cheerful songs from the fifties…and the country's youth was
clearly preferring long hair and jeans to the party ideal of polyester trousers and a red tie.
The once frightened population was more and more bold in its criticism of the
shortcomings of the socialist regime…”147
IV. c. The Political Causes of the 1968 Prague Spring
In this next section Czechoslovakia’s integration within the USSR, and its post-WWII
political development, which eventually led to the rise to power of Alexander Dubček
will be discussed.
147
“1968-1998”. Radio Praha. < http://archiv.radio.cz/1968/archive1.html>.
55
IV. c. 1. Entering the Communist Party-State System; Czechoslovakia’s Integration
within the USSR, 1943-1948
Before looking into the post-WWII political developments which coincided with the
1968 popular reform movement, the way in which Czechoslovakia became fully
integrated into the Soviet Union will be dealt with. One of the inherent traits of the
communist party, any communist party for that matter, is its need to completely dominate
and control the political scene of a nation. This was also the case with the CPCS, or KSČ
as it also referred to, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia: “The communists were
determined to seize all power as soon as an opportunity would present itself.”148
During the Second World War there had been great reluctance on the side of the
Czech communist factions to cooperate with the non-communist Czechoslovak national
liberation movements, however, in 1943 the “Soviet-Czechoslovak Treaty of Friendship,
Mutual Assistance and Postwar Cooperation”149 was signed, in which “it was agreed that
the communists would be included in the postwar government coalition on the basis of
parity with the other political parties.”150
This agreement laid the initial foundations for the incorporation of
Czechoslovakia into the communist party-state system, “including nationalization of key
industries, confiscation of the property of traitors and collaborators; transfer of the
German ethnic minority and resettlement of the border areas; extensive land reform and a
'simplification' of the political parties system by disqualification and exclusion of the
parties which had participated in the post-Munich government.”151 When the CPCS
leadership returned from exile it found a core of staunch supporters who had stuck with
the Party despite persecutions, and it was aided extensively by the Red Army, often at the
expense of other political parties attempting to re-establish themselves. “The
Czechoslovak government in exile was the only Eastern European government which
148 Suda, Zdenek. The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969. Pg. 31
149 Ibid. Pg. 22
150 Ibid.
151 Ibid.
56
was allowed to return to its country of origin. This was due to the strong influence of the
communists.”152
The foundations for a complete communist take-over of Czechoslovakia had thus
been laid long before its eventual liberation and re-establishment as an ‘independent’
nation after the Second World War. As in many Eastern European nations, the Red Army
played a large part in assisting the returning communist leaders in the establishment of
their Party, and in the case of Czechoslovakia, the 1943 Treaty had already given the
communists a large amount of political leeway.
In 1945 the Kosiče program was signed by the Communist Party and the noncommunist leaders, this established the postwar political climate, and established that all
parties would participate in the ‘National Front of the Urban and Rural Working People’,
basically paving the way for a Communist party-state system, particularly as “there was
no provision for an eventual parliamentary opposition.”153 Furthermore, and perhaps most
beneficial to the communists; “It did not allow the renewal of any pre-war political
parties except of those represented in the National Front.”154
Czechoslovakia suffered what can only be called an identity crisis after the end of
WWII. Eduard Beneš, the President of the Republic, envisioned its existence as a bridge
between East and West, which would have been the ideal situation. However, with the
increased tensions between the two superpowers, and the onset of the Cold War the
situation seemed irreconcilable. The communist party would not stand for continued
economic social and political ties with the West, and, while Czechoslovakia had initially
welcomed the idea of joining the Marshall Plan, the Soviet Union intervened, forcing
Czechoslovakia to withdraw from the Paris talks.
It was in February 1948 that the CPCS seized full control over Czechoslovakia.
One of the more general factors contributing to this coup was the failure of Beneš's idea
of having Czechoslovakia function as a so-called bridge: Cold War tensions were
mounting, the USSR interpreted the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan as a direct
O’Sullivan, Donal. Stalin’s Cordon Sanitaire. Pg. 242
153 Suda. Pg. 26
154 Ibid.
152
57
threat to its control and national security, and Berlin was to become the boiling point of
East West relations later that year.
“After a disagreement with the communist members during a Cabinet session
over the measures taken by the communist-controlled Ministry of Interior, all noncommunist Ministers resigned their posts on February 20th, 1948.”155 While this move
was an attempt to force the communists in government to reconsider their position, it led
to a communist take-over of all Czechoslovak broadcasting facilities, after which the
communist controlled Ministry of the Interior blocked all further activities of the noncommunist members of parliament. Under pressure from the communist faction, and in
an attempt to keep the peace, the President, Beneš, approved the new communist cabinet
list.156 After this the complete communist take-over happened rather quickly; a new
constitution was drafted which Eduard Beneš refused to sign due to its undemocratic
nature, and the President resigned in June 1948. “With the departure of Mr. Beneš, the
last prominent non communist personality and the last advocate of the “bridge” concept
disappeared from the political scene. The process of Czechoslovakia's transformation into
a communist party-state was thus completed.”157
Booker explains Czechoslovakia’s transformation into a communist party state as
having been achieved by means of an ‘electoral misappropriation of power’: “The
electoral method of usurpation exploits the party’s inherent capacity as a misappropriator
of power…For the party’s vote-winning capacity enables it to peacefully accomplish,
through success in democratic elections, the first step on the way to misappropriation of
power – acquiring a hold on the public offices and powers that it will
misappropriate...Only
one
of
the
many
communist
party
dictatorships,
the
Czechoslovakian, came to power in this fashion and even this case involved a degree of
latent or threatened armed insurrection.”158
155 Ibid. Pg. 34
156 Ibid. Pg. 34-35
157 Ibid. Pg. 38.
158
Booker. Non-Democratic Regimes. Pg. 89
58
IV. c. 2. Czechoslovakia’s Political Development Post-WWII, 1948-1968
As described above, it was in 1948 that Czechoslovakia became a people's democracy,
under the centralized rule of the KSČ, or CPCS. The new constitution, signed May 9th
1948, although superficially still a democratic document, also contained notions such as
the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and highlighted the importance of the Communist
party. Although there was supposed to be a multi-party system within Czechoslovakia, it
became apparent that to be able to participate in government one needed the authorization
or support of the KSČ.
When Nikita Khrushchev announced an intended process of de-Stalinization in
1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress on February 25th, essentially a proposal which
would give the satellites more freedom in their internal affairs, and a less-strict obedience
to Stalin's ideals of what a communist state should resemble, it was met by the KSČ with
a combination of reluctance and suspicion. As early as at a meeting of the Hungarian
Politburo on the 2nd of May 1956 “…all the members of the council …agreed that:
‘dissident elements’ had to be unmasked, from the Trotskyites to the Socialdemocrats.”159
“Despite the actions of the Politburo the flood of criticism from below swelled up
even further in May.”160 There were calls for de-Stalinization throughout Czechoslovakia,
mainly by student demonstrations demanding increased freedom of speech and a shortlived writers rebellion in which several authors called for an end to political repression,
Novotný, however, resolutely declared a policy of neo-Stalinism, under which no such
reforms would be accepted, and the dissenting voices were silenced.
“Novotný made it unmistakably clear that the Party line of the Tenth Party
Congress in 1954 was correct and needed no revision; that attacks on the Party as a result
of the Soviet 20th Party Congress were wrong and should stop.”161 He went on to declare
that student manifestations would not be tolerated, and that foreign radio broadcasts and
159
Foitzik. Pg. 231
Ibid.
161
Matthews. Pg. 34-35
160
59
imperialist intrigue would be opposed.162 It was not until the economic downfall of the
early sixties that de-Stalinization would be able to permeate Czechoslovak society.
With the advent of liberalization, in the early to mid sixties, came a renewed
interest in ‘improving’ the Communist Party-state system. While Novotný had been able
to stifle the dissenting voices in 1956, he had not been able to put a halt to the
development of ideas and liberal tendencies, and in the mid-sixties calls for liberalization
were becoming louder once again.
One of the governments first realizations, during this process of liberalization
after the failed five-year plan in the early sixties, was the need to 'diffuse power', as
Williams puts it.163 Most of the decision-making power had become concentrated “...not
just in the hands of the approximately 8,500 employees of the national party apparatus, or
even of the 750 who ran the party at the very centre, but above all in the supreme party
organ, the Presidium.”164 A more pluralist, democratic structure of the communist party
was advocated, and “a concept of political reform was in the making.”165
The first attempt at reform was made by Martin Vaculík, who led the municipal
party organization in Prague; “He proposed to free that state from party domination and
restrict the role of central CPCS bodies to synesthesizing information and expounding
basic ideology and policy, while leaving quotidian decisions to the district-level party
organs” on the 5th of September 1967. Alexander Dubček, who was the leader of the
CPCS in Slovakia planned to take the changes even further “...so on 24 October 1967 he
proposed in the Presidium that an 'action programme' be enacted to address thorny
questions such as culture, the economy, and the position of Slovakia.”166
Antonín Novotný, the Party Secretary at the time, did not believe these reforms
would take hold, and under increasing pressure from the central committee, he resigned
his post on January 5th, 1968, paving the way for Alexander Dubček's ascension as
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. And “Within days of
162
Matthews. Pg. 34-35
163 Williams. Pg. 14
164 Ibid.
165
Berend. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 139
166 Williams. Pg. 15
60
Dubček's ascent the Presidium commissioned the action programme in the hope that its
formal adoption at the end of February could coincide with the twentieth anniversary of
the communist seizure of power.”167
With Dubček’s instatement, Czechoslovak popular calls for reform and
liberalization of the system finally seemed to be falling on ears that would listen. Many of
the writers and students saw in Dubček a leader who would be able to push through the
red tape and give them the changes they were so desperate to see implemented. Dubček
on the other hand, found himself suddenly at the head of a movement over which he had
no control, and frantically tried to keep up with the popular demands.
On the other hand, he was in favor of reform himself, but reform within the
framework of the Party system. His calls for ‘socialism with a human face’ were meant to
inspire a positive, distinctively Czechoslovak change in the Party apparatus, and society
as a whole, but not one which would alienate it from Moscow to a degree which would
incite a military intervention as the one he had witnessed in Hungary in 1956.
While the Hungarian Revolt can be considered to have acted as a deterrent to a
similar movement in Czechoslovakia over a decade later; “The October 1956 Polish
crisis, with its contrasting positive example…demonstrated that a limited campaign of
moderate reforms, which did not directly threaten the political system, or indirectly
threaten the security of the Eastern military bloc, could be realized even against the will
of the Soviet leadership. More than anything else this motivated the Czechoslovak
communist reformers in 1968. Unlike Gomułka, however, they were unable to limit
social changes to a level that the Soviets could tolerate.”168
IV. d. The Economic Causes of the Prague Spring
As was also the case in Hungary in 1956, the economic causes of the Prague Spring can
be considered derivatives of the social and political causes. In both cases it was the
general failure of the Communist system of collectivization and forced rapid
167 Ibid.
168
Bekes. Pg. 28
61
industrialization in the first place, and the failure of liberal economic reforms, such as
Nagy’s New Course, and Dubček’s liberalizations, in the second, which led to an
increased strain on the peasantry in particular, and the economic security of the entire
population as a whole. In this section Czechoslovakia’s economic and industrial
development will be discussed, after which the effects of economic liberalization will be
looked at.
IV. d. 1. Czechoslovakia’s Economic and Industrial Development Post-WWII
One of the similarities between the Czechoslovakian and Hungarian economies was their
post-war dependence on Soviet energy resources; both nations relied heavily on imported
crude oil and natural gas, this being one of the reasons the Comecon was such a success.
Czechoslovakia possessed a centrally planned economy, much like that of the
Soviet-Union after the Second World War, with control held by the communist party. It is
important to note that “East Central Europe emerged badly scarred from the Second
World War; Poland having suffered most, Czechoslovakia least.”169 This, on top of the
fact that Czechoslovakia was by far the most industrially advanced nation to come under
Soviet control may well prove to be contributing factors to the development of resistance
to the Communist system. “Czechoslovakia was the only modern industrialized nation to
become communist. All the other party states had to begin their development on a level
corresponding to that of the Soviet Union in 1917 and to carry out a communist
revolution under 'economically immature' conditions according to the blueprint set by
Lenin.”170
The fact that Czechoslovakia was already relatively well-developed and
industrialized meant that the proponents of communism had lost one of their most
convincing points: “whereas almost all communist countries could see communism as a
rapid way to industrialization and modernization, which is the number one problem of
169 Wandycz. Pg. 238.
170 Suda. Pg. 1
62
underdeveloped nations, this incentive did not have much effect in Czechoslovakia.”171
Meaning that “the Czechoslovak Communist Party could not hope to recruit many
supporters motivated by a concern for the economic progress of their own country, except
for in the eastern, relatively less-developed provinces.”172
One of the major changes which took place under the rule of Communism, in the
Czechoslovak industrial and economic sectors, was the shift in focus from a blend of
heavy and light industry, to one mainly aimed at the development of the former: “…preCommunist Czechoslovakia had been an economically developed country, with
production focused on both heavy and light industry. The post-1948 application of the
Soviet blueprint for 'socialism in one country' to Czechoslovak conditions stressed
development of heavy industry.”173
However, due to the fact that the methods applied had been developed for
“underdeveloped countries which strive at a rapid equalization of their economic levels
with those of advanced nations, the Czechoslovak economy was thrown out of
balance”174 and there are speculations that had the Czechoslovak economic development
been allowed to run its course, it would currently be in a much better economic position
than is the case. The application of the communist economic framework to a nation
whose economy was developing rapidly and successfully only succeeded in slowing
down this development, rather than aiding it.
After 1948, slowly but surely, more far-reaching communist reforms took hold;
companies nationalized and private ownership was abolished. The Czechoslovak
economy became subject to 5-year plan upon 5-year plan. The failure of the latter of
these five year plans proved exactly how dependent the Czechoslovak economy had
become on foreign trade, particularly Comecon trade: “The crisis was triggered by a
confluence of exogenous factors (the loss of trade with China, and the Berlin and Cuban
missile crises), chronic irrationality in investment policy, half-hearted reforms in 1958
(which had actually increased monopolization and beurocracy), and a series of poor
171 Ibid. Pg. 2
172 Ibid.
173 Ibid. Pg. 40
174
Ibid. Pg. 41
63
harvests…This conjuncture punished an economy ruthlessly exploited by Comecon
partners and dependent on exports to pay for raw materials, fuel, and foodstuffs.”175
IV. d. 2. Czechoslovakia’s Economic Liberalization; the New Economic Model, 19651968
“Just as the political reforms of the Czechoslovak experiment sprang from the heads of
lawyers, sociologists, and political scientists, so too economists were given carte blanche
to try to remake an economy in the image of their abstract theories and models.”176 This
was mainly due to the aforementioned failure of the communist planned economy: “Such
licence was granted because of the near collapse of the once-robust industrialized
economy at the beginning of the third five-year plan (1961-5).”177
During the 1960's a group of economists, under the leadership of Ota Šik, who
had attempted to convince president Novotný to re-assess his hard-line central planning,
became involved in devising a reformed, improved model for economic development and
policy which became known as the New Economic Model. “The theoreticians involved
had no desire to imitate any form of capitalism; as their leader, Ota Šik, recalled many of
them had negative experiences of the First Republic's liberal economy.”178 They strove to
find the middle ground between a centrally planned economy and the capitalist free
market economy, and were greatly “influenced by the Polish and Hungarian reform
economies.”179
Again, as had been the case with the intellectual movement, one of the most
important aspects of the economic branch of the liberalization movement was its interest
in the original ideas and ideals of socialism; Šik and his fellow economists “...strove to
175 Williams. Pg. 21
176 Ibid. Pg. 20
177 Ibid. Pg. 20-21
178 Ibid. Pg. 21
179
Berend. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 137
64
distinguish between Stalinism and the actual writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin, in the
hope that in the latter they would find ideas to support whatever project they devised.”180
A good deal was attempted, with regards to economic reform, during the period
between the failure of the third five-year plan in 1961-65, and the events of the Prague
Spring in 1968; removing fixed prices, controlling base wages through taxation, granting
enterprises more autonomy. Many of these reforms failed, however, and “...during 1968
itself there was disarray and confusion throughout economic policy-making
circles…Relations between central government and enterprises were unclear, the workers
were unsettled by prospects of unemployment and de-leveled wages, productivity growth
was trailing far behind wage rises, and short strikes were erupting to prevent closure of
obsolete mines and steelworks.”181
This final failure of economic reform led to workers’ strikes. However, as it had
been the failed liberalization of the economy which had caused the confusion and had not
improved circumstances for industrial workers and peasants the protests were aimed
mainly at the seated government, not necessarily at the conservative communists.
IV. e. Western Involvement during the 1968 Prague Spring
The United States had been hesitant about publicly denouncing the Soviet intervention in
Hungary in 1956, and had not provided military, political, or media support for the
reformists, due to the apparent improvement in Moscow-Washington relations, and the
relative success of détente. Many have called 1968 a ‘watershed’ year182 with regards to
world politics and cold war dynamics. The Tet-offensive in Vietnam was a major setback for the United States and, of course, the Soviet Union had to deal with the fact that
the Prague Spring constituted a serious danger to the continued existence of its ‘empire’.
In France there had been a popular uprising against President Charles de Gaulle, students
and workers had taken to the streets to voice their discontent with the regime.
180 Williams. Pg. 21
181 Ibid. Pg. 25
182
Mastny, V. “Was 1968 a Strategic Watershed of the Cold War?” Diplomatic History, Volume: 29 Issue:
1 (January 1, 2005), pp: p149, 29p.
65
As mentioned the furthest international involvement came to contributing to the events in
Prague in 1968 was the influx of ideas, the music, literature and intellectual musings of
the western protesters, or liberals, seeped into Czechoslovakia through those who had
visited the West, or western media operating in the Easter bloc nations. These ideas of
cultural reform reached the students and intellectuals of Czechoslovakia, and contributed
to their challenge of societal order.
66
V. A Comparison of the Causes of the Liberalization Movements in Hungary and
Czechoslovakia
In order to compare the causes of the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring as they
have been delineated in the preceding chapters, the social, political, and economic causes
will be placed side by side in this chapter, so that the findings of this research may be
compared and contrasted. In the conclusion, chapter six, this chapter’s comparison will
be expanded upon, and final conclusions will be drawn.
V. a. The Political Causes of the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring
As I will be considering the causes in order of importance, I will begin with the political
developments which played a part in bringing about the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague
Spring. As stated, the major difference between the political causes of the two uprisings
is the origin of the incentive for reform; in Hungary the seed had been planted by
Khrushchev himself at the Twentieth Party Congress in February of 1956, this speech
was interpreted by many as a call for intra-Party reform. In Czechoslovakia this idea of
de-Stalinization had been carried over, and had developed into a feeling of popular
dissatisfaction with the communist regime, which was taken up by the intellectuals,
writers and students during the course of the sixties, and they became the voice of this
discontent.
V. a. 1. The Context of De-Stalinization, or the ‘Thaw’
As Skočpol explains; “…revolutionary processes themselves should be assumed to be, in
part, specific to particular, nonuniversal types of sociopolitical structures, and, for the
rest, specific to particular sorts of world-historical circumstances.”183 The most important
world-historical circumstance with regards to the two liberalization movements under
183
Skočpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Pg. 113.
67
discussion is the Cold War context, and, within this, the context of de-Stalinization, or
‘thaw’, which evolved after Stalin’s death in 1953.
As stated the main cause of the Hungarian revolt was a political one, namely the
process of de-Stalinization. The incentive for reform of the communist system came from
within the Soviet Union, and while it was taken-up to varying degrees, in various Eastern
European nations, and amongst differing groups within each society, there is no doubt
that Khrushchev’s secret speech, and his generally more liberal tendencies with regards
to the Stalin-era, were the major reasons liberalization took hold in the minds of many
during 1956. “The centrally initiated “thaw,” although aiming only to correct and not
radically change the policy line, and to ease accumulating tensions, was both led and
sabotaged by former Stalinist party chiefs, who were responsible for the criticized errors
(and crimes) of the troublesome fifties. However, at the same time, it unleashed new
forces of revolt.”184
It was Imre Nagy who would introduce the New Course to Hungary. Nagy saw
de-Stalinization taking hold of other nations, and as the intelligentsia took up the call for
a reinvention of the communist system as it existed, he believed that politically the time
was ripe to push through a policy of reform. “The corrective New Course reform from
above, immediately led to open unrest and revolt from below.”185 Intra-Party reform
instigated a developing desire for liberalization from the general public, it even went
beyond solely a desire; it became a perceived attainable goal.
The fact that, in both the Hungarian Revolt and the Prague Spring, the
liberalization from within the Party eventually snowballed out of control of the initiators
of the reforms, must not be overlooked. “An explanation of revolutions must find
problematic, first, the emergence of a revolutionary situation, wholistically conceived,
and second, the complex and unintended intermeshing of the various motivated actions of
the differentially situated groups which take part in the revolution – an intermeshing that
produces overall changes which never correspond to the original intentions of any one
184
185
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 105
Ibid. Pg. 105
68
group, no matter how “central” it may seem.”186 It is this ‘intermeshing’ of the various
groups which makes the analysis of both the Hungarian and the Prague cases complex; as
the liberalization movement gained momentum it became more and more difficult to
differentiate between the goals of the differing popular support groups for the intra-Party
reforms. This research is not focused on intentions, however, and further on the actual
contributions of these various groups, the students, writers, intelligentsia and workers, to
the events which took place in 1956 and 1968 will be discussed.
V. a. 2. The Importance of Reformist Leadership; Imre Nagy and Alexander
Dubček
The Imre Nagy of the Czech 1968 Spring was Alexander Dubček.187
As will be shown in the conclusion, the existence of reformist tendencies within the
national government, or an intra-Party struggle, was a major factor contributing to the
liberalization movements of both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It was the lack of such
Party-reformism which was the main reason why a liberalization movement did not take
hold in Czechoslovakia in 1956.
In Hungary the face of reform became Imre Nagy, while the Czechoslovaks found
their ‘liberal’ in Alexander Dubček. Nagy’s desire for reform, as mentioned, came from
above; he, like so many others, had witnessed the Twentieth Party Congress, and
interpreted Khrushchev’s speech as a call for a reinterpretation of the Communist PartyState system, and the ideology it was built upon; “The New Course, designed and ordered
by the Soviet party, gained great momentum in Hungary, since this was the only country
in the region where the reform attempt had a charismatic leader, Prime Minister Imre
Nagy.”188 As will be discussed in the concluding chapter of this work, the lack of a
charismatic reformist leader in Czechoslovakia in 1956 was one of the major contributing
Skočpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Pg. 112
Rempel, Gerhard. Western New England College. Lectures; “The Prague Spring of 1968.”
<http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/world/lectures/praguespring.html>.
188
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 100
186
187
69
factors to its delayed liberalization. What was unique about Nagy was that “unlike most
other party leaders who were ordered to change the official party line and who reluctantly
obeyed, [he]…wholeheartedly advocated the policy of change.”189 Dubček’s reforms
came after a ten-year period of growing popular dissatisfaction with the Stalinist system
which had been kept in place by Novotny after 1956; it was rising pressure from the
intelligentsia, the students, and a general feeling of frustration amongst not only these
factions, but also the working classes, which led him down his course of ‘socialism with
a human face’, most likely further than he had planned.
Both in Hungary in 1956, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the reform movements
followed an extended period of intra-Party liberalization. In Hungary it had been Nagy’s
New Course, and in Czechoslovakia, it was Dubček who had propagated reform, even
though eventually the movement would come to surpass government control: “Reform
begun at the behest of Party leaders (out of insight into necessity) would march
ineluctably beyond those leaders’ maximum goals. The forces of change from above,
change from below, and what I have called change from the side would somehow
combine in the process of transformation: in part willingly, in part unwillingly, but
nonetheless combine.”190
V. b. A Comparison of the Social Causes of the Two Uprisings
Popular support for the government-instigated liberalizations of the communist system
was widespread in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In both nations the intelligentsia
became a major proponent of the intended liberalizations, and was in constant interaction
with the government, each, in turn, pushing the other further. This, in essence,
codependency, can be seen in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
In both nations the initial political steps towards liberalization, initiated by the
seated communist government, were interpreted by the writers and students, as well as
189
190
Ibid. Pg. 101
Ash, Timothy Garton. The Uses of Adversity. Pg. 284
70
economists, sociologists and philosophers, as implying a greater degree of freedom of
speech, in particular freedom of critique towards the communist system.
While the Czechoslovak popular movement had more time to develop, (after the
events of 1956 the seed of liberalization had been planted in the minds of the
Czechoslovak intelligentsia) and embodied the more general spirit of the time, as the
Sixties saw reform and liberalization movements throughout Western Europe as well as
the United States, the Hungarian popular movement was no less influential; it was, after
all, the student-led protest, which sparked the violent intervention of Soviet forces in
October ’56.
The workers, on the other hand, were more motivated by the failure of economic
reforms, and the increasing strain on their income. It was the failure of the New Course,
and the general public uproar of October, in particular the popular appeal of the student
movement, and the eventual demonstration on the 23rd of October, which led the workers
and peasants to become involved in the call for reform in Hungary.
Below the different social groups involved in the reform movement, and the
eventual uprisings will be enumerated in order of significance to the Revolt and the
Spring. In both cases the Writer’s movement was of paramount importance, as it inspired
the student movement, which, in turn, instigated the workers and peasants into action.
V. b. 1. The Intelligentsia and the Writer’s Movement
The writer’s movement takes front seat in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia, as well as
in Poland in 1956. The Hungarian writer’s movement had existed since 1952, and only
grew bolder after the Twentieth Party Congress. It was not only the politicians who felt
that Khrushchev’s secret speech, in combination with the process of de-Stalinization,
implied a possibility for reform of the strict totalitarianism of the Party-state system; the
writer’s in particular picked up on this, and the ‘trickle of works calling for liberalization
became a flood’. What the Hungarian writer’s revolt failed to do was incite the workers
and peasants into action. Their work had been read, however, by the students who later
did succeed in catalyzing a popular revolt during the student uprising of October.
71
In the Czechoslovakia of 1968 the intelligentsia and writer’s movement were equally, if
not more important than they had been in Hungary in 1956. The intelligentsia which was
at the forefront of the events of ’68 however, was an intelligentsia which had ascended
the social ladder due to the effects of the communist system; many of the intellectuals of
the Prague Spring had been of working-class origin, and would not have had the
opportunity to become writers, scholars, teachers, philosophers or poets without the
implementation of communism. This explains why the intelligentsia of Czechoslovakia
called for a renewal, a rejuvenation of Communism, not its removal. The Czechoslovak
intelligentsia, of which Dubček may be considered to have been a member, sought after
reform-socialism or the so-called ‘socialism with a human face’.
The intelligentsia of both nations has proved to have played a major role in
disseminating the philosophical and ideological writings upon which the entirety of the
reform movements based themselves. As mentioned, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the
reform movement found its leader in Alexander Dubček, pushed forward as a
spokesperson for a national sentiment of reform, and found himself at the head of a
growing popular call for liberalization, whereas Nagy drew his inspiration from above,
namely from the Soviet Union’s denunciation of Stalin’s personality cult. In both cases
there was an intensive interdependency between the reform-government, and the
introduction of liberal policies, and popular calls for reform; one inspired the other, and
vice versa.
V. b. 2. The Student Movement
The student movement in Hungary drew on the writings of the intelligentsia, and it also
drew inspiration from the movement in Poland. To the Hungarian student movement it
was a logical step to follow the lines set out by the reform movement in Poland, as it had
proved successful there.
While the students drew inspiration from the Polish movement and the writings of
the intelligentsia, they themselves inspired the workers and peasants into action. Having
remained largely in the background during the developing calls for reform, the general
72
population was finally incited into action at the student protest on the 23rd of October,
1956, when the streets of Budapest flooded with not only students, but also the general
public.
In Czechoslovakia the student movement followed along much the same lines.
They too drew upon the writings of Czechoslovak intellectuals, and took to the streets. As
mentioned there were student protests on the streets of Prague in 1956 similar to those in
Budapest. The Czechoslovak government, headed by Novotny, however, intervened, and
did not allow the student movement to progress; instead it introduced a policy of neoStalinism. This was the major difference between Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956;
while the Hungarian students felt that at least Nagy was on their side, the Czechoslovaks
found no sympathy from their government.
It took another ten years for the student movement in Czechoslovakia to evolve,
and finally reach its climax in the mid to late sixties, when Dubček ’s reformist
sentiments allowed a more public display of dissent. As will be shown in the conclusion,
the existence of liberal tendencies within the government was a major variable with
regards to the success and proliferation of a mass liberalization movement.
V. b. 3. The Workers’ Involvement
The workers and peasants in both nations were barely politically active at all during the
run-up to the Prague Spring or the Hungarian Revolt. They were only marginally a factor,
and in both cases only joined in the protest towards the end of the liberalization
movements. “During the final stage, both sides in the intra-Party struggle were looking to
the masses, and to the industrial workers in particular.”191 The workers in Hungary,
however, believed that either way the government would still be controlled by a marginal
elite, and that for them, very little would change. For the intelligentsia “…it was very
difficult to establish contact; for the workers were deeply suspicious of all members of
the Communist upper crust. Things were not made easier by the fact that the writers
neither could nor would attack the Party and Communism as such, but were merely
191
Kecskemeti. Pg. 78
73
pleading for reforms (radical ones to be sure) within the framework of the system. This
drew no warm response from the workers who had long lost any hope that the system
could change its spots.”192 While they had initially been tempted to see the
implementation of communism as a positive, as, in the utopian ideal of communism, all
would be equal, they had lost hope that such an egalitarian society would ever be
achieved. They did not have the luxury of opposing the system as did the intelligentsia
and the students. It was much the same in Czechoslovakia over ten years later.
Disillusionment had set in, neither the communist system, nor the attempted economic
reforms made by Ota Šik had brought about the desired effects on wages and income; the
workers and peasants had lost faith in both the liberal communists and the old guard.
Eventually, however, the workers in Czechoslovakia were also pressed into action, as the
drive for reform was creating more and more uproar amongst the general public. The
liberalization movement, having started out as a purely intellectual endeavor, permeated
all of Hungarian and Czechoslovak society in the weeks and days leading up to the two
confrontations.
V. c. Economic Causes – Failed Economic Reform; the New Course and Ota Šik
While economic causes did play some part in the acceleration of both the Prague Spring
and the Hungarian Revolt, they were mainly secondary to the political and social factors
which contributed to both the uprisings.
Many of the economic factors which contributed to the disturbances were part of
the larger system of reform, Nagy’s New Course, which failed to produce the desired
results in Hungary, and Šik’s reforms of the economic system in Czechoslovakia. The
economic strain in both nations, in the lead-up to the revolt and the spring, served mainly
to create discontent amongst the workers and peasants, as they were most affected by the
changing system of collectivization, liberalization, and the constantly changing economic
policies under the more liberal, and more conservative Party leaderships.
192
Ibid. Pg. 79
74
The main difference between the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian economies, in 1956,
was the strength of the pre-communist economy. While the Hungarian economy had
suffered greatly during the Second World War, Czechoslovakia emerged relatively
unscathed, particularly due to the fact that pre-WWII it had already seen a substantial
industrial development; as Suda has explained, the other nations which fell under the
control of the Soviet union were closer to Russia’s level of industrialization and
development as it had been in 1917.193 The fact that the Hungarian economy was in a
worse state than that of Czechoslovakia in 1956 perhaps contributed to the persistence of
the reform movement there, while the Czechoslovak Party was able to silence the calls
for reform, and was able to keep the general public ‘in line’ until 1968.
In Hungary Nagy’s New Course had failed to reinvigorate the devastated
economy which had emerged from the Second World War, which was a major factor
contributing to Rákosi’s decision to go directly to Moscow with his complaints over the
developing liberalizations, and a major contributing factor to Moscow’s decision to
intervene in Hungary’s internal affairs and liquidate the New Course.
In Czechoslovakia the failure of the third Five-Year-Plan, in 1965, had led to a
reform movement in the economic and industrial sector, allowing for more private
enterprise, and an economy no longer based solely on heavy industry. However, the
failure of Ota Šik to produce a viable plan of action for Czechoslovakia’s flailing
economy, led to widespread confusion, and the implementation of several different
policies, which, by 1968, had left the Czechoslovak economy in disarray. This failed
economic reform led to unrest amongst the workers, who saw their wages being lowered,
and their employment prospects diminished, and throughout 1968 small strikes began to
erupt.
As both nations were vital to the Soviet economy, both for the dispensation of
their crude oil and coal, as well as for the production of consumer goods, Moscow had a
substantial interest in the success of their economies, and the failure of economic reform
in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia led to great unrest in the Politburo.
193
Suda. Pg. 1
75
V. d. The Impact of the Hungarian Revolt on the Political Decisions of Alexander
Dubček in 1968
While the Hungarian Revolt did not affect an immediate, similar revolt in
Czechoslovakia, there is no doubt that it influenced the manner in which Dubček dealt
with the growing popular liberalization movement during the sixties. Dubček stated
publicly that he had no intention to secede from the Warsaw Pact, and that he, and thus
Czechoslovakia, was a loyal adherent of socialism and communist ideals, in the hope of
preventing a violent Soviet intervention similar to the one in Hungary in 1956.
The influence of foreign reform movements is another major difference between
Hungary and Czechoslovakia. While Nagy, and the intelligentsia in Hungary in 1956,
drew inspiration from the successes booked in Poland that same year, Dubček, in 1968,
had witnessed the Soviet intervention in Budapest, and this acted as a deterrent to the
liberalization movement. However, while 1956 may have weighed heavily on Dubček’s
mind, the liberalization movement took on a life of its own, as more and more social
groups became involved, and in the end, there was no turning back the call for reform.
76
Chapter VI. Conclusion
The question I am attempting to answer is threefold: firstly, why was there no uprising in
Prague in 1956, as there was in Poland and Hungary? Secondly, what changed within
Czechoslovakia, politically, economically and socially, in order for the eventual Prague
Spring to take place? And, lastly, what conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of
Hungary 1956 and Prague 1968?
Due to the existence of multiple conjunctural causation and causal complexity in
both cases, it is difficult to pinpoint what similar factor in Hungary and Czechoslovakia
caused the eventual Prague Spring and Hungarian Revolt, I will, however, attempt to
draw conclusions from the data gathered throughout the course of this research, and draw
conclusions based on a systematic analysis of the causes of the two uprisings.
VI. a. Why Budapest, not Prague? The Events of 1956
As has been touched upon in the previous chapters, there were several reasons for the
absence of a full-blown revolt in Czechoslovakia in 1956. While the time may have
seemed right, with the ongoing process of de-Stalinization, and the successes booked in
Poland, the circumstances in Czechoslovakia were sufficiently different from those in
both Poland and Hungary in order to prevent a similar uprising there.
Hungary 1956
Czechoslovakia 1956
Political:
Influence of De-Stalinization/
Soviet Pressure for Reform
1
0
Reform Leadership
1
0
Positive Influence of Foreign
Reform Movements
1
0
Negative Influence of Foreign
Reform Movements
0
1
Social:
77
Pressure from Intelligentsia:
Writers, Students
1
1
Workers’ Involvement
1
0
Substantially Weakened
Economy
1
0
Revolt
Yes
No
Economic:
Table 1. Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956
Table 1, above, has been drafted to help us clarify the exact differences and similarities
between the socio-political and economic circumstances in 1956 in the two nations under
discussion. 1 indicates presence of a certain phenomenon, while 0 indicates its absence,
or the presence of only trace amounts, the influence of which can be largely deemed
insignificant.
“In contrast to the past practice of natural historians, there should be included in
any study both positive and negative cases, so that hypotheses about the causes of the
phenomena under investigation can be checked against cases where that phenomenon did
not occur. Ultimately cases can be grouped and regrouped in different ways according to
what questions are being investigated or according to what hypotheses are being tested,
so that the end result of proliferating historically sensitive comparisons will be far richer
than the products of studies which try to pretend that historical developments and world
contexts are irrelevant.”194 This investigation consists of both a positive and a negative
case, and it will be shown that the historical developments of Czechoslovakia and
Hungary contributed to the differing situation in 1956.
Reform did take place in the cases of Hungary and Poland in 1956, these cases
being the positive examples against Czechoslovakia, which did not see a successful
reform movement emerge. While there is a substantial difference between Hungary and
Poland, being that Hungary’s drive for reform was cut short by the Soviet intervention
whereas in Poland an agreement was reached between Gomułka and Khrushchev, I will
194
Skočpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Pg. 114
78
still label it successful in bringing about a popular reform movement. The world-context
Skočpol refers to, at this time, can be considered to be the Cold War context, within
which the Soviet Union was attempting to keep its communist empire from falling for
capitalism, or the ‘West’. More specifically, in 1956, the context was the current of deStalinization.
Why did Czechoslovakia not use the framework of the de-Stalinization process in
1956 in the same manner the Hungarians did; why did it take over a decade for
Czechoslovakia to develop its own process of liberalization, or rather, allow it to mature?
Novotný, who, in 1956, as Khrushchev declared the implementation of his new policy,
resolutely declared his own policy of neo-Stalinism, under which no reforms or
liberalization of the system would be accepted: “Having stifled calls for a systematic
undoing of Stalinism in 1956 because of their own complicity in its crimes, the ruling
clique around Antonín Novotný, the Communist Party’s first secretary since 1953 and
president of the republic since 1957, first allowed a substantive normative change in
1960.”195 As is shown in Table 1, this is perhaps the most important difference between
the cases of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956. While in Hungary there was a
leadership ready for internal reform and liberalization of the Party apparatus, in
Czechoslovakia Novotný was of the so-called old-guard, and not susceptible to calls for
reform. As briefly mentioned in the preceding chapter, reform-leadership was vital to the
success of either a popular or intra-party liberalization movement, and it was not until
Czechoslovakia came under the rule of Alexander Dubček that this essential factor was
met; Both Nagy and Dubcek “…embodied a mission and became a symbol, a center to
which reformer-revolutionaries gathered.”196
Table 1 illustrates that the political circumstances in Hungary, which were
conducive to change, were not present in Czechoslovakia. And, while Hungary had not
felt the negative effects of the Polish reform movement, Czechoslovakia, after the Soviet
intervention in Hungary in 1956, did have a negative example of what a far-reaching
liberalization movement could imply.
195
196
Williams. Pg. 7
Berend, Ivan T. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993. Pg. 101-102
79
While the events in Poland in 1956 helped spark those in Budapest of the same year,
Prague was not so quick to pick up on these developments. The KSČ attempted to placate
the Czechoslovak people, amongst whom there were modest calls for reform early in
1956, by an investigation into the political trials and purges of the Stalin-era. Aside from
this, the developing resistance in Hungary and Poland was generally ignored: “As it was
gaining momentum, the Czechoslovak authorities temporarily suspended import of
publications from these two countries. The Hungarian uprising and the subsequent Soviet
military intervention gave the Party a welcome pretext to stop all further moves towards
“liberalization”.”197 This illustrates the important role the Hungarian uprising played in
both the Czechoslovak government’s desire and ability to pursue a policy of neoStalinism, and to disallow any drastic liberalization, as well as its effect on the
Czechoslovak public, which had no desire to see a reenacting of the Soviet intervention
in Budapest.
Due to Novotný’s proclamation of a policy of neo-Stalinism, and the KSČ’s
extensive attempts to block out any ‘counterrevolutionary’, reformist movements “the
waves of opposition throughout Czechoslovakia had not solely been silenced by the
measures of fall 1956. After mobilization of the KSČ functionaries, who had, for the
most part, not joined in the criticism of Stalin, the entire Party became dominated by an
antagonistic, hostile stance towards those who were different-minded.”198 There was
another major difference between the Communist parties of Czechoslovakia, Hungary
and even Poland. While we have established the difference in leadership, there was also
no intra-Party struggle in Czechoslovakia in 1956: “The situation in these three national
parties…was not the same. The Poles had just lost their First Secretary, Boleslaw Bierut,
who had died on March 13 during a visit to Moscow. His replacement, Edward Ochab,
was known to be more flexible. In Hungary, the Imre Nagy wing of the party was forcing
Rákosi into a tactical retreat. No such split existed in the Czechoslovak party. They
sensed the need to stick together.”199 “Radical change was exactly what the Czechoslovak
197
Williams. Pg. 70-71
Foitzik. Pg. 233.
199
Matthews, John P. C. “The Abortive Student Revolt in Czechoslovakia in 1956”. Working Paper No. 24.
Cold War International History Project, September, 1998. Pg. 9
198
80
Party was trying to avoid. And their apparently united determination to quash what
Khrushchev had unleashed, soon bolstered by the upheaval in Poznan and later by the
revolution in Hungary, turned out to be radical indeed.”200
In Table 1 it can be seen that, although there was social involvement in both
Hungary and Czechoslovakia with regards to the intelligentsia, in Czechoslovakia “the
workforce…remained passive in comparison to the two neighboring nations.”201 And
“from April to June 1956, there were only a few small strikes.”202
One of the most important assets to control when attempting to mount a popular
revolt is the media. This was another area where Czechoslovakia differed from its
neighbors: “…the mass media in Czechoslovakia, in contrast to that in Poland and
Hungary, was under the strict control of the Party apparatus.”203 This led to a decreased,
if not completely absent, coverage of the popular reform movement in Hungary.
In Czechoslovakia the government sided with Moscow; “As early as the 24th of
October 1956, the KSČ Politburo offered to send Czechoslovak volunteers for the
intervention against the coming counterrevolution to Hungary.”204 It was also the KSČ
leadership which used the Hungarian Revolt as an excuse to suppress calls for reform in
1956: “Earlier critics within the Party leadership fell silent completely; not only out of
fear for retaliations, but most also out of their own persuasion. The later reformcommunists of 1968 accepted, in their majority, the justification of the military
intervention in Hungary as a measure to protect socialism in the interest of the Hungarian
people.”205
One of the other aspects to be considered, with regards to why there was no
Prague Spring in 1956, is the integration of the communist party within either society
before their respective communist takeovers. The people of Czechoslovakia can be
considered to have been more familiar with, and accepting of, the communist system, as
the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had been an integral part of the Czechoslovak
200
Matthews. Pg. 10
Foitzik. Pg.231
202
Ibid.
203
Ibid. Pg. 233
204
Ibid. Pg. 234
205
Ibid. Pg. 237
201
81
government during the interbellum, all the way up to the implementation of the Soviet
communist party-state system. In Hungary the communist party had not been part of the
pre-war government, as it had been banned previously, thus leaving the Hungarians more
shaken by a ‘coup’ of which was essentially, to them, an alien group.
The other aspect which has been uncovered as one of the major reasons why there
was a delayed reform movement in Czechoslovakia, was the conviction still felt amongst
the leaders of the KSČ that socialism was the only ‘just’ form of government. After the
extremes of nationalism which all Eastern European countries had experienced during the
Second World War, the communist system seemed the most viable option. In particular,
this was due to the fact that Eastern European nations still saw the Russians as their
liberators. This idolization of the Russian liberation forces contributed to the acceptance
of the implementation of the communist system throughout Eastern Europe. Even though
it quickly became clear that the Red Army was in many ways an occupation force, after
the traumatic experiences of WWII the Russian occupation paled in comparison.
In 1956 the Czechs were not yet disillusioned with communism, disillusionment
which began to set in, especially amongst the intelligentsia, throughout the 1960’s. The
Czechoslovak government supported the Soviet intervention in Hungary, even offered to
do so militarily, because they believed Hungarian socialism needed to be defended
against so-called counter-revolutionary forces attempting to bring it down. By 1968,
many of the proponents of reform were those who had staunchly defended Sovietimposed communism in 1956.
As is shown in Table 1, in 1956 both governments were, at least partially, letting
their policies be inspired by two different examples; the Hungarian government had seen
the relative success of Gomułka in Poland, and believed a similar liberalization to be
possible within its own nation, while the Czechoslovak government had witnessed the
Soviet intervention in Budapest, which left them with no desire to allow any process of
liberalization, which might inspire a popular rebellion, and incur the wrath of Moscow.
Thus, rather than acting as an inspiration, a factor which could have contributed to a
similar uprising in Prague in 1956, the Hungarian revolt acted as a deterrent. This, in
combination with the fact that Czechoslovakia did possess a political leadership which
82
believed in liberalization and reform of the Soviet system, caused Czechoslovakia to
continue on the same path, under Soviet rule, until at least the early sixties.
Foitzik labels it a historical paradox that “Czechoslovakia, a pre-war democratic
state, should develop during the fifties into the most important bastion of the Soviet
Union, and should guarantee their dominance in this area. The irregular maturation of the
counterrevolutionary movements throughout the Eastern European nations allowed the
Kremlin to maintain the Soviet empire, without any substantial modifications, for over a
decade.”206 It was during this decade that the calls for liberalization of the system became
increasingly loud throughout Czechoslovakia, and by 1968 could no longer be ignored.
VI. b. What changed within Czechoslovakia between 1956 and 1968, which allowed
for the eventual development and implementation of a political liberalization
movement?
“The twelve years between 1956 and 1968 were dominated by Kádár, Gomułka and
Novotný. In the USSR the Khrushchev era, characterized by somewhat erratic attempts at
reform lasted until 1964. The last four years were those of his successor Leonid
Brezhnev, who stood for a freezing of the system.”207 Only Gomułka had, more or less,
successfully pried his way out from under the Soviet yoke.
One of the developments which continued in Czechoslovakia after 1956 was the
political involvement of the intelligentsia. As described in Chapter III. d. the ‘new’
intelligentsia continued to question and challenge the existing order throughout the late
fifties and early sixties.
Another major change which took place in Czechoslovakia during this period
which facilitated the rise of a popular reform movement was a change in government, not
only with regards to the top Party functionaries, but also regarding policy-making; as
206
207
Foitzik. Pg. 238
Wandycz. Pg. 253.
83
Kieran Williams describes it, the country’s policy making style went from being
completely imposed, to being more consensual.208
Economically not much changed, after the failure of the third five-year-plan in
1961-’65 Ota Šik attempted several reforms, all of which failed to revive the economy. It
can be argued, however, that the Czechoslovak economy was worse off in 1968 than it
had been in 1956, as there was no longer a clear economic policy; the reforms had only
created confusion and disarray.
The main difference in Czechoslovakia in 1968 was the manner in which the call
for reform was taken up. In the case of Hungary 1956, Nagy had interpreted
Khrushchev’s secret speech as a call for internal reform of the communist system. In
1968 Dubček had no such speech to fall back on, as he had seen the intervention in
Hungary, and knew that Khrushchev’s words had been misinterpreted and that far—
reaching reform of the communist system would not be accepted by Moscow. While
Dubček implemented reforms, the eventual incentive for the 1968 uprising came from the
streets; the intelligentsia, the student and writers’ movements had become increasingly
disillusioned with the communist system, and had become swept up in the maelstrom of
social protest and demands for liberalization.
The most important differentiation to make between the events of 1956 in
Hungary, and those of 1968 in Czechoslovakia is the context of the liberalization
movements. In 1956 the Hungarian people had only been subject to Communist rule for
roughly a decade, and popular resistance had not had the time to evolve as it had by the
time the Czechoslovak people mounted their popular revolt. This is the first main
contextual difference between the two cases; the length of time the people of the two
respective satellite states had been under communist rule.
Another difference which must be noted is the fact that the internal situation
within the Politburo in Moscow changed drastically over the course of the twelve years
between the two uprisings. Brezhnev had taken over from Khrushchev as General
Secretary of the Communist Party in 1964, and, while he had outwardly seemed
supportive of Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, after he rose to power he quickly
208
Williams. Pg. 7
84
strove to reverse, or halt, the tentative liberalizations which had taken place within the
Soviet Union under Khrushchev.
VI. c. What conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of 1956 and 1968?
The process of de-Stalinization which developed after 1953, and particularly after
Khrushchev’s speech in 1956 was the most important factor contributing to the
liberalization movements in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Both Nagy and Dubcek,
while at different points in time, saw the need for intra-Party reform, and their policies
gained momentum through growing popular support for liberalization.
Hungary 1956
Czechoslovakia 1968
Political:
Influence of De-Stalinization/
Soviet Pressure for Reform
1
0
Reform Leadership
1
1
Positive Influence of Foreign
Reform Movements
1
0
Negative Influence of Foreign
Reform Movements
0
1
1
1
1
1
Weakened Economy
1
1
Reform:
Yes
Yes
Social:
Pressure from Intelligentsia:
Writers and Students
Worker/
Peasant Support
Economic:
85
Table 2. Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968
The above table, Table 2, will help us elucidate the differing causes of the Hungarian
Revolt and the Prague Spring. Again, 1 indicates presence of a certain phenomenon,
while 0 indicates its absence. The results of Table 1 can be contrasted with those of Table
2, in order to interpret what vital changes took place in the Czechoslovak situation which
eventually resulted in the Spring of 1968.
The three differences which strike us between the situation in Prague in 1956 and
that in 1968 are: the existence of a reformist government, the involvement of the workers
and peasantry, and the deteriorated economic situation.
This leads us to the conclusion that the circumstances which seem to have been
necessary for both these reform movements to come to fruition are; the reformist
sentiment of the government, or at least of the leadership, the political involvement and
pressure of the intelligentsia, writers and students, the workers and peasants being stirred
into action, and a deteriorated economic situation.
The different revolutions, or attempts at reform and liberalization, throughout
Eastern Europe during the second half of the twentieth century all had their set of casespecific causes, although there were circumstances which seem to have been similar
across all of them. Under Gomułka in Poland, Nagy in Hungary and Dubček in
Czechoslovakia, these satellites witnessed an attempted liberalization of the strict
Stalinist system.
Why then had Gomułka been more successful in prying Poland out from under
the Soviet yoke than Hungary and Czechoslovakia? After the uprising in Poznań on the
28th of June of 1956, which had been violently suppressed, Khrushchev had personally
traveled to Poland in October to search for a solution to the issue.209 The agreement
which was reached in October of that same year between the reinstated Gomułka and
Khrushchev was that, as long as Poland supported the Soviet Union with regards to
209
Berend. Pg. 109-112
86
foreign affairs, it would be allowed to practice a large amount of independence with
regards to its domestic policies. That Khrushchev was attempting to secure his Western
borders is one of the most widely propagated theories. He had already intervened
violently in the GDR during the 1953 uprising, and had suppressed the anticommunist
revolt there, but then why strike a deal with Gomułka? Apparently Khrushchev had
become convinced of the fact that Gomułka could subdue the counterrevolutionary
tendencies within Poland, while ensuring Poland’s continued membership of the Warsaw
Pact, and its loyalty to the Soviet Union. This, in combination with the fact that, were a
conflict in Poland to arise, East Germany would be cut off from the USSR, led
Khrushchev to a compromise. There was no such guarantee in Hungary, as Nagy
eventually proclaimed his secession from the Warsaw Pact, and Dubček appeared to
Moscow to have lost control of Czechoslovakia, himself becoming the spokesperson for
the popular reform movement.
There are several similarities to be found between the most important causes of
liberalization across the three cases. Regarding the reformist attitude in the government;
Poland had Gomułka, who had previously been arrested for expressing affinity with a
‘national path to socialism’, and denouncing the Soviet model.210 Hungary had Imre
Nagy, who attempted to de-Stalinize his nation over the course of three years, was then
replaced by Rákosi, but, due to public outcry, he was reinstated, and Czechoslovakia
eventually had Dubček, who, with his Action Program of April 5th 1968211 took up his
quest for “socialism with a human face”. A leadership open to reform, or an intra-Party
debate regarding liberalization of the communist system, was crucial to the development
of a liberalization movement. As stated above, the lack of this political pre-condition is
one of the main reasons why Prague did not see a revolt in 1956.
The involvement of the writers is paramount in all three cases, as is the studentprotest, which consisted more of physical action, taking to the streets, but was in many
ways inspired by the writers’ movement towards liberalization. The political involvement
210
211
Rupnik. Pg. 118
Berend. Pg. 141
87
of the intellectuals sparked political discussion of liberalization in Hungary and
Czechoslovakia, as well as Poland.
As for the economic sphere, Czechoslovakia had been least affected by the early
collectivization under Soviet rule: “There was a basic similarity in the developments in
Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the economic
sphere rigid planning patterned on the USSR resulted in full nationalization of enterprises
and virtual destruction of the prosperous private sector. Emphasis was placed on the
development of heavy industry. Collectivization of agriculture ran into stubborn
resistance in Poland, where only 10 percent of peasant land was collectivized, and
produced tensions in Hungary where a restructuring of agriculture by 1953 bankrupted
agrarian production. The situation was different in Czechoslovakia, where 90 percent of
agriculture was collectivized and the country’s strong economic base was less visibly
affected.”212 This illustrates the economic difficulties faced by both Hungary and Poland
in 1956, which contributed to their drive for reform, whilst Czechoslovakia did not
experience a real economic crisis until the end of the 1950s and the early 60s.
The circumstances which led to successful reform movements in Poland and
Hungary in 1956 did not occur in Czechoslovakia until 1968. It was the culmination of
discontent with Soviet-imposed communism throughout all levels of society which
eventually lead to the Prague Spring in August of 1968.
Czechoslovakia had been substantially different to Poland and Hungary from the
get-go; it had been amongst the most industrialized nations of the world pre-WWII, and
had long known a successful democratic government, within which the Communist party
had played a considerable role long before Moscow became involved. It had been better
off at the moment of the implementation of the communist party-state system, which, in
combination with the suppression practiced by Novotný in 1956, most likely contributed
to the delayed liberalization movement.
To what extent then did the reform movements of the fifties and sixties contribute
to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union? “It would be foolhardy to claim that the
final overthrow of Communism in Czechoslovakia was a direct consequence of the
212
Wandycz. Pg. 248
88
student revolt of 1956. It would be equally foolhardy, however, to maintain that there was
absolutely no connection. "We students may be young, but we remember a lot," read one
of the placards in the 1956 Majales. They may not have remembered the specifics in
1989, but the traditions were well ingrained.”213The memory of the Hungarian Revolt and
the Prague Spring was still very much alive in both nations by the end of the eighties.
“An important factor in transitions from dictatorship to democracy is popularly
known as the ‘domino’ or ‘snowball’ effect.”214 This snowball effect swept across
Eastern Europe in 1989; the wave of anticommunist revolutions, also known as the
Autumn of Nations, finally allowed East-Central Europe to ride itself of Soviet-imposed
Communism. “A demonstration effect seems the best description of how the diffusion of
democratization globally and regionally can have a cumulative influence. For continual
demonstrations of successful democratization in other countries seem to both reduce the
military’s political self-confidence and raise the self-confidence of its civilian
opponents.”215 This illustrates once again the importance of ‘positive reinforcement’,
such as that given by the success of Gomułka in Poland when the time came for Hungary
to voice its discontent with the hard-line communist regime in 1956.
Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika, on top of a period of increasing
liberalization throughout the Soviet Union, eventually led to the dissolution of
Communist Eastern Europe. By 1989; “…parts of the East European Communist elites
shared their subjects’ desire for at least, partial economic reforms – which were already
practised in Hungary and Yugoslavia. Gorbatchov’s attempt at limited economic reforms
(perestroika), and some political liberalizations (glasnost), then in early 1989 permitted
the reformers in most politbureaus to sideline their overaged hardliners (often they were
thrown out of the party).”216 This ‘cleansing’ or ‘purging’ of the Party happened
throughout Eastern Europe, “only in the Czech Republic did the Communists –
213
Matthews. Pg. 37
Booker. Pg. 191
215
Ibid.
216
Rothacher, Albrecht. “Comparative transformation. Experiences in East Europe and prospects in East
Asia.” Asia Europe journal, Volume: 3, Issue: 1 (March 1, 2005), pp: 79-94. Pg. 80-81
214
89
thoroughly purged of any potential reformers after the Soviets 1968 invasion - fail to set
up a proper reformist party.”217
All this begs the question, was the Communist Party State system ever
reformable? Throughout the second half of the twentieth century reform and
liberalization movements surfaced, disappeared and resurfaced throughout the Eastern
European satellites, and in every instance, as intra-party liberalization took hold, the
population of these respective nations called for further reforms; neither the New Course,
the post-1953 thaw, or the policies of glasnost and perestroika were ‘enough’. Give
someone a finger and they take your hand, or in any case want to take you hand, seems an
applicable statement with regards to reform initiated from within the Communist party
itself. When faced with the ‘snowball’ effect of these liberalizations however, the point
where the reform movement spilled over onto the streets from an original intra-Party
movement, old-guard Stalinism seems to set in every time, either based on Moscow’s
need to maintain control over its satellites, or the respective national politburo’s to
maintain some form of control over its population.
217
Rothacher, Albrecht. “Comparative transformation. Experiences in East Europe and prospects in East
Asia.” Asia Europe journal, Volume: 3, Issue: 1 (March 1, 2005), pp: 79-94. Pg. 81
90
VII. Bibliography
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the periphery. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
---. Decades of Crisis; Central and Eastern Europe before World War II. Berkeley and
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95
VIII. Appendices
VIII. a. Andropov Report 28th October, 1956. Yuri Andropov forwards a letter from
Prime Minister Hegedüs to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Socialist Republics.
Excerpt taken from the CWIHP Virtual Archive of the Woodrow Wilson Centre.
Budapest, October 28, 1956
In code
Top Secret
Not to be copied
Sent from Budapest Urgent
I hereby forward a letter from the Hungarian Government to: “The Council of Ministers
of the Soviet Socialist Republics”
Moscow
On behalf of the Council of Ministers of the People’s Republic of Hungary I appeal to the
Government of the Soviet Union to send Soviet troops in order to put an end to the riots
that have broken out in Budapest, to restore order as soon as possible, and to guarantee
the conditions for peaceful and creative work.
24 October 1956
Budapest
Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Hungary Andras Hegedüs
28. X.56 [28 October 1956] Andropov
The Cold War International History Project. The Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.
Virtual Archive: Collection: 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
96
VIII. b. The Brezhnev Doctrine, 1968
In connection with the events in Czechoslovakia the question of the correlation and
interdependence of the national interests of the socialist countries and their international
duties acquire particular topical and acute importance.
The measures taken by the Soviet Union, jointly with other socialist countries, in
defending the socialist gains of the Czechoslovak people are of great significance for
strengthening the socialist community, which is the main achievement of the international
working class.
We cannot ignore the assertions, held in some places, that the actions of the five socialist
countries run counter to the Marxist-Leninist principle of sovereignty and the rights of
nations to self-determination.
The groundlessness of such reasoning consists primarily in that it is based on an abstract,
nonclass approach to the question of sovereignty and the rights of nations to selfdetermination.
The peoples of the socialist countries and Communist parties certainly do have and
should have freedom for determining the ways of advance of their respective countries.
However, none of their decisions should damage either socialism in their country or the
fundamental interests of other socialist countries, and the whole working class
movement, which is working for socialism.
This means that each Communist party is responsible not only to its own people, but also
to all the socialist countries, to the entire Communist movement. Whoever forget this, in
stressing only the independence of the Communist party, becomes one-sided. He deviates
from his international duty.
Marxist dialectics are opposed to one-sidedness. They demand that each phenomenon be
examined concretely, in general connection with other phenomena, with other processes.
Just as, in Lenin's words, a man living in a society cannot be free from the society, one or
another socialist state, staying in a system of other states composing the socialist
community, cannot be free from the common interests of that community.
The sovereignty of each socialist country cannot be opposed to the interests of the world
of socialism, of the world revolutionary movement. Lenin demanded that all Communists
fight against small nation narrow-mindedness, seclusion and isolation, consider the whole
and the general, subordinate the particular to the general interest.
97
The socialist states respect the democratic norms of international law. They have proved
this more than once in practice, by coming out resolutely against the attempts of
imperialism to violate the sovereignty and independence of nations.
It is from these same positions that they reject the leftist, adventurist conception of
"exporting revolution," of "bringing happiness" to other peoples.
However, from a Marxist point of view, the norms of law, including the norms of mutual
relations of the socialist countries, cannot be interpreted narrowly, formally, and in
isolation from the general context of class struggle in the modern world. The socialist
countries resolutely come out against the exporting and importing of counterrevolution
Each Communist party is free to apply the basic principles of Marxism Leninism and of
socialism in its country, but it cannot depart from these principles (assuming, naturally,
that it remains a Communist party).
Concretely, this means, first of all, that, in its activity, each Communist party cannot but
take into account such a decisive fact of our time as the struggle between two opposing
social systems-capitalism and socialism.
This is an objective struggle, a fact not depending on the will of the people, and stipulated
by the world's being split into two opposite social systems. Lenin said: "Each man must
choose between joining our side or the other side. Any attempt to avoid taking sides in
this issue must end in fiasco."
It has got to be emphasized that when a socialist country seems to adopt a
"non-affiliated" stand, it retains its national independence, in effect, precisely because of
the might of the socialist community, and above all the Soviet Union as a central force,
which also includes the might of its armed forces. The weakening of any of the links in
the world system of socialism directly affects all the socialist countries, which cannot
look indifferently upon this.
The antisocialist elements in Czechoslovakia actually covered up the demand for socalled neutrality and Czechoslovakia's withdrawal from the socialist community with
talking about the right of nations to self-determination.
However, the implementation of such "self-determination," in other words,
Czechoslovakia's detachment from the socialist community, would have come into
conflict with its own vital interests and would have been detrimental to the other socialist
states.
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Such "self-determination," as a result of which NATO troops would have been able to
come up to the Soviet border, while the community of European socialist countries would
have been split, in effect encroaches upon the vital interests of the peoples of these
countries and conflicts, as the very root of it, with the right of these people to socialist
self-determination.
Discharging their internationalist duty toward the fraternal peoples of Czechoslovakia
and defending their own socialist gains, the U.S.S.R. and the other socialist states had to
act decisively and they did act against the antisocialist forces in Czechoslovakia.
From Pravda, September 25, 1968; translated by Novosti, Soviet press agency. Reprinted
in L. S. Stavrianos, The Epic of Man (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), pp.
465-466.
Halsall, Paul. The Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1968brezhnev.html>.
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