(iii) The uprising was not planned in advance, but actually took participants by surprise. Its timing was connected with Poland's successful move for greater independence from the USSR and with the disappointment caused by the speech of Mr. Ernö Gerö on his return from Yugoslavia on 23 October, when it was hoped that he would adopt a sympathetic attitude towards the popular demands voiced on 22 October by the Hungarian students;

(iv) It would appear that the Soviet authorities had taken steps as early as 20 October to make armed intervention possible. Evidence exists of troop movements, or projected troop movements, from that date on, and Soviet troops from outside Hungary were used even in the first intervention. In Hungary, signs of opposition were evident before 23 October;

(v) The demonstrations on 23 October were at first entirely peaceable and no evidence has been discovered that any demonstrators intended to resort to force. The change was due to the action of the AVH in opening fire on the people outside the Radio Building and to the appearance of Rus sian soldiers in Budapest as enemies in combat;

(vi) Mr. Nagy has established that he did not issue any invitation to the Soviet authorities to intervene and the Committee has no evidence as to the circumstances in which an invitation was issued or as to whether such an invitation was issued at all. Similar considerations apply to the alleged invitation by Mr. Kádár's Government for the Soviet troops to intervene on the second occasion. There is abundant evidence that Soviet preparations for this intervention had been under way since the last days of October;

(vii) Mr. Nagy was not at first free to exercise the full powers of the Premiership. By the time the grip of the AVH had been loosened, the real power lay with the Revolutionary and Workers' Councils. Mr. Nagy, seeing that his countrymen were united in their desire for other forms of Government and for the departure of the Soviet troops, threw in his lot with the insurgents;

(viii) During the few days of freedom, the popular nature of the uprising was proved by the appearance of a free press and radio and by general rejoicing among the people;

(ix) A number of lynchings and beatings by the crowds concerned, in almost all cases, members of the AVH or those who were believed to have co-operated with them;

(x) Steps taken by the Workers' Councils during this period were aimed at giving the workers real control of nationalized undertaking and at abolishing unpopular institutions, such as the production norms. Meanwhile, negotiations were proceeding for the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops and life in Budapest was beginning to return to normal;

(xi) In contrast to demands put forward at this time for the re-establishment of political rights, basic human rights of the Hungarian people were violated by the Hungarian Governments before 23 October, especially up to the autumn of 1955, and such violations have been resumed since 4 November. The numerous accounts of inhuman treatment and tortures by the AVH must be accepted as true. In an attempt to break the revolution, numbers of Hungarians, including some women, were deported to the Soviet Union and some may not have been returned to their homes;

(xii) Since the second Soviet intervention on 4 November there has been no evidence of popular support for Mr. Kádár's Government. Mr. Kádár has proceeded step by step to destroy the power of the workers. Strong repressive measures have been introduced and general elections have been postponed for two years. He refuses in present circumstances to discuss withdrawal of the Soviet troops. Only a small fraction of the 190,000 Hungarians who fled the country have accepted the invitation to return;

(xiii) Consideration of the Hungarian question by the United Nations was legally proper and paragraph 7 of Article 2 of the Charter does not justify objections to such consideration. A massive armed intervention by one Power on the territory of another with the avowed intention of interfering in its internal affairs must, by the Soviet Union's own definition of aggression,

CHAPTER III. THE UPRISING AS SEEN BY THE USSR AND BY THE GOVERNMENT OF JANOS KÁDÁR

A. INTRODUCTION

90. The Committee regrets that it was twice refused permission by Mr. Kádár's Government to enter Hungarian territory. This refusal meant, among other things, that it was denied the opportunity of obtaining first-hand information on the views of that Government. Throughout its investigations, the Committee has been guided by the desire to present an objective picture of what took place. It has, therefore, wished to include in its report a presentation of the opinions expressed by the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. János Kádár.

91. The outline which follows represents those opinions in so far as the Committee has had access to them. The main sources include the two volumes already published of the Hungarian White Book, The Counter-Revolutionary Forces in the October Events in Hungary, issued by the Information Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic; the memo randum on the question of Hungary addressed to Members of the United Nations on 4 February 1957 by Mr. Péter Mód, Permanent Representative of Hungary;" statements by members of the USSR and Hungarian delegations to the Security Council and the General Assembly; and other official speeches or articles in officially sponsored publications.

92. The views expressed by Imre Nagy call for consideration in chapters VI, VIII and XII, where the Committee has assembled information regarding his actions and movements during the period of the uprising.

93. It should be made clear that inclusion in this report of a statement of the views advanced by the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár does not in any manner constitute endorsement of them by the Committee. In fact, a reading of the report will show that this interpretation of events in Hungary conflicts in many respects with what the Committee considers to be satisfactory evidence obtained from eye-witnesses and other reliable sources.

94. The main points which the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár have sought to establish are summarized below.

B. THE ISSUES AT STAKE

95. "So long as there are exploiters and exploited in the world, so long as there are capitalists holding power in their hands and the working class,” said an editorial which Pravda devoted to the Hungarian situation on 18 December 1956, "so long will the conflict betwen the bourgeoisie and the proletariat remain the starting point for an analysis of historical events. Revisionism has repeatedly attempted to snatch from the hands of the working class this Marxist compass, which enables one to give a correct appraisal of the direction of events".

96. These words would seem to provide the key to the views expressed by the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár on the origin and nature of the Hungarian uprising. They would appear to proceed from a desire to fit events into a preconceived pattern, rather than to study them by an objective consideration of evidence. Their account of events starts from the assumption that all historical happenings must be viewed as aspects of the Communist conception of Marxism and of the class struggle, illustrating a permanent conflict between "good" Communist and "bad" bourgeois elements. While it is admitted by the Soviet Union and Mr. Kádár that errors and even "crimes" may occur in a Communist society, it is regarded as contrary to the destined course of history that such shortcomings could ever be so serious as to call in doubt the superiority of the Communist political structure. It follows that any radical criticism, such as a call for free elections, will be presented as the result, not of a genuine wish for improvement, but of "bourgeois" efforts to mislead the working masses and to reinstate capitalism. The committee found this interpretation of events in Hungary, studied in the light of the evidence, to be totally inadequate and superficial. It also found no evidence that either the Government of the USSR or that of Mr. Kádár has hitherto published anything in the nature of an objective statement of the facts behind the Hungarian uprising. Various indications, however, have suggested that the Soviet authorities were baffled by the spontaneous uprising of the Hungarian people and that they did, apparently, make an effort to

obtain information on it from various sources. Thus, the Committee has become aware that participants who were deported to the Soviet Union were closely questioned regarding the causes and nature of the uprising. The phenomenon of a working class movement directed against cherished Communist methods and ideals, and against emblems of the Soviet Union as symbols of those methods, would seem to have caused misgiving, and some of the Hungarians received the impression that their interrogators were not unsympathetic.

97. In the memorandum circulated by the Hungarian delegation to the United Nations on 4 February, it is stated that "the aim of the Hungarian counterrevolution was to reinstate the system of capitalists and estate owners, who have never given up hope since their defeat in 1945". The Pravda article on Hungary to which reference is made above, suggests that no one regarding himself as a Marxist could fail to understand that a radical change in Hungary's political system would inevitably mean the restoration of capitalism.

98. In the light of these considerations, spokesmen for the Governments of the USSR and of János Kádár have drawn attention to what they regard as two distinct elements in the Hungarian situation. Firstly, the Hungarian people had a number of legitimate grievances to which expression was given both before and after 23 October 1956. These concerned manifest errors and shortcomings on the part of the Government headed by Rákosi, who failed, as did his successors, to meet even the most justified demands. In the second place, the spokesmen of these Governments maintain that both reactionary elements in Hungary itself and imperialist circles abroad took advantage of such legitimate grievances and of the unrest generated by them to mislead the people and to strive by violence to overthrow the People's Democratic Republic.

99. In the introduction to the Hungarian White Book, The Counter-Revolutionary Forces in the October Events in Hungary (Volume 1), Rákosi's policy is described as "criminal". It is said to have aroused "deep indignation and a broad popular movement". However, states the writer, "the dark forces of counter-revolution tried from the very beginning to take advantage of the movement . . . in order to overthrow the people's power" (italics in original). "For the first time since the defeat of facism in the Second World War", Mr. D. T. Shepilov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, told the General Assembly on 22 November, "the world was witness to an open attempt by the underground fascist forces to defy the forces of democracy and to stage a comeback by means of an armed struggle".

100. The Introduction to Volume II of the White Book returns to this theme of an "attempted capitalist restoration" and draws what it calls "a number of irrefutable conclusions." They are stated as follows:

"1. The instigators and organizers of the armed uprising were foreign agents, Horthyite emigrés and leaders of the underground organizations in the country, who took an organized part in the mass demonstrations and increasingly assumed a leading role in them.

"2. Those representatives of the Horthy régime who had remained in Hungary began to restore the old order in the capital and in numerous towns, villages and districts in the countryside, while the emigrés abroad, with the aid of their agents at home, were already prepared for the complete seizure of power.

"3. The subversive broadcasts of Radio Free Europe-backed by dollars, directed from America, and functioning on the territory of West Germanyplayed an essential role in the ideological preparation and practical direction of the counter-revolution, in provoking the armed struggle, in the nonobservance of the ceasefire, and in arousing the mass hysteria which led to the lynching of innocent men and women loyal to their people and their country. The directors of Radio Free Europe carry a particularly heavy responsibility for the bloodshed between Hungarians and for the subsequent defections to the West, as well as for the tragedies they caused among many thousands of Hungarian families.

"4. After October 29, the aim of the counter-revolutionary rebels become more and more evident: to overthrow the socialist popular régime and to spread the sphere of influence of western capitalism over Hungary-in other words, bourgeois restoration."

101. The White Book contends that success by the counter-revolutionary forces would have meant more than the wiping out of ten years of "socialist progress" in Hungary and the abandonment of her people to a cruel and reactionary régime. Such success, it maintains, would have intensified the danger of an

armed clash between Hungary and her neighbours, in which Hungary would have become the first battlefield in a new world war. "The only possibility of saving popular power and eliminating the threat of a new, devastating war in the Danube Valley," concludes the Introduction to Volume I of the Hungarian White Book, "was to suppress counter-revolution."

102. This the forces of the Hungarian Government and people were said to be unable to accomplish alone, so massive was the support claimed to have been given to the "counter-revolutionary" elements by "reactionary" and "imperialist" circles in the West.

C. JUSTIFICATION OF SOVIET INTERVENTION

103. The Soviet Government's decision to come to the aid of the "revolutionary forces" struggling against "reaction" in Hungary was, according to the published views of Soviet leaders, the only "correct" one in the circumstances prevailing at that time.

104. The Soviet Declaration of 30 October concerning the principles of development and future strengthening of friendship and co-operation between the Soviet Union and other "socialist" States included this comment on the Soviet intervention: "The Soviet Government, in common with the entire Soviet people, profoundly deplores the fact that the developments in Hungary have led to bloodshed. At the request of the Hungarian People's Government, the Soviet Government agreed to the entry into Budapest of Soviet Army units, in order to help the Hungarian People's Army and Hungarian authorities to restore order in the city." After conceding the necessity for withdrawal, the Declaration continued: "The defense of the socialist gains of People's Democratic Hungary is today the chief and sacred obligation of the workers, peasants and intelligentsia and of the entire Hungarian working people."

105. On 23 November 1956, Pravda in an editorial commented as follows on the Soviet intervention: "A socialist State", it declared, "could not remain an indifferent observer of the bloody reign of fascist reaction in People's Democratic Hungary. When everything settles down in Hungary, when life becomes normal again, the Hungarian working-class, peasantry and intelligentsia will undoubtedly understand our actions better and judge them aright. We regard our help to the Hungarian working-class in its struggle against the intrigues of counter-revolution as our international duty."

106. The position taken by the Government of the USSR is that it was the Hungarian Government which officially requested the help of Soviet military units stationed in Hungary in accordance with the Warsaw Pact. The assistance given by these troops was, they state, directed entirely to the restoration of order. Its effectiveness is said to have caused the "forces of reaction” to retreat and at this point, in accordance with the request of Imre Nagy, the Soviet Government ordered its troops to withdraw from Budapest. Thereupon, runs the Soviet contention, the counter-revolutionary forces in Hungary began a brutal settlement of accounts with Communists and members of the state security services, as well as "progressive" friends of the Soviet Union. Entrenched within the Parilament Building, the Government of Imre Nagy, according to this view of events, had contact with the people only "through the agency of the microphone". It was criticized for making no attempt to prevent "counterrevolutionary elements" from seizing weapons and forming "armed gangs", which, Soviet spokesmen declared, proceeded to terrorize the Hungarian people. In these circumstances, seeing the People's Democratic Republic in imminent danger of collapse, János Kádár and other members of the Nagy Government were said to have broken away from it, set up a new Revolutionary WorkerPeasant Government and appealed to the Soviet Union for the assistance without which it is admitted that they could not have established that Government's authority.

107. When he formed his Government, Mr. Kádár said that there remained only two ways out of the grave situation which had developed. One, it was claimed, was to stand by helplessly while the "White Terror slaughtered, first in Budapest, then in the provinces, the active masses of workers, peasants, intelligentsia and Communists, then all those who sympathized with the Communists and then all patriotic democrats." He declared that, after this, a counter-revolution would have created a government which would have destroyed the forces of the people and surrendered the independence of Hungary to the "imperialist colonizers". The second solution was to use "every possible force, including the assistance of Soviet units, to prevent the counter

revolutionary war. . . The interests of the State and the people compelled us to choose this way as the only possible way out of the grave situation. And so we chose it.""

108. The objectives of the uprising are held to have been quite other than those publicly announced. The Introduction to Volume II of the Hungarian White Book says that the "propaganda in favour of bourgeois restoration" was "characterized by a hypocritical dissimulation of its actual aims. This hypocrisy represented a well-considered, underhanded means of misleading the socialist-minded masses." The White Book maintains that the demands and programmes that appeared in the press during the uprising "lagged far behind what it calls the orally proclaimed demands". As an example, it is said that no slogan was ever printed that all State and municipal functionaries in leading positions and all factory managers who were Communists or who co-operated with the Communists were to be relieved of their offices. "But", affirms the White Book, "in practice this is what actually began to take place in various administrations, institutions and enterprises." Moreover, the White Book states that, while the "counter-revolutionaries" were writing about friendship with the Soviet Union, they were tearing down red stars, outraging the monuments of Soviet heroes and burning Russian books.

109. It was always maintained that, despite such alleged provocations, the intervention of Soviet armed forces at the end of October and the beginning of November were undertaken in a spirit of self-sacrifice and good comradeship. On 5 November, the Commander of the Soviet troops in Hungary broadcast a communiqué calling his troops the "selfless friends" of the Hungarians. “Dark reaction prevails in Hungary”, declared the communiqué. "Counter-revolutionary gangs are looting and murdering. The Government of Imre Nagy has collapsed. Hungary addressed herself to the Soviet troops to re-establish order in the country. . . We address ourselves to the soldiers and officers of the Hungarian army to fight for sacred victory."

110. János Kádár has paid frequent tribute to what he declares to have been the high motives prompting Soviet intervention. In an interview broadcast by Moscow Radio on 29 November, he said that the help given by the USSR showed not merely the latter's determination to fulfill her duties proceeding from the Treaty but a deep understanding in a complicated situation. On 6 January 1957, Mr. Kádár's Government stated that the Soviet Army in Hungary was protecting the Hungarian people against a possible military attack by foreign and imperialistic forces, and was thus ensuring that they might live in peace and devote their strength to the great cause of socialist construction and the prosperity of the country. Many later statements have reiterated this theme.

111. Such are the main grounds advanced by the Governments of the USSR and of Mr. Kádár to justify Soviet intervention. Broadly speaking, it is maintained that that intervention was necessary to protect the Hungarian people against reactionary landowners and foreign imperialists. In this report it will be seen how contrary is that view to the conclusions reached by the Committee. The evidence, both written and oral, which it examined left no doubt as to the universal character of the uprising. It was the Hungarian workers, both men and women, who bore the brunt of the fighting against Soviet tanks-a fact which did not fail in several instances to impress the Soviet troops involved. Witnesses spoke of the friendly attitude of many Russian soldiers towards participants in the earlier phases of the uprising. The Committee also heard numerous accounts of how Soviet troops, many of Tartar or Mongol origin, who were brought to Hungary during the second intervention, had been told, not that they were to fight Hungarian workers in a People's Democracy, but that they were being sent to Egypt to throw back the "Anglo-French imperialists". It is apparent that many of these Soviet troops were misinformed as to the real nature of their mission and that they mistook the Danube for the Suez Canal. They were probably utilized because those Soviet forces used in the first intervention could not be relied upon to proceed with indifference to the attitude of the Hungarian people.

112. In studying the Soviet thesis regarding the grounds for intervention, it is also appropriate to recall that some of the fiercest resistance to Russian troops occurred in typically working-class districts of Budapest, of Ujpest and of the Csepel Island. Workers in the steel factories of Dunapentele declared that they would defend against invading Soviet forces the plant and houses which they had built with their own hands. When these Soviet forces suc