Developments in the Cold War associated
with the 1956 events in Poland are frequently lumped together in historical
analyses with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. However, the differences between
them could hardly have been greater.
To start with, what amounted to a
major Hungarian patriotic and nationalistic armed struggle for independence was
in the case of Poland simply an eruption of some “tensions and discontent” during
October 1956 that, besides a reshuffling of the party leadership, changed
precious little in the country. To be sure, the June 1956 events in Poznań with
their bloody suppression of factory workers’ demonstrations did result in
several dozen casualties. But those numbers fade by comparison with some 2,500
Hungarian and 700 Soviet military casualties and 200,000 Hungarian refugees in
what turned into a regular military operation including urban warfare, even
though it lasted only about two weeks – or, rather, three days of actual military
effort by the Soviet army.
The Poznań demonstrators were
protesting against an unjust compensation system and generally bad economic
conditions, without resorting to violence until after they had been attacked by
Polish armed forces. The Hungarian protesters, on the other hand, had intercepted
stocks of firearms from munitions factories early on, thus turning civic unrest
into armed conflict by their own initiative. They also denounced Soviet
interference and the imposed communist system overall. The communist Hungarian
government right away requested the support of Soviet troops, thereby further
fuelling the emerging antagonism between nationalistic patriots and their Soviet-backed
dictatorial government.
Furthermore, information about
the events in Poznań did not reach the general public in a way comparable to
the manner word of the Hungarian Revolution had been spread. Minimized and
denounced by the official propaganda, the Poznań demonstrations became one of
the numerous political taboos in Poland for many years to come, and the Polish
population could only speculate about what had really transpired there. Thus, Poznań
never became the symbol of a struggle for independence in the way the Hungarian
Revolution did.
The October unrest in Poland,
although much discussed in Moscow and in Washington, consisted of not more than
demonstrations, and its consequences did not have nearly as much impact inside
the country as it had among the governing elites. In fact, the Polish people
took little notice of the narrowly averted danger of a Soviet invasion, nor of
the international confusion their internal affairs appeared to have caused.
Until today, few people realize the significance of the events surrounding the
return of Władysław Gomułka to power, since most of the
struggle took place behind closed doors at the Politburo where Gomułka
negotiated a measure of liberalization with Moscow and, most importantly, the removal
of Soviet officials from the Polish leadership, especially the widely detested Polish-Russian
general Konstanty Ksawerowicz Rokossowski.
To be sure, both the replaced Polish government leadership and the newly-reinstated
Gomułka, who had been an early victim of Stalinist purges, were hardened communists
who usually took their orders from Moscow unquestioningly, cooperating with the
Kremlin on resolving problems that could endanger communist dictatorship
overall. This was not very different from the way antagonistic Hungarian
leaders dealt with their own country’s problems – Moscow was consulted from the
start at every step, until Imre Nagy decided to break ranks and announce
Hungarian neutrality along with Hungary’s secession from the Warsaw Pact in
view of massive Soviet reinforcements already pouring into the country to
stifle the revolution, and in so doing breaking their earlier promises of
withdrawal.
The chapter “From Demonstration
to Revolution” in The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (National Security
Archive Cold War Readers) criticizes the Hungarian leaders of the 1956
revolution rather harshly. They are portrayed as weak, wavering, indecisive,
and cowardly. It is important to notice, though, that it would be unjust to
expect them to be patriotic heroes – before the revolution, they had simply
been party opportunists in pursuit of power and of a better life through a
career in politics that happened to be limited in a one-party system – a system
imposed on the nation from outside by a conquering and occupying power. To
expect that they would actually stand by their proclaimed convictions and risk
their lives to defend the fiction of a “government by the people for the people”
is clearly overly optimistic under the circumstances. Neither Ernö Gerö, nor Imre Nagy, not even János Kádár wanted to handle the hot potato
of a nation boiling with unrest handed to them by the Hungarian Politburo and/or
the Soviets. No wonder, then, that Gerö tried to avoid difficult
decisions by taking extended vacations, first in the Crimea, then in
Yugoslavia, until he would be relieved of the unpleasant obligation, and Nagy
refused to leave his home during the protests in spite of vocal calls for his
return to the government. In times of uncertainty and turmoil it was all too
easy to make some inevitable missteps, for which it was even easier to become a
victim of a subsequent witch hunt, as Nagy and Kádár had already had an
opportunity to experience during previous Stalinist purges. Considering how
many prominent communists had actually lost their lives or freedom in those
purges and show trials during the late 1940’s and early 50’s, it is hardly any
wonder that Hungarian politicians hesitated in accepting offers of leadership
during such difficult times. What is, however, important to notice, is that
Nagy decided in the end to pursue a heroic albeit doomed policy of protesting
to the world rather than plainly surrendering (although his reputation with
Moscow was not significantly damaged by such actions, as evidenced by the
minutes of the Soviet Politburo’s deliberations that still considered him for
membership in the puppet government intended to be installed after the
revolution). Also, Kádár tried his best to convince the Politburo to pursue a
more reasonable policy regarding Hungary, before accepting the official party
line. Those discrepancies between deliberations behind the scenes and the
official announcements constitute a fascinating part of research into the archived
documents of this era.
The rationale behind some of the
Soviet decision-making is unclear: why, for example, offers of help from
Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia to silence the Hungarian Revolution were
rejected, and only Soviet troops participated in squashing the Hungarian
Revolution, adding to the already vivid anti-Russian sentiments of the
Hungarian population dating back at least to 1848. Another interesting and as
of yet unanswered question is why the Kádár government was able to introduce a liberalization
to the communist system, which did, in fact, prevent further unrest comparable
to what Poland experienced in the 1970’s – after all, a conquered nation had no
choice but to acquiesce to however harsh repercussions would be imposed by its
Soviet disciplinarian, while Poland, having escaped Soviet military
intervention (which would have amounted to a full-fledged war considering
historic anti-Russian and vividly fermenting anti-Soviet sentiments of the
time), changed so very little in its domestic policies despite the
reinstatement of the relatively reform-minded Gomułka.
Still in the timeframe of 1956, the
issue of Suez brought another aspect of the East-West conflict to light: in
spite of fervent propaganda against various aspects of the subjugation of
Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union, Western powers were not above resorting to
very similar techniques when it suited their own interests. Thus, and paradoxically,
both sides used the very same arguments and eerily similar rhetoric to accuse
the other party of the very same things they were committing themselves: both East
and West called themselves “true democracies” and denounced the “imperialist”
policies of the other side, and condemned its propaganda, denouncing human rights
and civil rights violations, meddling into the internal affairs of sovereign
nations, and whatever other sins a superpower could predictably be accused of.
Thus, the French were scrambling to get the Soviet intervention in Hungary
condemned by the UN in order to divert attention from their own crackdown on the
Algerian independence movement; Britain and France jointly tried to use the
same Hungarian card to prevent UN sanctions against their own attack on Suez; similarly,
the Soviet Union was too busy with the unrest in its immediate Eastern European
sphere of influence, to offer effective support to Gamal Abdel Nasser, its
nominal ally in Egypt. And the US was caught in between trying to preserve its
“liberation” rhetoric without actually doing anything that might upset either
its allies or its opponents. Disappointing as it might have been to realize for
small Eastern European countries, if they ever even harbored such illusions,
their fate was simply not important enough for anyone of significance in the
West to risk upsetting the tacitly agreed status quo between at first four, and
eventually just two remaining superpowers.
No comments:
Post a Comment