neutra struggles, but also with their own political agenda. Some carried placard pictures of Lenin, others pictures of former Prime Minister Imre Nagv. who had been ousted from office in 1954, and become a focus for oppositional groups demanding democratic reforms and independence from Moscow: but all fac. tions united to haul down a gigantic to january. statue of Stalin.
Gero broadcast a heavy-handed attack on the demonstrators: crowds immediately converged on the radio station — where they were fired upon by the strike the next day. hated AVH secret police. As fighting spread, Soviet troops garrisoned in Hungary moved in.
October 24 saw the start of a general strike, and fighting spread beyond Budapest. Moscow reluctantly agreed that Nagy should take over as Prime Minister Soviet masters. as the man most likely to restore control.
Nagy moved only timidly at first, offering little to the angry workers but inviting two leaders of the suppressed ployed: but neither they nor the shells that rained down could crush the spirit of the workers: the workers' councils and sporadic strikes continued through When Kadar's regime, backed by Russian troops, arrested delegates at the Budapest Central Workers' Council on December 11 it triggered a fresh general The military force of Stalinism eventually won the day, but at the expense of exposing its inability to accept any de- parasitic bureacracy. gree of internal democracy, and the humiliating subordination of the 'national' nilrealeranies nt wastern HIlTOne TO Their 1956 had seen the first substantial fractures in the Stalinist monolith; and sponse. these were to develop into a succession of new crises: but it had also seen a glimpse of the working class response. in all its strengths and weaknesses. er.
Workers had grasped the need to organise independently of the bureauc- re racy: but they had not developed a coherent revolutionary programme, and nk. the vacillating leadership of Nagy, himself a bureaucrat schooled in Stalinism, was inadequate to the task of ousting the But forty years on, as Hungarian wild. workers face the grim reality of the capi1C0 talist market and privatisation, it is the revolutionary heritage of 1956 which otters the best starting point for a reHuge. acy