For the last quarter of a century, historians and the media have been trying to portray the notorious Hungarian events of 1956 as spontaneous actions of the Hungarian people against the bloody pro-Soviet regime of Matthias Rakosi and his successor Ernö Gerö. In Soviet times, referred to as the counter-revolutionary rebellion after the destruction of the Soviet Union, these events acquired the sonorous name of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. However, was everything really that pure in history? Or did the timely intervention of the Soviet Army prevent Hungary from becoming a victim of the first Orange Revolution? Let's try to remember how the events developed sixty years ago.
In 1956, Hungary became the scene of tragic events. For several weeks there was a struggle in Budapest and a number of other cities and towns of the country. The internal opposition, with the active support of external forces, especially the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, sought to change the socialist system to a capitalist one and wrest the country out of the influence of the Soviet Union. The Hungarian riots were catalyzed by the events in Poland, where Vladislav Gomulka, who was recently released from prison, became the head of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP) on October 19, 1956. Such a choice went against the interests of the Soviet Union, but the Soviet government did not interfere in the internal affairs of Poland, despite the fact that Soviet troops were stationed there. The Hungarian opposition and Western analysts have come to the conclusion that in Hungary it is possible to repeat the Polish version.
As it later became known, not only American intelligence, but also the president's apparatus and the US Congress were directly involved in preparing the coup in Hungary. On the eve of 1956, during a meeting of the Hungarian emigration that came to Munich, Rockefeller, an adviser to the American president, outlined a plan for subversive activities, for the implementation of which the CIA developed and secretly distributed in Hungary a program to overthrow the existing system. In January 1956, the American military intelligence prepared a report "Hungary: Activity and Potential of Resistance", in which the Hungarian People's Republic was considered from the point of view of the actions of "US special forces." The report noted the peculiarities of the current mood in Hungary, which consisted in anti-Slavic and anti-Semitic feelings of certain groups of the population and in sympathy for Nazi Germany, which provided in 1940-1941. substantial territorial benefits of Hungary. All this, according to American intelligence officers, facilitated the "transfer of discontent into a phase of active resistance."
In the summer of 1956, the US Congress allocated another $ 25 million in addition to the $ 100 million allocated each year for subversive work against socialist countries. American newspapers openly reported that these funds were intended to "finance actions similar to those that led to the unrest in Poland." Influential circles of the FRG also contributed to the preparation of the counter-revolutionary putsch in Hungary. In particular, according to the New York World Telegram and Sun newspaper, the organization of the former Hitlerite General Gehlen played an important role in this matter. In West Germany, special camps functioned, where American instructors and Gehlen's intelligence officers, as well as members of Hungarian fascist organizations, trained personnel for conducting subversive work in Hungary. In addition, long before the start of the rebellion, a number of points were opened for recruiting Horthy and other emigre rabble and preparing them for subversive work. The remnants of the Horthy army and the gendarmerie, which had managed to hide in the West, gathered there. After undergoing some training on American money, they went to Hungary. One of these points was in Munich.
At the same time in England detachments of counterrevolutionaries were formed, each of several hundred people, for transfer to Hungary. Armed groups were also trained in France. Trained terrorists and saboteurs in groups of several were concentrated in Austria, from where they were smuggled across the Austro-Hungarian border to Hungary. This was done with the assistance of the Austrian border service, which ensures their unhindered passage.
It should be said that by this time, by decision of the Hungarian government, all barriers on the Austro-Hungarian border had been removed, and the border guard had been drastically weakened. In fact, anyone could move freely from Austria to Hungary, of course, the organizers of the rebellion made wide use of this. In the fall of 1956, the former general of the Horthy army, Hugo Shonya, announced the presence of a combat-ready corps of eleven thousand soldiers, capable of starting operations in Hungary. The American representative, Major Jackson, has promised the necessary material assistance and transport for the transfer of these forces.
The activities of the well-known radio stations Voice of America and Free Europe intensified, which in their programs constantly incited the overthrow of the people's power, opposing the reform and nationalization of enterprises, fanning the mistakes made by the Hungarian Workers' Party (VPT) and the government in leading the country. Since the summer of 1956, they stepped up calls for the violent overthrow of the state system in the Hungarian People's Republic, while reporting that the Hungarians who had emigrated to the West had already launched active preparations for a coup. At the same time, underground work, especially among students and the intelligentsia, and Horthy-fascist elements, intensified inside the country.
A special role in the October events was played by the party opposition, led by Imre Nadem and Geza Losonzi. Their true intentions were revealed only during the defeat of the rebellion. As it became known, Nagy and Losonzi actively participated in the preparation of the uprising, and also led the rebellious forces in its course. Under the leadership of Imre Nagy at the end of 1955, long before the start of the uprising with the aim of seizing power, an anti-state conspiracy was prepared.
In January of the following year, he wrote an article "Some pressing issues", in which he proposed to abandon the workers' power and outlined a plan for the restoration of a multi-party system, the conclusion of an alliance with various forces that opposed socialist transformations. In his other article, "Five Basic Principles of International Relations," he substantiated the idea of liquidating the Warsaw Pact organization. These documents were illegally distributed among the population by members of the group and by individuals loyal to Nagy. His group has widely used to undermine and discredit popular power and legal opportunities, especially when working among the intelligentsia. The true meaning of Nagy's "Hungarian path of socialism" was revealed in the course of the rebellion, when the opposition began to implement previously developed plans to change the state system in the Hungarian People's Republic.
Demagogic agitation, caused by the activities of a certain part of the intelligentsia, especially the "Petofi circle", also played an important role in preparing for the rebellion. The “Petofi Circle”, which arose in 1955 to promote the ideas of Marxism-Leninism among young people, was used for completely different purposes, in it, under the guise of discussions, activities directed against the people's power were held. Thus, the anti-government rebellion in Hungary was not an accidental or spontaneous phenomenon, it was prepared in advance and carefully by the internal opposition forces with the active support of international reaction.
After the war, at the request of the Hungarian government, Soviet troops of the Special Corps were temporarily deployed on the territory of the country in various cities; they were not in Budapest. Corps units were engaged in combat training strictly according to the plan, many tactical exercises, as well as exercises, including live-fire exercises, were practiced, shooting and driving courses for tanks, armored personnel carriers, and vehicles. Much attention was paid to the training of flight personnel of aviation units, specialists of the combat arms and special forces, as well as to the conservation of weapons and military equipment. According to the recollections of the officers of the Special Corps, friendly relations were established between the Soviet soldiers and the population. A good and honest relationship continued until the summer of 1956. Then Soviet servicemen began to feel the influence of enemy propaganda among the population and personnel of the Hungarian army, and relations with some Hungarian military units became complicated.
The corps command learned that the "Petofi circle" is conducting discussions with attacks on the VPT, the youth are being called upon to take anti-government actions. Articles were published in the press that slandered the existing system, undermined the authority of the government, and hostile forces called for anti-state protests. Information was received about the increased frequency of visits of the American and British military attachés to Austria to communicate with the Hungarian emigration in the West, as well as that calls for to speeches against the republic.
On the morning of October 23 in the morning on the radio and in the press, it was reported that the government of the Hungarian People's Republic was forbidden to hold a student demonstration, but at one o'clock there was a new message about the permission of this demonstration and that the UPT instructed the party members to take an active part in it. So in Budapest on October 23, 1956, a demonstration began, in which about two hundred thousand people participated. For the most part, these were students and intellectuals, as well as part of the workers, party members and military personnel.
Gradually, the demonstration began to acquire a clear anti-government character. The chanting of slogans began (mostly from a program of sixteen points developed by members of the Petofi circle), which called for the restoration of the Hungarian national emblem, the abolition of military training and Russian language lessons, the return of the old national holiday instead of the Day of Liberation from Fascism, free elections, create a government headed by Imre Nagy; and withdraw Soviet troops from Hungary. The demonstrators began to tear off the insignia of the state emblem from the flags of the Hungarian People's Republic, then burn the red flags. Under the cover of the demonstration, armed detachments began their actions. To seize weapons, they carried out organized attacks on the buildings of the regional centers of the Hungarian Voluntary Union for the Defense of the Motherland, which were almost not guarded. During these raids, the rebels stole more than five hundred rifles, pistols and several thousand rounds of ammunition. Also, the arsenal of the rebels was replenished with weapons, which they were able to take away from the soldiers of the Hungarian People's Army. Then armed gangs (it is difficult to find another term) began to attack police departments, barracks, armories and factories.
Just two hours after the start of the student demonstration, armed groups began to seize the most important military and government facilities. Trucks appeared on the streets of Budapest, again in an organized manner, from which weapons and ammunition were distributed. Cars with armed soldiers of the Hungarian People's Army could not get through to the city center. In some places, the rebels disarmed the soldiers, and often the latter themselves joined the anti-government and bandit groups.
As it became known later, the leaders of the anti-government uprising had prepared in advance for an armed uprising. All their actions were aimed at crushing the state and party apparatus in the shortest possible time, demoralizing the army, creating chaos in the country in order to complete their affairs under these conditions. On October 23, at about eight o'clock in the evening, terrorists spread a rumor in Budapest that "students are being killed near the radio committee." This greatly agitated the population. In fact, the state security workers guarding the radio committee did not shoot, although armed fascist bandits tried to seize the building and even fired at the crowd. Only after midnight, when there were already many killed and wounded among the guards of the radio committee, the guards received an order allowing them to open fire.
However, several students and elderly men managed to break into the radio studio. They called themselves delegates from those gathered in the street and demanded to immediately interrupt the transmission, remove the microphone from the building and read out 16 points of "demands", which, among other things, insisted on the need to withdraw Soviet troops from Hungary. At 20-00, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the VPT Erne Gere spoke on the radio, but the crowd at the radio committee did not hear his speech. At this time, machine-gun and submachine gun bursts were already crackling in many districts of the city. State Security Major Laszlo Magyar was killed when he went outside the gates of the radio studio to persuade people to disperse.
On the night of October 24, the rebels attacked the editorial office of the party newspaper "Sabad Nep", the telephone exchange, the main and regional police departments, weapons depots and factories, barracks, bases and garages, and freight transport offices. The bridges across the Danube were captured. The Margit bridge could only be followed by those cars whose passengers called the set password: “Petofi”. A cursory analysis of these events shows that the rebels were prepared in advance and had their own military command center. By seizing the radio station and the editorial office of the Sabad Nep newspaper, they deprived the party and the government of the means of forming public opinion in the country; seizing weapons and ammunition from warehouses, arms factories, police departments and barracks, they armed anti-government forces; the hijacking of vehicles expanded the rebel forces' ability to maneuver.
To carry out their plan, the rebels also took organizational forms. Armed detachments and groups of declassed and criminal elements were created, weapons depots were set up, and the most advantageous positions were captured.
At the beginning of the rebellion, the anti-government forces did not meet with any serious resistance from the forces of the people's power. Even in the district police departments, they seized weapons without any resistance. When the main police department began to receive reports from the district police departments about the appearance of "demonstrators" demanding weapons, the head of the department, Lieutenant Colonel Sandor Kopachi, ordered the rebels not to shoot or interfere. A crowd also gathered in front of the headquarters of the police. When those who appeared demanded the release of the prisoners, as well as the removal of the red stars from the front of the administration, Sandor Kopachi immediately unconditionally fulfilled these requirements. The actions of the chief of police caused jubilation. Shouts were heard in his address: "Appoint Sandor Kopachi as Minister of Internal Affairs!" Later it became known that Kopaci was a member of an underground counter-revolutionary center set up by a group of Imre Nagy's accomplices to provide direct leadership of the rebel forces.
Kopaci's criminal activities consisted not only in transferring weapons to the rebels, but also in disorganizing the activities of the Budapest police, with his knowledge more than 20 thousand firearms fell into the hands of the rebels. The events of October 23 and the following night clearly showed that an anti-state rebellion was unleashed in Budapest under the guise of a student demonstration. However, the accomplices of Imre Nagy, who settled in the building of the main police department, presented everything that was happening as a "revolution", a democratic movement of the Hungarian people.
On the night of October 24, Imre Nagy headed the government and became a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the UPT, and his supporters took important posts in the state and the party. This was another step towards the implementation of the plan developed in advance by Nagy's group, which, of course, was not known to the Central Committee of the VPT. On the same night, an emergency meeting of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' Party took place, where recommendations to the government were prepared. It was proposed to immediately arm the working people devoted to the cause of the revolution and start actions against the rebels with weapons, as well as to use the help of Soviet troops to defeat the counter-revolution, to declare a state of emergency in the country.
Imre Nagy, who also took part in the work of this meeting of the Party Central Committee, approved all the proposed measures without expressing a single objection. However, this was sheer hypocrisy. He was not going to defend the existing state system and Hungary's orientation towards the USSR. The idea was diametrically opposite and included the gradual ousting from the top leadership of all communists and people oriented towards socialist development, and subsequently - the implementation of these measures throughout the country; decomposition of the army and police; collapse of the state apparatus.
In this situation, the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' Party appealed to the Soviet government with a request for assistance by Soviet troops to restore law and order in the Hungarian capital. The government of the Hungarian People's Republic sent a telegram to the Council of Ministers of the USSR with the following content: "On behalf of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic, I ask the government of the Soviet Union to send Soviet troops to Budapest to help eliminate the disturbances that have arisen in Budapest, to quickly restore order and create conditions for peaceful creative work."
On October 24, 1956, an order came from the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces to move Soviet troops to Budapest with the task of assisting the garrison of Hungarian troops in eliminating the armed rebellion. On the same day, units of the Special Corps began to advance to the Hungarian capital from the districts of Kecskemet, Cegled, Szekesfehervar and others. They had to walk from 75 to 120 kilometers.
The actions of the Soviet troops in Hungary deserve a separate series of articles (which, if the topic turns out to be of interest to readers, will be prepared later, as well as the story about the role of Western special services in organizing events and facilitating an armed uprising), in this review, the task of general coverage of the chronology is posed events.
The commander of the Special Corps and the operational group of the headquarters left for Budapest from Szekesfehervar. The column consisted of cars, radio stations, several armored personnel carriers and tanks. When the group entered the city, the streets were brisk despite the late hours, trucks carrying armed groups of civilians were rushing by, and a crowd was gathering in the center. People were scurrying everywhere with torches, flags, banners in their hands, from all sides one could hear the sharp sounds of shots, separate machine gun fires. It was impossible to drive to the building of the Ministry of Defense of the Hungarian People's Republic along the central streets, the task force moved with difficulty along the narrow streets. When one of our radio stations lagged behind the convoy, the rebels immediately attacked it. The head of the radio station was wounded in the head, one radio operator was killed. The radio station was overturned and burned. A group of soldiers sent to help in a tank and an armored personnel carrier rescued the surviving crew members.
The command post of the commander of the Special Corps was located in the building of the Ministry of Defense, since there was a government communication of the high frequency with Moscow, which facilitated interaction with the Hungarian command. A nervous and panic situation reigned in the Ministry of Defense of the Hungarian People's Republic, the incoming data on the events, actions of the Hungarian military units and the police were contradictory. Defense Minister Istvan Bata and General Staff Lajos Toth were depressed, giving contradictory orders. So, when the rebels attacked the armories, an order came from the General Staff: not to shoot. The terrorists were already firing everywhere. It was ordered to send the Hungarian military to strengthen the protection of facilities, without giving them ammunition (ostensibly in order to avoid bloodshed). Taking advantage of this, the rebels took away weapons from the soldiers.
As soon as the commander of the Special Corps appeared at the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Hungarian People's Republic, the Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Ministry of Defense turned to him with requests to strengthen the defense of important facilities, to ensure the protection of the buildings of party district committees, police departments, barracks, various warehouses, as well as the apartments of some officials. All this required a large number of troops, and the corps formations in Budapest had not yet arrived.
When units of the 2nd and 17th mechanized divisions approached Budapest, the commander of the Special Corps assigned tasks to the commanders. The advanced units that approached were ordered to take under the protection of the building of the Central Committee of the UPT, parliament. Foreign Ministry, bank, airfield, bridges across the Danube, weapons and ammunition depots; drive the rebels out of the building of the radio committee, train stations, as well as provide protection for the Ministry of Defense, disarm the rebels and hand them over to the Hungarian police.
At the entrance to the city, armed rebels fired at Soviet units, and barricades were set up on the outskirts of the city. The residents of the city reacted in different ways to the appearance of Soviet troops, as participants in those events recalled: some smiled, shook hands, thereby showing their good disposition, others shouted something irritated, others were gloomy in silence, and in some places they suddenly opened fire. Soviet troops were subjected to organized fire from automatic weapons in the streets of Yullei, Markushovski, Hungaria Avenue, as well as on the approaches to a number of objects. Our honors entered the battle and cleared the rebels from the Sabad Nep editorial office, the Central Telephone Exchange, railway stations and military depots. The shootout broke out in the center and in the southeast of the city: near the building of the radio committee, in the area of the Kirvin cinema on Yllei Street. It became known that in addition to Budapest, riots began in other Hungarian cities: Szekesfehervar, Kecskemete.
At noon, Hungarian radio announced a government decree declaring a state of emergency in the Hungarian capital. A curfew was imposed until 7 a.m., a ban on holding rallies and meetings was announced, and courts martial were introduced. The rebels were asked to lay down their arms on October 24. Those who did not fulfill this requirement faced a court-martial.
It seemed that the armed rebellion was largely over. Already the Budapest radio reported that only isolated pockets of resistance remained. The skirmish has eased somewhat. However, on October 25 and 26, mass riots from Budapest spread to other cities in the country. In many Hungarian localities, the so-called "revolutionary committees" appeared, which seized power. They were usually headed by Horthy officers, representatives of the Western-oriented section of the student body and intelligentsia. The rebels freed fascists and criminals from prisons, who, having joined the ranks of the rebels, occupying with them a leading position in the established government bodies, intimidated and persecuted supporters of the country's socialist course.
The command of the Special Corps continued to receive information that armed emigrants poured across the Austrian border, whom the border guard did not obstruct. At this time, Imre Nagy, without notifying the party leadership and without the consent of the Soviet command, on the morning of October 25, canceled the curfew, the ban on group gatherings and demonstrations. Endless rallies, meetings of "revolutionary committees" were held at enterprises and institutions, leaflets and appeals were read out, new anti-state requirements were worked out. Some units of the army and police, under the influence of the events that took place, disintegrated, which made it possible for the rebels to seize a significant amount of weapons with ammunition. Part of the construction battalions, anti-aircraft units, as well as the officers of the Budapest garrison went over to the side of the rebels. By the morning of October 28, the rebels held the southeastern part of Budapest (100-120 quarters) in large forces, a number of objects in Buda and other areas, subjected the entire city to cross-fire and in groups tried to seize Soviet weapons and military equipment. Decisive action was needed, and the government of Imre Nagy forbade our troops to open fire.
The disintegration of the armed forces of the republic was one of the main tasks of Imre Nagy. He decided it was time to do it himself. First of all, Nagy ordered the dissolution of the administration and state security organs, legalized the armed forces of the rebels, covering them with the signboard of the "National Guard Detachments" and including them in the so-called "armed forces for the protection of internal order." They also included the police. The Revolutionary Committee of the Armed Forces of the Internal Order was formed to lead these armed forces, which also included representatives of the rebels. Nagy appointed Bela Kirai, a former officer of the Horthy General Staff, who was sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment, for espionage in 1951. Naturally, in the days of the mutiny, he was released. Subsequently, Imre Nagy approved Major General Bela Kirai as chairman of the "Revolutionary Committee of the Armed Forces for the Protection of Internal Order" and instructed him to form the National Guard primarily from "groups that participated in revolutionary battles," that is, rebellious ones.
Bela Kirai went further and asked Imre Nagy for the right to control both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in order to clear them of the "rakoshisti". Now the rebels were provided with weapons from the arsenals of the army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. So, only from one warehouse, located on Timot Street, about 4,000 carbines, rifles, machine guns and machine guns were issued. It should be noted that, despite the orders of B. Kirai, weapons were not issued to the rebels from the peripheral warehouses.
On October 30, at 5 pm, the government of Imre Nagy announced a demand for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest. On the night of October 31, in accordance with the decision of the Soviet government, the withdrawal of our troops from the Hungarian capital began. By the end of the same day, our troops were completely withdrawn from the city. This was the end of the first stage of the fight against the armed rebellion in Hungary.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops to the outskirts of Budapest, counterrevolutionary gangs, inspired by the support of Imre Nagy, began a real terror against the communists, state security workers and other people oriented towards socialism and the Soviet Union. They organized pogroms of the buildings of party and state bodies, demolished monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators. Released from prisons, fascists and criminals joined the ranks of the rebels, thereby increasing the rampant terror. In total, about 9500 criminals - murderers, robbers and thieves, and 3400 political and war criminals were released and armed. The Horthy-fascist forces created their political groupings like mushrooms after rain, various reactionary parties began to appear, the so-called Democratic People's Party, Catholic People's Union, Christian Front, Hungarian Revolutionary Youth Party and many others arose. … All these elements sought to get into government bodies as quickly as possible, to occupy leading posts in the Ministry of Defense. It was under their pressure that the government appointed General Bel Kiraj, the head of the Budapest garrison, as military commandant, and General Pal Makster, the military leader of the rebellion, as Minister of Defense.
At the end of October, along the entire Austro-Hungarian border, "National Guards" ruled, opening the state border for their supporters. Whoever was not carried by the murky wave of counter-revolution across the border. Horthists, nilashists, counts and princes, fascist thugs from the "crossed arrows" and the "Hungarian Legion", barons, generals, terrorists who graduated from special schools in the USA and West Germany, military fighters of all professions and experts in street fighting since the Nazi putsches. Fascist-Horthy thugs were not inferior to Hitler's punishers in terms of cruelty and atrocities. They burned the Hungarian communists, trampled them to death with their feet, gouged out their eyes, broke their arms and legs. Having seized the Budapest city committee of the party, the rebels hanged Colonel Lajos Szabo by his legs on a steel cable and tortured to death. Thousands of people in those days fell victim to the terror of those who are now called "representatives of the democratic forces."
Many soldiers of the Hungarian army actively participated in the defeat of the rebel bands. For example, Major Vartolan led the rout of a bandit group led by a former SS officer. However, the Hungarian People's Army was unable to defeat the armed uprising forces on its own. Some servicemen sided with the rebels. The leadership of the Ministry of Defense was demoralized by the events and could not control the army. Major General Pal Mageter, police chief Sandor Kopachi, and the Horthy military leadership, led by Bela Kiraia, who went over to the side of the rebels, agreed to act against the Soviet troops in early November.
The Soviet command saw the processes taking place in Hungary and was very concerned about the transfer of power into the hands of de facto fascist forces. And how to deal with the Nazis, at that time in our country knew well. And there was only one way to fight this infection. On November 2, 1956, Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev summoned the commander of the Special Corps to Szolnok and assigned him a combat mission to eliminate the armed rebellion in Budapest. To solve this problem, the corps was reinforced with tanks, artillery batteries and airborne forces.
On November 3, at two o'clock in the morning, in accordance with the directive of the commander-in-chief of the Joint Armed Forces of Internal Affairs and the approved plan of the operation, the troops of the Special Corps were assigned the task of "routing the counterrevolutionary forces in Budapest." At dawn on November 4, at the established signal that signified the start of the operation, the detachments formed to seize the objects and the main forces of the divisions, following in columns along their routes, rushed into the city and with decisive actions, overcoming the resistance of the rebels, entered Budapest on the move. By 7:30 am, they already controlled the bridges across the Danube, the parliament cleared of the rebels, the buildings of the Central Committee of the VPT, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the City Council, the Nogoti station and other objects. The government of Imre Nagy lost power in the country. Nagy himself with some of his associates, as soon as the Soviet troops began to enter Budapest, left the parliament through the back door, having previously made a radio message that allegedly "the government remains in its place," and found refuge in the Yugoslav embassy, where he asked for refuge.
During the day of the battle, Soviet troops disarmed about 4,000 rebels in Budapest, captured 77 tanks, two artillery weapons depots, 15 anti-aircraft batteries, and a huge number of small arms. Attempts to seize the Moskva Square, the Royal Fortress and the districts adjacent to Mount Gellert from the south on the move were unsuccessful due to the stubborn resistance of the rebels. As our units moved towards the city center, the rebels put up more and more fierce and organized resistance, especially near the Central Telephone Exchange, in the Corvin area, the Kalyon barracks and the Keleti train station. To capture the centers of resistance, where there were 300-500 rebels each, the commanders were forced to attract significant forces.
Part of the Soviet troops under the command of generals A. Babadzhanyan, H. Mansurov cleared other settlements of the country from the rebels. As a result of the actions of the troops of the Special Corps, the armed counter-revolutionary rebellion was liquidated both in the capital and throughout the country. Having stopped the armed struggle, the remnants of the rebels went underground.
The rapid defeat of the armed anti-government uprising was facilitated by the fact that the rebels were unable to gain widespread support from the population. Too quickly the true face of the “freedom fighters” and the essence of the order they established became clear. In the midst of the struggle, from 4 to 10 November, the armed rebel detachments were hardly replenished. To its credit, and perhaps to the usual rationality, the Hungarian officers must say that, contrary to the order of Imre Nagy, they did not lead their units and units into battle against the Soviet Army. After the elimination of the rebellion, the Soviet Army began to ensure the normalization of life in the country. Military trucks delivered food, medicine, building materials, etc.
By the end of December, the situation in Hungary had changed significantly. This was especially felt in Budapest. Enterprises and government agencies began to work everywhere. Classes were going well in schools and higher educational institutions. City transport worked without interruption. The destruction was quickly repaired. Throughout the country, the work of the people's police, the judiciary and the prosecutor's office was being established. However, there were still shots from around the corner, made by the remaining gangs from the time of the rebellion, trying to terrorize the population.
