1956 1.14: Lessons Learned and Forgotten

When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

1956 Episode 1.14 analyses the Soviet response in the first week of November 1956, as the rug was finally pulled on Hungarian independence.

Having already removed his country from the Warsaw Pact and requested Western assistance, Nagy was persona non grata in Soviet minds, yet this Hungarian communist was not finished yet. If there was any chance at all that this Hungarian state could be preserved, he was willing to engage in whatever to took to protect his people from the Soviet axe. Yet, unfortunately for Nagy and for Hungary generally, there was no chance.

Khrushchev had no intentions of letting Budapest think for itself, and the crushing of the Hungarian revolution and the entry of Janus Kadar into Hungary represented the end note of the Hungarian effort. Kadar, it would transpire, was not the supplicant figure he seemed, but he was ambitious, utterly ruthless and not all constrained by any concept of loyalty to Imre Nagy, a man whom he had known and befriended after several years of close cooperation. This episode contains several primary source extracts which detail the real experiences of Hungarian politicians and citizens as they fled the country, encouraged it, or sold it out to Moscow. It provides us with a great and invaluable window into the Soviet mindset at the time, so I hope you enjoy it, and join us for the concluding episode on this Soviet chapter next time.

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