INSIDE EUROPE
It began with fi rst riots in the Eastern part of Germany
about less improvements in working and living conditions.
Russian tanks destroyed the opposition of construction
workers especially at Berlin´s construction sites in June
1953. Two years later same dissatisfaction on political
suppression and economic stagnation and less perspective
catching up the economic dynamic of the West, escalated
in a violant uprise of mining workers in the Polish province
and industrial region of Poznan. Strikes and demonstrations
swept away the government dominated by party chief
Edward Ochab and contributed to the introduction of a new
government under the leadership of Władysław Gomułka a
former locksmith. He successfully negotiated the necessity The new political leading fi gure was Imre Nagy. He took
over important demands of the protest movement as for
example an end of supression. The former government had
more than 25.000 inhabitants of the capital Budapest forced
to migrate to forced labour camps. Moreover the rapidly
growing movement attempted to force government to an end
of economic decline by econmic reforms and for a shift back
to more sovereignity as for example an end of membership
in the Warsaw Pact. This would have established a gap in
the Iron Curtain dividing Europe from the Balkans up to the
Finish boarder.
The movement became rapidly popular stretching out to
the country side and in many regions of Hungary. As in Berlin
of reforms with Russia in October 1956. His government
slowed down collectivization of agriculture and initiated
economic reforms in the industrial sector that indeed led to
impressively high rates of economic growth in the 1960s.
In this context we have to see the incidents that happened
in Hungary.
Also in Hungary signs of relaxation after Stalin´s death
and following internal struggle about the strategy of the
Empire for the next decade between Lawrenty Beria and
Nikita Chruschtschow were interpreted as an opportunity
gaining back sovereignity. In some respect the internal
confrontations repeated the cases of the Soviet Union and
of Poland as there the follower of Stalin, János Kádár, lost
its party offi ces, shortly after fi rst mass protests by students
appeared in the streets, as a direct consequence of the Polish
uprise in direct neighborhood of Hungary. three years before and 12 years later in Prague Russian tanks
rolled down the upheaval, but it needed several weeks for this
bloody work. More than three thousand Hungarian people but
also Russian soldiers died in heavy street fi ghts. Thousands
were captured and imprisoned. No less than 210.000 escaped
to the West via Austria to West-Germany for example. Up to
1957 all opposition was suppressed, Nagy was sent to prison
and executed in 1958.
The peoples movement had been defeated but the memory
continued and became part of the national identity. In the 1980s
Hungary became an important tribune for anti Leninist counter
culture and the beginning of Westernization of the East. It was
in Hungary were the fi rst piece of barbed wire was cut out of
the Iron Curtain in summer of 1989 - 23 years after the uprise.
* Ralf Roth (Goethe- University Frankfurt, Germany)
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 6 • Issue 10 • Oct-Nov 2018, Noida • 21