Hungarian Revolution and Workers Councils
Hungary 1956
Synopsis
In October 1956 a popular uprising in Hungary liquidated the Stalinist bureaucracy that had ruled the country since 1949. Imre Nagy, a reformist Communist Party member, became the head of a new government, supported by popular grass-roots organizations including the workers' and revolutionary councils.
The councils pursued a program of national independence from the Soviet Union and workers' self-management in the factories. They also established coordinating bodies that took control of regions, cities, and productive centres. For critical left-wing militants on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the experience meant a new form of direct democracy. The councils' heterogeneous social composition and unclear political platform, however, caused fears in the USSR leadership about their shift toward nationalist and pro-Western positions. When the Hungarian government withdrew from the Warsaw Pact at the councils' requests, the USSR's Red Army occupied the country, arrested Nagy, and placed a puppet government in office.
Timeline
- 1936: Germany reoccupies the Rhineland, while Italy annexes Ethiopia. Recognizing a commonality of aims, the two totalitarian powers sign the Rome-Berlin Axis Pact. (Japan will join them in 1940.)
- 1941: Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December brings the United States into the war against the Axis.
