BII.L LOMAX zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Origins of the KBdAr Regime ‘Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out to be not what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.’ WIL.LIAM MORRIS While carrying out research into the Hungarian revolution of zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXW 1956 just over a quarter of a century after it took place, I continue to be both fascinated and amazed to discover how many initial errors and mistakes have been repeated so many times that they have virtually become accepted as historical facts, while other events that actually did occur have either remained unknown or had their significance overlooked with the passage of time. The errors of fact have resulted in errors of judgement that have frequently led to misinterpretations of what was actually at stake both during the revolution itself, and also during the events leading up to and immediately following it. My intention in this essay is to present the course of events in a new and different perspective from that in which it has customarily been viewed, and to provide a new understanding of the historical changes that were taking place by exposing some of the errors long regarded as historical facts, and bringing forward some less well-known but possibly more significant aspects. In this way I hope to be able to throw new light not only on the revolution itself, but also on its relationship to the subsequent development of the KBddr regime, and the relationship of both to the overall process of de- Stalinization in Eastern Europe that followed the death of the Soviet dictator Stalin in March 1953. Where it all began-the New Course zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPON of 1953 Most commentators date the start of the process of de-Stalinization in Eastern Europe that followed Stalin’s death, and found its first and clearest expression in the New Course of Imre Nagy in Hungary, to the sudden jolt to the Soviet empire, and the unexpected fright delivered to the new leaders in Moscow, by the dramatic uprising of the workers of East Berlin in June 1953. In his standard work on the communist states of Eastern Europe since 1945, Francois FejtG writes that it was this shock that caused the Soviet leaders to intervene in Hungary as, ‘the Kremlin, stirred by the rising in East Berlin, summoned the top men in Budapest to Moscow.‘1 1. Franc;& Fejt6, A History of the People’s Democracies: Eastern Europe since Stalin (London: Pall Mall, 1971), p. 23. STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM VOL. XVIII, No. 213, SUMMER/AUTUMN 1985,87-113 0039-3592/85/0213 0087-27 $3.00 0 1985 University of Southern California