The Year 1956 – A Watershed in Central European History
Years of destiny – watershed years in European and general history – are topics which not only greatly interest historians but are obviously also of great interest to politicians, educationalists and for the difficult to grasp but omnipresent culture of memory. The year 1956 is without doubt such a year, and various aspects of this fateful year are examined in brief statements below.
1. A direct trajectory from 1956 to 1991?
The basic problem of the collective memory of 1956 is the fact that in the years of political upheaval between 1989 and 1991, this date was considered a symbol of anti-Soviet, anti-communist resistance. In 1989, the years 1956 in Hungary and Poland, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, 1980–81 in Poland and the events in the GDR, the Baltic Soviet Republics, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia were all perceived as part of a teleological process, as the prequel to the collapse of the USSR. The notion of an inevitable advance (from dictatorship to democracy, from a single-state party to a multi-party system, from a centralised managed economy to a liberal market economy) was doubtlessly inspiring for those involved. But after a brief time of euphoria the fundamental differences in the deep-seated changes which took place in these countries have become apparent, and these differences in their turn have minimised the experiences shared across borders and made it more difficult to come to a cross-border understanding of particular events.
For interpretations of the year 1956, the fundamental differences between Hungary and Poland are particularly relevant. In Poland the text of Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech”, delivered to the delegates of the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU, was officially circulated and played an inspirational role for the process of de-Stalinisation. In the autumn of 1956, the reform communist Władysław Gomułka, who had been released after a three-year stint of imprisonment, was extremely popular. Although Polish society was quickly disappointed in him, in 1956–57 Gomułka was able to present himself as the saviour of the national interest at a time when the Soviet Union stood poised to invade Poland. In contrast, the Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nágy was unable to influence the train of events in any profound way; his heroic image is not primarily associated with his actions during the revolutionary year of 1956 but with his martyr’s death. Had he and others not been executed, they would never have become the symbols of the will to freedom of a small Central European nation existing within the Soviet hegemonic sphere.
2. Patriotism and communism
A second basic problem touches on the relationship between patriotism and communism. Can a communist behave patriotically? Or is a patriot by definition not a communist? György Litván differentiates between two left-wing (reform socialist and national democratic) and two right-wing (national conservative and radical right) camps, both of which mistrusted the Soviet Union and demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary as quickly as possible. During this brief magic moment of Hungarian history, communists and anti-communists alike – notwithstanding all internal political dissensions – shared a common criticism of Soviet imperialism. In the struggle for the memorialisation of 1956, many anti-communists attempt to portray all communists as serving only Soviet interests, whilst one group of Polish and Hungarian communists regards 1956 as a nationalist reform-communist attempt to preserve the true values of socialism freed from Stalinist despotism. As part of the same struggle for interpretive dominance, yet another group of Hungarian communists refers to 1956 as a “counterrevolution” which aimed to restore the ultraconservative regime of the years 1919–1944. In the official Hungarian account up until 1989 the talk was of a civil war barely averted with the help of Soviet troops.
After 1972 Janos Kádár attempted to replace the term “counterrevolution” with “national tragedy”, however the former term remained part of the party’s official language up until January 18, 1989. On that day, for the first time Imre Pozsgay speaking in the Politburo referred to 1956 as a justifiable national uprising. What made this comment all the more significant was that this categorisation of 1956 as harking back to positive Hungarian traditions became the nucleus of a “counter-memory” and subsequently contributed to the historical de-legitimisation of the Kádár regime. At the same time this fundamental re-evaluation of 1956 with its reworking of the politics of remembrance paved the way for negotiations between the representatives of oppositional groups and the country’s rulers. This resulted in a number of symbolic events: Imre Nágy, who had been executed on June 16, 1958, was solemnly reburied together with other victims on June 16, 1989. On October 23, 1989, the 33rd anniversary of the start of the revolution, the “People’s Republic” of Hungary was proclaimed a republic, thus aligning with Hungary’s democratic traditions. Many years later, when Imre Mécs, who represented the opposition in the talks, was asked who had made negotiations possible and who had chosen the participants, his answer was brief and unambiguous: the masses thronging Heroes’ Square in Budapest on June 16, 1989.
3. 1956 and the reputation of the Soviet Union
The third problem has to do with the role of 1956 as it affected the international political reputation of the Soviet Union. Viewed from the perspective of 1989, the year 1956 is often considered as marking the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, and reference is made to the chain of events extending from Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in 1980 up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991. However, the historical importance of this year also had an impact on the developing world. The conduct of the great powers Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States during the various crises which erupted in 1956 (Poland, Hungary, Suez) was decisive for their positions as colonial powers or global players. The support provided to the developing nation Egypt against the imperialism of the British and French increased the Soviet Union’s credibility and not only among “Third World” countries.
The USA did no do much to support the liberation of “captive nations”; the containment of communist expansion was the only thing they took seriously. The Soviet Union portrayed itself, not without some success, as the friend of anti-colonial countries, primarily in Africa. Up until the end of the 1960s, approximately 31 African states gained their independence, a process which boosted the Soviet Union’s global reputation, while its image as the oppressor responsible for suppressing the Hungarian struggle for freedom faded. Decolonisation was one of the frontlines of the Cold War where change was possible, but there was no question of that occurring in the Central European Soviet sphere at the time.
4. 1956 as a cultural watershed
The year 1956 represents a cultural watershed. In contrast to the political arena, the “thaw” in Central and Eastern Europe led to a general decrease in Soviet control in the cultural sphere. The brutal repression of the Hungarian revolution did much damage to communist and social-democratic parties in Western Europe. What is less well known is the disappointment with the United States as a potential supporter of “captive nations”. For the so-called generation of ’68 this disappointment led among other things to a re-evaluation of the term “the West” in favour of a more cultural connotation. The experiences of 1956 showed that in the politically bipolar world and without the chance of achieving fundamental political change, culture can create a bridge despite strongly guarded borders.
For the generation in Central Europe who grew up after 1956, the West stood less for IBM, de Gaulle, or Kennedy than for Hemingway, Sartre, and Pasolini, and even Brigitte Bardot, and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Those who kept the cultural bridges open between East and West included Shostakovich, Wajda, Gombrowicz, Örkény, Heym or Kundera – to name only a few well-known cultural figures. After the thaw, a return to the previous stand-off or even to models of “socialist realism” was no longer simply possible.
5. Conclusions
The year 1956 represented a watershed for all societies in the Soviet bloc: the impact of the events in Poland and Hungary spread through the countries in Central Europe, encouraging opposition. The memory of 1956 showed that changes and modifications to the Soviet system were possible even at the very heart of power, whilst any attempt at violent liberation from Soviet hegemony in the satellite nations would inescapably lead to the use of force. Thus, the bipolarity of the world was enforced politically, but not culturally, within the respective spheres of interest of the two super powers. The memory of 1956 had little influence on the programmes put forward by the reform and protest movements during the “Prague Spring” or by Solidarność; rather they served as a warning against the comprehensive claim to power of the Moscow leadership and their local satellite rulers. 1956 was without doubt a watershed which stretched beyond Central Europe, but it is of only limited use when constructing a collective European memory: the events in East and West were too variegated and the experiences too different.
translated from German by Helen Schoop
Prof. Attila Pók - Member of the Presidium of Hungarian Academy of Sciences and deputy to the director of the Institute of History of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 1996 to2008 he was the deputy to the President of Historical Committee of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Faculty of the Institute of European Studies and visiting Professor of History at Columbia University in New York.