Seven decades ago, the Soviet Union launched Operation Whirlwind, crushing the Hungarian Revolution, which had overthrown communist rule. Reformer Imre Nagy led the country in its fight against Soviet control.
For that he paid with his life. However, popular commemoration of his role in 1989 spurred the collapse of communism not just in Hungary, but throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union as well.
Hungary’s agony, like that of so many of its neighbors, was rooted in the First World War. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was allied with Wilhelmine Germany and collapsed as the Great War proceeded to its devastating conclusion. Hungary emerged as an independent state but lost much of its territory. It suffered through a brief spell of social democratic governance, an even briefer dalliance with Soviet-style communism, and then extended, semi-fascist rule under Miklós Horthy, who served as “regent” to the vacant monarchy.
Unfortunately, the latter sought to reclaim lost territory by joining the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. By 1943 he was looking for an exit, only to be ousted by the fascist Arrow Cross Party, whose control lasted just five brutal months, before the Red Army overran the country. People voted against local communists, but Moscow decided the issue otherwise, leading to the creation of the Hungarian People’s Republic in August 1949 under Mátyás Rákosi. Tens of thousands of Hungarians were arrested and imprisoned, with some sent to the Soviet gulag.
Despite the Soviet occupation, proud patriotic people throughout Eastern Europe chafed at alien communist rule. Some subject populations grew not just discontented, but violent.
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