Lessons In Restraint From The Hungarian RevolutionMany have compared Russia's invasion of Ukraine to Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. A better comparison is the Soviet response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
By Stephen Sholl
March 17, 2022
Many have tried to compare Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. A much better comparison is Soviet action during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, when, in response to the Hungarians overthrowing the Soviet puppet government, the USSR launched an invasion of Hungary to bring it back into the Soviet sphere of influence.
Then as now, the United States was faced with a crisis in which a rival power violated the sovereignty of a neighboring country to preserve its geopolitical sphere of influence. While many pundits decry non-intervention in the Ukrainian crisis as un-American, the American response to the Hungarian Revolution tells a different story.
The United States tried to encourage dissidence in the Soviet satellite states throughout the 1950s, but it never expected full revolution to break out in Hungary as happened on October 23, 1956. Hungarians, tired of living under the thumb of the Soviet Union, rose en masse and forced the reinstallation of reformer Prime Minister Imre Nagy. Nagy subsequently announced the introduction of parliamentary democracy, dissolved the secret police, and, most notably, withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. On November 4, the Soviets launched an invasion of Hungary that crushed the revolution after intense street-fighting in Budapest.
Though the revolution only lasted for about two weeks, the United States had to decide whether to support it.
From a moral and emotional perspective, supporting the revolution seemed obvious. Fighting an “evil empire” such as the Soviet Union, the Hungarian Revolution offered an opportunity to roll back communism and safeguard Hungarian independence and democracy. It was a rare example of “good vs. evil” fought on the world stage. Yet the United States did little beyond condemning the Soviet invasion and encouraging some boycotts of Soviet goods.
Even before the revolution, U.S. policy toward the eastern bloc forbade direct support for an armed rebellion. In 1953, the U.S. National Security Council rejected “A deliberate policy of attempting to liberate the satellite peoples by military force, which,” it added, “would probably mean war with the USSR and…. cannot be given serious consideration.”
The United States also rejected direct military support to avoid encouraging “premature action on their part which will bring upon them reprisals involving further terror and suppression.” In approaching the Soviet sphere of influence, U.S. policymakers steadfastly refused to directly support, arm, or interfere in an armed rebellion or conflict, which they felt could too easily lead to war and further hurt captive nations.
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/lessons-in-restraint-from-the-hungarian-revolution/
