No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Hungary's Part in the Soviet–Yugoslav Conflict, 1956–58
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
Extract
Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Hungary, after the 1956 revolution, played a special part in the dispute that broke out between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and continued with varying intensity for several years. This eventful story was an important part of the process that decided the fate of the East-Central European region. The immediate cause of political contention between Belgrade and Moscow was their differences over the Hungarian question, especially the fate of Imre Nagy, who had been prime minister during the revolution. The intrinsic conflicts lay deeper, however. Although the Nagy affair remained an important factor in the disagreements throughout – from his kidnapping to the ‘war of the protest notes’ that followed his execution – it acted mainly as a catalyst. The Nagy affair was an insurmountable problem for all the players concerned. It provided ample fuel for the debates, and each side found that it could be used to put pressure on the other. Due to the system of relations between the three communist countries, the Hungarian side played the least active part. János Kádár, having come to power through the crushing of the uprising of October 1956, was left in no doubt that Hungary had to follow faithfully the Kremlin's foreign-policy line and accommodate itself to Soviet regional policy requirements. Nonetheless, the story remains interesting from Hungary's point of view as well, because it reveals more than the constraints on a small, exposed country. It also shows how Kádár, as he zigzagged between the conflicting demands of Tito and Khrushchev, trying to keep on good terms with both, was gathering experience that would be useful in his later foreign policy.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998
References
1 For a fuller account, see Zoltán Ripp, Belgrád és Moszkva között. A jugoszláv kapcsolat és a Nagy Imre-kérdés 1956. november-1959 február (Between Belgrade and Moscow. Yugoslav Relations and the Imre Nagy Question, November 1956-February 1959) (Budapest: Politikatörténeti Alapítvány (Political History Foundation), 1994). The main documents of Hungarian–Yugoslav relations have appeared in two volumes: Kiss, József, Ripp, Zoltán and Vida, István, eds., Magyar–jugoszláv kapcsolatok 1956. Dokumentumok (Hungarian–Yugoslav Relations in 1956. Documents) (Budapest: MTA (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), 1995) (hereafter Documents I), and Magyar-jugoszláv kapcsolatok 1956. december–1959. február. Dokumentumok (Hungarian–Yugoslav Relations December 1956–February 1959. Documents) (Budapest: MTA, 1997) (hereafter Documents II).Google Scholar
2 László Rajk, a leading Hungarian communist, was sentenced to death and executed on fabricated charges in 1949. The trial ushered in the hysterical campaign against the Yugoslavs.
3 Andrija Hebrang and Sreten Žujović, known as the ‘Cominformists’, were arrested in 1948 after opposing the dismissive reply sent to the Soviet leadership. There were extensive purges carried out in the Yugoslav Communist Party at the time.
4 See Lydall, Harold, Yugoslav Socialism. Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)Google Scholar, and Wilson, Duncan, Tito's Yugoslavia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
5 When the ‘anti-party’ group was eventually removed in June 1957, one of Khrushchev's accusations was that Molotov, as foreign minister, had acted expressly against an improvement in Soviet-Yugoslav relations. See Pravda, 4 Jul. 1957.
6 For the Belgrade declaration, see Clissold, Stephen, ed., Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 1939–1973. A Documentary Survey (London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1975), 254–7.Google Scholar
7 Tito reiterated his position in a letter of 29 Jun. 1955, to the CPSU central committee. This was a response to a letter from Khrushchev, to the communist parties of the socialist countries, on 25 June. He represented the meeting as something that had brought Yugoslavia closer to the Soviet fold and distanced it from the West. Both letters can be found in the Magyar Országos Levéltar (Hungarian National Archives, hereafter MOL) 276. f. 65/117.
8 See Clissold, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
9 Rákosi, first secretary of the Hungarian Workers’ Party, was dismissed at a meeting of the central leadership on 18 Jul. 1956. Later he was taken to Moscow, from where he never returned.
10 The first move came in a letter from Gerő to Tito on 19 Jul. 1956 (Documents I, item 19). On 5 Oct., while Tito and Ranković were staying in the Crimea, Khrushchev arranged without their knowledge for a meeting with Gerő. It was there that agreement was reached over the reburial of Rajk and his executed associates, and on the visit to Yugoslavia by a top-level Hungarian delegation. The reburial of Rajk on 6 Oct. 1956, assumed the character of a mass demonstration. Y. V. Andropov, the Soviet ambassador in Budapest, in a report on 12 Oct. of his discussion with Gerő, already referred to a worsening Hungarian domestic political situation and mounting Yugoslav influence. See Szereda, Vjacseszlav and Sztikalin, Alekszandr, eds., Hiányzó lapok 1956 történetéből. Dokumentok a volt SZKP KB levéltárából (Missing Pages from the History of 1956. Documents from the Archives of the former CPSU CC), (Budapest: Móra, 1993), 83–90.Google Scholar
11 See Nagy, Imre: Imre Nagy on Communism: In Defense of the New Course (New York: Praeger, 1957).Google Scholar
12 For Resolution 5608 of the National Security Council, on United States policy towards the satellite countries, see Foreign Relations of the United States 1955–1957, Vol. xxv, 198–209.
13 As late as 22 Oct., the Yugoslavs signed a joint declaration with Gerő, but after the uprising, this assistance in legitimizing the old leadership was treated as if it had never happened.
14 Gomułka himself put the example of the Polish consolidation before the Hungarian leaders. But its real significance came only after the second Soviet intervention on 4 November, when it served more as self-justification than a real pattern for the Hungarians.
15 Telegrams 503 and 516 from Ambassador Dalibor Soldatić to Belgrade, 13 and 25 Oct. 1956, Documents I, items 38, 39 and 41.
16 Tito's open letter appeared in the Hungarian press on 29 October. See Documents I, item 48.
17 Pravda, 30 Oct. 1956. Mićunović, the Yugoslav ambassador in Moscow, made a characteristic comment when he noted in his diary that the declaration was belated, and at odds with Soviet political practice. See Mićunović, Veljko, Tito követe voltam. Moszkva 1956–1958 (I Was Tito's Envoy. Moscow 1956–8; original title: Moskovske godine 1956'1958), (Budapest: Interart, 1990), 128–35.Google Scholar
18 Khrushchev, sensing this fear, later used the tactic of exaggerating the size of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Yugoslavia and citing it before the Yugoslavs as a potential threat.
19 Molnár, Miklós, Budapest, 1956. The History of the Hungarian Revolution (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971).Google Scholar
20 Khrushchev referred to this in a letter to Tito, on 10 Jan. 1957. It occurred in Belgrade on 18 Nov. 1956, when Tito and Gošnjak received a Soviet military delegation led by General V. N. Komarov (Documents II, item 28).
21 unović, Mić, Tito követe voltam, 128–35Google Scholar; Khrushchev, N. S., Khrushchev Remembers, with an introduction, commentary and notes by Edward Crankshaw (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 420–22.Google Scholar
22 During the Ambassador's conversation with Nagy's colleagues. Géza Losonczy and Zoltán Szántó, Szántó proposed that if need be, the Yugoslavs should give asylum to the families of some politicians.
23 V. N. Malin's notes of meetings of the Presidium of the CPSU central committee, in Vjacseszlav Szereda and János M. Rainer, eds., Döntés a Kremlben. A szovjet pártelnökség vitái Magyarországról (Decision in the Kremlin. The Soviet Party Presidium's Debates on Hungary) (Budapest: ‘56–0s Intézet (1956 Institute), 1996).
24 Khrushchev's letter to Tito, 7 Nov. 1956, Documents I, item 77.
25 ‘Enver Hoxha, 15 Years of the Albanian Party of Labour’, Pravda, 8 Nov. 1956.
26 Broz Tito, Josip, Borba za mir i medjunarodnu saradnju (Struggle for Peace and International Cooperation), Vol. X (Belgrade: Kultura, 1959), 210–32.Google Scholar For detail, see Clissold, , Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 263–8.Google Scholar
27 The debate caused sharp tensions in the Hungarian party leadership. The editor-in-chief of the central party newspaper was dismissed after a strike at the offices sparked by withdrawal of an article intervening in the Soviet–Yugoslav debate. The ‘Titoism’ apparent in the Hungarian leadership was mentioned in the report addressed by G. M. Malenkov, M. A. Suslov and A. B. Aristov to the CPSU central committee on 24 Nov. 1956. Szereda and Sztikalin, Hiányzó lapok 1956, 175–7.
28 Yugoslavia protested in notes to the Hungarian government on 23 Nov. 1956 and to the Soviet government on 24 Nov. against the blatant infringement of the agreement. For the exchanges, see Documents I (items 123, 124, 129, 130 and 134) and Documents II (item 6).
29 Gomulka disagreed with the use of force and avoided the expression ‘counter-revolution’ until the spring of 1957. Another sign of closeness between the two countries was the visit paid to Poland by a Yugoslav party delegation on 19–29 Dec. 1956.
30 Typically, Frank Roberts, the British ambassador in Belgrade, described Kardelj's speech as a cautious variant of Milovan Djilas's views phrased in Marxist jargon. He also said that the speech, which went beyond Tito's at Pula, could be expected to provoke a strong reaction in the countries of the Soviet bloc. Telegram No. 847, 8 Dec. 1956, 371/124285. NH 10110/835, Foreign Office Records, Public Records Office, London.
31 The Soviet intervention was followed in Budapest and across the country by a general political strike led by the workers’ councils. The Kádár government responded by banning the local workers’ councils and arresting their leaders.
32 Letter from Rákosi to Khrushchev, 9 Jan. 1956, in Éva Gál, András B. Hegedás, György Litván and János M. Rainer, eds., A 'Jelcin dosszié’. Szovjet dokumentumok 1956-ről (The ‘Yeltsin File’. Soviet Documents on 1956) (Budapest: Századvég Kiadó/56-os Intézet, 1993), 147–8.
33 Great significance was attached to an article in the Chinese party daily (‘Once Again on the Subject of the Historical Experiences of Proletarian Dictatorship’, Renmin Ribao, 30 Dec. 1956, and to Prime Minister Zhou Enlai's talks in the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary. Relations deteriorated further when the Yugoslavs refused to take part in an international communist conference, proposed through the Chinese. This was obviously intended as an attempt to bring Yugoslavia closer to the Soviet bloc. The incident ended the Chinese support for his attempts at independence, on which Tito had hitherto been able to count.
34 Documents II, item 31.
35 The speeches by Kádár and N. A. Bulganin on 23 and 27 Mar. 1957 were published at the time in the Soviet and Hungarian press.
36 Begović, Vlajko, ‘Accusations and Facts’, Borba, 5 Apr. 1957; Mićunović, Tito követe voltam, 218; report by Lajos Cséby, Hungarian ambassador in Belgrade, on 13 Apr. 1957, Documents II, item 52.
37 Khrushchev's letter to Tito on 10 Jan. 1957, quoted earlier, still contained a denial that a campaign would be initiated against Yugoslavia like that in 1948. Kádár's reports to the leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP) in the early days of April gave evidence of the change in the situation. This appeared in the reference to the validity of the 1948 Cominform resolution, in the way the Yugoslav position was presented as the main support for the hostile imperialist attack, and in the linkage of the Nagy group's activity as the ‘main ideological weapon’ for counter-revolution, with the policy of the Yugoslavs. Documents II, items 48 and 49.
38 Memorandum by Deputy Foreign Minister Endre Sík, MOL, XIX-A-2s 14. d.; Ambassador J. Kapičić's report of 10 Jun. 1957, Documents II, item 61; János Kádár's contribution at the 22 Jun. 1957 meeting of the HSWP central committee, Documents II, item 53.
39 Meeting of the HSWP political committee, 16 Apr. 1957, Documents II, item 53.
40 This was a matter on which Kádár and Foreign Minister Imre Horváth had to express themselves explicitly, though they did so in a restrained way, in an attempt to mend relations.
41 Foreign Minister Koča Popović's report in the Federal House of Representatives, 26 Feb. 1957, Borba, 27 Feb. 1957.
42 The Soviet leadership's reply: Pravda, 11 Mar. 1957.
43 Tito signified on several occasions his desire to normalize relations. He stated this in the paper Mladost on 22 May 1957 and in Politika on 24 May. See Tito, Borba za mir, 284–310. Normalization of inter-state relations was apparent in the conclusion of several agreements. A sign of rapprochement on the Soviet side was that Marshal G. K. Zhukov received a high-ranking Yugoslav military delegation for a lengthy visit in early June. It was also agreed that A. Ranković and E. Kardelj would spend summer vacations in the Soviet Union.
44 Mićunović (1990), Tito követe voltam, 232–3.
45 Minutes of the June 1957 plenary meeting of the CPSU central committee, Istorichesky Arkhiv, No. 4–6, 1993.
46 Mićunović, Tito követe voltam, 267–74.
47 For detail of the joint communiqué, see Clissold (1975), p. 274. The unpublished memorandum was sent to Budapest by the Yugoslavs on 17 Jun. 1958, for information purposes, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, Documents II, item 128.
48 Mićunović, Tito követe voltam, 285–8.
49 Notes by Y. V. Andropov, R. A. Rudenko and P. I. Ivashutin on their meeting with Interior Minister Béla Biszku, 26 Aug. 1957, in Gál et al., Jelcin dosszié, 199–203.
50 Kádár's letter to Khrushchev, 29 Oct. 1957, Documents II, item 81.
51 The Yugoslav delegate did not vote for the critical report by the so-called Committee of Five. He argued that it was not objective enough and did nothing to encourage an atmosphere in which Hungary could resolve its problems. Statement by Delegate Jože Brilej, Borba, 4 Sep. 1957.
52 Hungarian memorandum on the talks, Documents II, item 84.
53 The Yugoslavs signed only the peace manifesto accepted by the delegates of all the 68 parties present in Moscow.
54 Kádár's contributions at the two conferences, and his speech to the HSWP central committee, 29 Nov. 1957, Documents II, items 85, 87 and 88.
55 Documents II, item 91.
56 János Kádár's report on talks with Y. I. Gromov, Soviet Ambassador in Budapest, to the meeting of the HSWP political committee, 28 Dec. 1957, MOL 288. f. 5/59.
57 The trial began on 5 Feb. 1958. The suspension features in the minutes of the political committee meeting on 5 Feb. and the central committee meeting of 14 Feb., Documents II, items 95 and 97.
58 Documents II, item 96.
59 This appears, for instance, from the Yugoslav note of 8 Oct. 1958, one of the important documents in the Yugoslav–Hungarian exchange of notes after the Nagy trial. Documents II, item 150.
60 Hungarian politicians were able to gain information about the direct consequences from the most authentic source when Khrushchev visited Hungary at the beginning of April. Documents II, item 108.
61 Western rejection of the Rapacki Plan, named after the Polish foreign minister, left diminishing hope that the proffered summit meeting would be held.
62 Information from the Soviet leadership to János Kádár, Documents II, item 111.
63 Wilson, Tito's Yugoslavia, 122. The British Embassy's report of 10 May 1958 also concluded that the Soviet charge was essentially one of Yugoslav duplicity, FO 371/596/N1011/27. A. Ranković refuted this in a strongly worded speech at the Yugoslav party congress.
64 Renmin Ribao, 5 May 1958.
65 On 27 May 1958, the Soviet Foreign Ministry presented a note to the Yugoslav embassy in Moscow announcing a five-year suspension of the credit facilities under the Soviet-Yugoslav economic agreement of 12 Jan. 1956 and the Soviet–GDR–Yugoslav agreement of 1 Aug. 1956. See Clissold, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 278–80. It emerged from an article in Izvestiya on 5 Jul. 1958 that the occasion or excuse for suspending the credit was a passage in Tito's congress address, where he stressed the ‘mutually advantageous’ nature of these economic ties, as opposed to the ‘unselfishness’ of Western assistance. It was important at the time for the Yugoslav leadership to settle the country's impaired economic relations with the West. See Wilson, , Tito's Yugoslavia, 118–23.Google Scholar
66 Khrushchev, referred to the ‘Trojan horse’ of imperialism, in his speech to the seventh congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party.Pravda, 4 Jun. 1958 (Clissold, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 280–81).Google Scholar
67 The HSWP daily Népszabadság, 21 May 1958. On the 13 May debate on the draft in the HSWP political committee, see Documents II, item 122.
68 Tito's letter of 14 Jun. 1958 to Khrushchev, Documents II, item 127.
69 Népszabadság, 17 Jun. 1958. The government devoted a whole chapter to the Yugoslav dimension, in the fifth volume of the Fehér Könyv (White Book) published by the Information Office.
70 The exchange of notes between Yugoslavia and Hungary: Documents II, items 134, 140, 150, 153, 155 and 158.
71 Gomulka's speech in Gdańsk on 28 Jun. 1958. During a visit to Hungary early in May 1958, Gomulka had expressed deep anxiety about the campaign against Yugoslavia. Documents II, item 122.
72 Gál et al., Jelcin dosszié, 208–18.
73 János Kádár's report to the HSWP political committee, 1 Jul. 1958, Documents II, item 136.
74 The policy of the ‘great leap forward’ was announced at the second session of the eighth congress of the Chinese Communist Party, in May 1958. Its consequences became increasingly apparent.
75 The Yugoslavs conveyed this informally to Lajos Cséby, the Hungarian ambassador in Budapest, and through their Budapest chargé d'affaires ad interim, Božidar Dimitrijević. Documents II, items 144 and 145.
76 Khrushchev's speech at his meeting with the Polish leaders, Pravda, 11 Nov. 1958.
You have
Access