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1956 is one of the greatest Hungarian celebrations: it was and remains so – said Rajmund Fekete historian, director of the Institute for the Research of Communism in an interview for the Hungarian News Agency on Thursday on the occasion of the anniversary of the ‘56 Revolution and Freedom Fight.

Photo: Tamás Purger/Hungarian News Agency

Rajmund Fekete highlighted that the truth of 1956 is a scale and a compass that nurtures our pride.

When we hear the names of the lads of Pest, we involuntarily straighten our backs. Their memory should not be preserved merely because that is what decency dictates. But because they were the ones who, along with many other anonymous people, said ‘no’ to the communist dictatorship. And not only did they say ‘no,’ but they fought back against it, took up arms and risked their most precious possession—their lives—so that we could live free here today.

In the totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, it was only the ‘56 Hungarian independence and freedom fight that had the courage to oppose the almighty terrorist state. Because communism could not be reconciled. Because ultimately it was about the survival of the nation and human dignity.

The director pointed out that even though the revolution was defeated, Hungarians were given 13 days of freedom in the fall of 1956. But, as the Yugoslav writer and politician Milovan Gyilas put it at the time, "the Hungarian Revolution was the beginning of the end of communism". He lifted the veil on the harsh reality of Soviet-style terror regimes.

68 years ago, Hungary showed its best face to the world. The word ‘Hungarian’ has become synonymous with courage, patriotism, love of freedom, national unity, love of country, and heroism.

Rajmund Fekete further added, that the Soviet army suffered enormous losses in Hungary, especially in Budapest. In two weeks, nearly 700 Soviet soldiers were killed, another thousand were wounded, and half a hundred were missing. More than twenty tanks, self-propelled guns, and armored transport vehicles were destroyed by the lads of Pest in the Corvin alone.

Nearly 20,000 rebels were wounded, around 2,700 people were killed in national territory, and 200,000 were forcibly displaced. The youngest age group accounted for about 44% of the casualties during the clashes: roughly 750 minors lost their lives in this war – he recalled.

The two weeks of freedom in 1956 were followed by seven years of oppression from the end of 1956 until the partial amnesty declared in the spring of 1963. Hungarian society paid for each day of revolution with half a year of terror – he concluded.

During the reprisals that persisted until 1961, 229 people were executed on the basis of court verdicts, 860 were deported to the Soviet Union, 26,000 were sentenced, and 25,000 were imprisoned or interned. Between December 1956 and January 1957, at least 80 people were killed in the volleys.

This was the most severe political reprisal in Hungarian history – he emphasized.

Those who escaped the gallows were doomed to be second-class citizens and marginalized for decades. One such person was Mária Wittner, who was sentenced to death in the first court after the revolution was suppressed and then imprisoned until 1970.

According to Rajmund Fekete Moscow launched such a brutal attack and retaliation against Hungary because:

the Revolution and Freedom Fight in 1956 did not demand better living conditions, better care, or better standards. It rejected the communist system as such and the occupation that it imposed on us; in other words, it was openly anti-communist and anti-Soviet. Hungarians were seeking freedom and independence without class distinction: be they workers, peasants, students, citizens or intellectuals—in short, everyone. The nation overwrote class, which was a striking disproof of the Marxist doctrine. In 1956, Hungarians demanded freedom, national independence, and free elections without Soviet advisors and Soviet tanks. This was the origin of its identification with all the freedom-loving people around the world, from the United States of America to South Africa, from Korea to Turkey. Everyone saw that our fight of life and death against a terribly overwhelming force was one for human dignity, for the survival of our nation, and for the protection of our identity

he highlighted.

Rajmund Fekete gave a lecture at the 1956 commemoration of the Liszt Institute in Brussels on Thursday, where, among others, a comic book exhibition about the martyred Ilonka Tóth was premiered.

 Source: Hungarian News Agency