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On the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, the question arises: how could a few hundred but not more than a thousand or two thousand people, mostly young people without military training, were able to stop the strongest army of the time for days or weeks? How could she have made him run?
- bread,
- The deep dish,
- The ham,
- the soda bottle
- and other appliances
the heavy tanks that forced the German Tigers and Panthers to their knees?
Before we begin to discuss how the boys of Pest fought against the strongest army in the world, we must remember a few things to understand the path to the outbreak of armed struggle and the despair that fueled the insurgents’ determination.
Soviet fortification in East Germany and withdrawal from Austria
In 1953, demonstrations and strikes broke out in East Berlin and then throughout East Germany due to poor conditions and violent Sovietization. Although the heavily censored press downplayed the movement, which was suppressed by a display of Soviet armored demonstrations, it still gained fame in occupied Eastern Europe. When Soviet troops occupying the eastern half of Austria withdrew in 1955, the hope arose that Soviet forces stationed in Hungary without a title, ensuring replacement of the Austrian occupation troops, would leave Hungary.
In June 1956, strikes broke out in Poznań, Poland. Crowds marched to the streets demanding bread after not only the standard of living rose but only oppression despite the rhetoric of propaganda. A month later, in Hungary, Mátyás Rákosi defeated his opponent, Imre Nagy, famous for his attic sweeps, for which he was again threatened with total terror and his personal cult returned. When 200,000 people gathered at the funeral of the executed László Rajk and his associates on 6 October to protest Rákosi’s return, taking advantage of the small number of gathering opportunities allowed, the atmosphere was already very tense.
According to the anecdote, one of the participants also referred to the work of László Rajk, former Minister of the Interior, and to the anti-regime spirit:
Poor Laci, if you could see this now, but shoot us!
Following news of the Poznań movement, anti-Soviet protests resumed in Poland on October 19 following Soviet intervention by Polish leaders to ease dictatorships and democratic reforms. On the afternoon of October 23, at three in the afternoon, the technical students announced a demonstration of solidarity with the Polish people in Budapest, marking the statue of József Bem, which symbolizes Polish-Hungarian friendship. The rest of here is history.
Did the Red Army specifically wait for rebellion?
As time passes and researchers gain access to more and more previously classified material (secret and top secret), it seems more and more likely that the outbreak of the revolution was not a completely spontaneous chain of events, as there are indications that The Soviet leadership in Hungary was also designed to lead an uprising that was immediately put down by military force, following the example of Germany and Poland.
As an example, the Hungarian military reconnaissance detected Soviet troops in early October, first beyond the Carpathians and then into Transcarpathia. Some formations came directly from the Caucasus. But an accurate picture of all this can only be obtained when the materials preserved in the Soviet archives can be searched.
Interestingly, in subsequent battles, the Red Army did not use the sophisticated and fully armed urban tactics that developed in the hell of Stalingrad and II. He aided Soviet troops during WWII, but relied on the raw firepower of military equipment to try and defeat the guys from Pest who were fighting as urban guerrillas. It also shows that organizations can forget lessons literally learned in blood and sweat in surprising ways.
As in the other occupied countries, Hungary’s political leadership could not depend on its own army. There are many reasons for this. One is that the People’s Army was in the midst of a so-called dislocation, that is, a national movement designed to disrupt NATO’s military recognition. This fact also generates some suspicion, since the revolution broke out at a time when the Hungarian army was completely incapable of participating in any act of war. In the rarest cases, the Hungarian military formations clashed with the insurgents in the rarest cases, even surrendering their weapons and participating in the fight against the invaders and their henchmen on the side of their patriotic commanders.
Suicide cruise
The course of events clearly suggests that, in parallel to the launching of the mass demonstrations, they wanted to take advantage of the fear caused by the heavy technology of the Soviet mechanized formations commanded in the capital. Already on October 24, the units of the 2nd and 17th mechanized divisions of the Red Army left for Budapest and appeared on the main transport routes and crossings of the capital. In the words of the famous Hungarian expert of the time, Miklós Horváth:
the special corps tanks began their deterrent cruiser, but in fact suicidal.
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Gallery: 9-year-old boy visited Budapest in ’56 with a cameraPhoto: János Pölöskei / FORTEPAN
Let’s find out why the boys of Pest took on the terrifying tank!
Anyone already standing next to a tank, feeling the roar of hundreds of horsepower engines, seeing the power of a 30-50 or even 70-ton machine rolling over the tracks while playing with ease and deciding the trees and the walls of houses, easily understand why the Soviet leadership relied on deterrence. However, there were relatively few tanks in the two deployed mechanized divisions, and most of the forces were committed to protecting the state administration and other important buildings. This is how the artillery column that soon made Molotov cocktails was able to reach the Grand Boulevard. But what is a Molotov cocktail?
The device, which was first used en masse during the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939, consists of a bottle, a flammable liquid filled with it, and a hand-lit textile wick. The column of vehicles, which also travels a long distance, offered an unmistakable target to young adults in Soviet war movies and novels, who fought foreign oppressors and conquerors by the same means as the heroes of previous works. The device was effective against exposed sniper armor, unarmored trucks, but even JSZ-3 heavy tanks with thick armor, as evidenced by several photographs.
The urban guerrillas from the hotspots of the resistance (Corvin köz, Széna tér, Tűzoltó utca) did not understand much about the unimaginable tanks, mostly unarmed and heavily armored, so they had to resort to their creativity.
Deep pans and plates
The narrow streets compared to the open terrain, as well as the amazing ideas due to the low visibility of the armored personnel deployed without escort or reconnaissance, were also successful. One such creative tool was a pan with ears that was moved with wire from the basements of two opposite houses. After the Molotov cocktails launched from the third to the fourth floors had already ignited and detonated several tanks, those who arrived after them nervously reacted to the moving object, which looked like a tank mine, trying to avoid it.
A “mine lock” made of upturned soup plates brought in from a canteen near Corvin’s public space worked on a similar principle. It was enough to throw a few handfuls of dirt on the bulging plates, and the forest of plates, arranged in the characteristic and regular shape of minefields, appeared to be a real and mortal danger from the narrow observation openings of the tanks.
Corvin is a remote control cannon
The operation of the armor-piercing cannon acquired by the creative insurgents was also resolved in such a way that they were not exposing themselves to their opponent with significant firepower. The cannon was erected and filled in one of the Üllői út openings. A metal cable was attached to the firing arm and it was lowered into Corvin Public security. As soon as a tank reached the right place, the observers pointed and fired the cannon with the help of a cable. Since they had no anti-tank ammunition, the shell did not even penetrate the armor at such a close range, but instead ran off the runway and the vehicle, which was immobile, was subsequently permanently disabled by the Molotov cocktails.
One of the most ingenious solutions was the lubrication of the steep Ostrom road leading to the Castle with machine grease, which was planned to remove the grip of the vehicles wheels and tracks, although this did not happen in the end.
The boys of Pest, the last urban guerrillas in Europe, showed undeniable courage when faced with an overwhelming enemy. It is perhaps no exaggeration to call our bravest act the often-repeated test of bravery, in which the glass of armored personnel spies standing and sometimes progressing (!) Was stained with jam or tar, practically blinding the occupants. . When the commander opened the sewer, he was greeted by a shot or a Molotov cocktail.
Reject and change red soldiers
It is difficult to determine how many died during such and similar heroic deeds, but after a few days of fighting, the soldiers of the Soviet armored formations repeatedly refused to carry out repeated attacks on fortified points of resistance, pointing to the remains that had already been burned. . As a result of the courage of the insurgents and their righteous conduct towards the Red soldiers in front of them, there were several self-proclaimed Soviet soldiers who eventually fought the Red Army with weapons. His fate, of course, was static, that is, immediate execution.
And finally, who were the boys from Pest?
Most of them were young workers, industrial students, and university students who were content to suppress the system. Of course, they were joined by underworld figures “for the sake of misfortune” who couldn’t stay out of nowhere, but the vast majority were young people who would have been the beneficiaries of the system in principle. They were the heroes who rejected the attempts of the Red Army and AVO. The 60,000 soldiers from the 17 Soviet divisions that launched on 4 November against the internationally abandoned country, the latest aerial bombardment of a European city and the heavy artillery barrage that destroyed half of Üllői Road had no chance.
(Thanks to Balázs Göncz, ÁBTL employee, for his help in writing the article).
Book cover: photo by István Pálfalvi / Hungarian National Museum
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