Tremblings of 1956 in the Soviet bloc: How far did Hungary’s transformation reach into the USSR?

On December 4, 1956, Anton Bachkai (Bacskai in Hungarian) strolled into his church in the town of Mala Kopania (Kiskopány), sprayed it with holy water, and started the liturgy. For the very first time in 7 years, he applauded the Pope. In 1949, the Soviet program had actually required this Greek Catholic priest into Russian Orthodoxy. Now he informed his flock the story of the Apostle Peter. “Peter turned versus Christ’s church, however then repented,” Bachkai stated later on. “Peter was pardoned by God, therefore will I be.” A competing Orthodox priest grumbled that parishioners understood the factor: the uprising in Hungary. God might have pardoned Bachkai. The KGB did not. Early in 1957, it jailed him for “worshiping the Vatican and the imperialist West.”

Author: Dr. Johanna C. Granville (more about her listed below)

Seventy years ago this October, the Hungarian transformation sent out tremblings throughout the Soviet bloc. Simply throughout the border, in Soviet Ukraine, authorities cautioned loudly of Hungarian “contagion.” The KGB hunted priests, trainees, and teens. How unsafe were the Hungarians of Transcarpathia to Soviet power? The files of the KGB, still kept in the archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Uzhhorod, reveal what that worry appeared like, how little guaranteed it, and where the program’s genuine worry lay.

Formula 1 The night of November 3 to 4

Late on November 3, 1956, Károly Lusztig was completing his paper for Sunday when the telephone called. Authorities summoned the Hungarian editor to Uzhhorod. Over a secret line, a deep voice determined János Kádár’s very first pronouncement as head of the brand-new Soviet-backed federal government, and Lusztig equated it. “My legs began to shiver,” he later on composed. “‘This indicates blood’ flickered through my mind.” This Hungarian communist of Jewish heritage, who had actually lost his entire household in the war, likewise called it one of the most amazing nights of his life. Months later on, Tibor Barzsó felt no such excitement. Required to equate for the Soviet army, he “might barely wait to eliminate the uniform.” The routine required Transcarpathian Hungarians even as it mistrusted them, and their commitments divided.

On November 4, Soviet tanks rumbled through Hungarian towns in western Ukraine towards the border. In Koson (Mezőkaszony), István Ormos stated he heard Hungarian music wandering throughout from Barabás, then weeps for aid. In July 1957, Prokopy Savchuk, head of the KGB in Transcarpathia, confessed that kids in Solotvyno (Aknaszlatina) had actually spread out brochures. Grownups feared war. In between October 16 and November 10, people in the area withdrew 4,491,000 rubles from their savings account and transferred just 50,000. Hungarian teens composed brochures of their own. The historian György Dupka tape-recorded their memories in interviews, and the files of the KGB include information from their interrogations. Numerous compared the deportation of young insurgents from Hungary into Soviet jails to the malenky robotic of 1944. None of this totaled up to an arranged motion.

Older Hungarians kept in mind other systems, and in the routine’s eyes that memory made them harmful. In 1958, the forester József Kivári applauded the items and the effective accounting techniques of prewar Czechoslovakia and Hungary to his associates. He served 4 years in a camp in Mordovia as an outcome. Dr. M. V. Somogyi, primary cosmetic surgeon at the health center in Berehove, informed a closed conference of the celebration on October 22, 1956, that the Soviet celebration had actually ended up being “Menshevist.” He lost his post. Neither male had actually done more than speak. The routine penalized words, not deeds.

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Formula 1 Worry and truth

The program’s actions demonstrate how seriously it took the risk. In between October 1 and November 14, 1956, Transcarpathia tape-recorded more political arrests than any other area in Ukraine. Graphologists worked overtime on the brochures. Of thirty Hungarian cadres suggested for promo in 1957, just one reached the judgment committee of the celebration in the area. The contrast with Romania stands out. The Hungarians of Romania, even more many, had a Hungarian university in Cluj and a self-governing area of their own. Transcarpathia’s 145,000 Hungarians had neither, nor even a cultural association like Csemadok in Slovakia. Their brochures appeared just in Hungarian, which couple of Ukrainians might check out. Other than in Soviet uniform, none crossed the greatly safeguarded border to combat in Hungary. The couple of who attempted were detained. The teens who composed brochures paid with approximately 3 years of their youth in jail camps. The routine’s alarm was real. The real hazard from Transcarpathian Hungarians, nevertheless, stayed minimal.

In the archive of the SBU in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, the initial brochures make it through, composed by hand in Hungarian. Sándor Szécsi, a cousin of István Ormos, drew a Hungarian flag on his brochure. His colored pencils, honed with a knife, are still connected to his file. In Russia, numerous comparable files have actually been closed once again. Hungary, by contrast, is now opening the files of its own communist secret cops.

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Formula 1 The program’s pretext to strike at Ukrainian nationalists

The program feared another group even more, and with much better factor: Ukrainian nationalists returning from the Gulag. The nationalist underground had actually combated Soviet guideline into the 1950s, and some groups still had typewriters, oaths, and charges. Authorities overemphasized this risk too, and the crisis next door provided them a reason to act. On November 1, 1956, Kyiv prohibited previous leaders and active members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) from going back to the western areas. By January 1957, authorities had actually declined 82 percent of more than 75,000 interest return home.

Bachkai had actually bet on a pardon from God, not from the state. His church outlasted the routine that prohibited it. In 1989, the year Hungary reburied Imre Nagy, Soviet authorities enabled Greek Catholic neighborhoods to sign up once again. 2 years later on, the Soviet Union itself was gone.

Keep in mind about the author

Dr. Johanna C. Granville is a historian of political turmoil in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and a previous Campbell National Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She is the author of The First Domino: International Decision Making throughout the Hungarian Crisis of 1956 (Texas A&M University Press, 2004). Her brand-new book, The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Tremors in the Soviet Bloc appeared with Oxford University Press on September 3, 2026.