Az USA politikája ‘56-ban rettenetesen felelőtlen volt | Interjú Békés Csaba történésszel

Summary

Historian Csaba Békés argues that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution can only be understood within the postwar balance of power. After 1945, the United States and Soviet Union tacitly accepted spheres of influence in Europe. The spread of hydrogen bombs by 1953 made direct superpower war potentially catastrophic, encouraging what Békés calls “forced cooperation”: both sides had to avoid actions that might trigger a wider conflict. In practice, this left the United States unable to intervene in countries within the Soviet sphere.

Békés challenges the idea that the easing of tensions began mainly with Stalin’s death or Khrushchev’s 1956 speech. He traces it to the nuclear threat and says Moscow also sought less terroristic forms of communist rule after 1953. But Soviet leaders worried that replacing hard-line leaders elsewhere in Eastern Europe could destabilize the bloc.

They handled Hungary poorly: Rákosi was not removed soon enough, and his replacement, Ernő Gerő, proved ill-suited to defusing public anger. In Poland, by contrast, the leadership responded to unrest by bringing Władysław Gomułka back to power and reaching an accommodation with Moscow, avoiding a comparable revolution.

The Soviet withdrawal from Austria in 1955, Békés says, gave Hungarians false hope that Soviet troops might also leave Hungary. Austria was a special case: the Soviet Union withdrew from its occupation zone in exchange for Austrian neutrality, a settlement that served Soviet strategic interests. Hungary, already a Sovietized state, was not comparable; Moscow had no reason to give it up without receiving something in return.

Békés also views the Warsaw Pact as more than simply a mechanism of coercion. Although the Soviet Union dominated it, Khrushchev’s project was to present the Eastern bloc as a collective alliance of formally sovereign states.

Békés is sharply critical of US policy and messaging. Washington did not intend to liberate Eastern Europe and was pursuing pragmatic relations with Moscow, while US broadcasts to the region encouraged resistance and could leave listeners with the impression that help might come. Radio Free Europe did not explicitly promise military assistance, but its messaging was ambiguous. Its staff were not informed when US policy shifted in July 1956 toward encouraging national, Yugoslav-style paths to communism rather than inciting revolt. Békés calls this a “terribly irresponsible” policy. He argues that US officials should have corrected the message after the Poznań uprising but failed to do so before the Hungarian Revolution.

He rejects the claim that the Suez Crisis prevented the United States from helping Hungary. The two crises coincided, but, in his view, Washington was already constrained by the postwar division of Europe. The Suez Crisis instead gave the United States a way to criticize Britain and France while obscuring its own inability—or unwillingness—to intervene. The lack of Western action in Hungary reflected the same limits that later prevented intervention during the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution confirmed the Soviet Union’s belief that the West would not challenge its control of Eastern Europe. For the United States, it exposed the damage caused by liberation rhetoric and contributed to a shift away from inciting uprisings toward a more pragmatic policy of détente.

Presenters and Contributors

• Presenter/interviewer: Unnamed Szignál host
• Contributor: Csaba Békés, historian and founding director of the Cold War Historical Research Centre