Encouraged by Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policies, a group of reformist Communist leaders took power in Hungary in October 1956 in the midst of ongoing, violent demonstrations. Though the reformers never openly challenged the legitimacy of Communist rule, their call for free elections, economic reforms, and independence from the U.S.S.R. threatened Soviet authorities, who ordered the Red Army to put down the uprising. The reformers made their case to the Hungarian people in this radio announcement, originally broadcast on October 26, just one week before the Red Army invaded to end the revolt.

Since the two world wars our country has not experienced days as tragic as these. A fratricidal battle is raging in the capital city of our country. The number of injured is estimated to run into thousands, and of the dead into hundreds. An immediate end must be put to the bloodshed. The Central Committee [of the Communist Party] therefore announces the following measures:

1. A recommendation … for the election of a new national Government. This Government shall make good without fail the mistakes and crimes of the past.… The Central Committee, led by Comrade Imre Nagy, is presenting recommendations regarding members of a Government to be formed on the basis of the broadest national foundations.

2. The new Government shall start negotiations with the Soviet Government, on the basis of independence, complete equality and non-interference in internal affairs, to settle relations between our countries. As a first step towards this end, after the restoration of order, Soviet troops will immediately return to their bases. Complete equality between Hungary and the Soviet Union corresponds with the interests of both countries, because only on that basis can a truly fraternal, unbreakable Hungarian-Soviet bond be built.…

3. The Central Committee deems correct the election of Workers’ Councils in the factories through the intermediary of the trade union organs.… Wage increases must be implemented.…

4. The Government shall grant an amnesty to all those who have taken part in the armed battles.…

5. [We] leave no room for doubt regarding [our] standpoint on socialist democracy, but at the same time [we] are firmly resolved to defend the achievements of our People’s Democracy and not to relinquish anything in the cause of socialism.…

In these fateful days great tasks await Communists. Let them meet and talk with the people sincerely. Let them talk, straight to the hearts of the truly patriotic people. Let them explain events and reassure the people. With an adult sense of responsibility let them tell the youth: what you have rightly asked for, you have attained!

The Party’s top leadership is almost completely new. Just how new is this Party leadership? It suffices to say that all three Secretaries … have for years been prisoners of [Stalinist] Rakosi-type despotism; as victims of faked trials they spent years in prison from which they only recently have been released. If anyone knows that the old road must not be taken it is they. Let Communists explain that whoever seeks to spread distrust against these men and to set the people against them helps everybody except the people.

Source: Melvin J. Lasky, ed., A White Book: The Hungarian Revolution: The Story of the October Uprising as Recorded in Documents, Dispatches, Eye-Witness Accounts, and World-Wide Reactions (New York: Congress for Cultural Freedom/Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), p. 86.

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