It should not be suggested that all was order and decency during these five days of freedom. For one thing, many AVO were still at large and some units of the Russian army remained within the city, shooting occasionally at passers-by. Then, too, there were in many sectors bands of revolutionaries who were not yet ready to declare the city safe from possible attack. They were a law to themselves, and in some instances represented a kind of anarchy which if not brought under control might ultimately do the cause of freedom much damage. For the most part, however, the citizens of Budapest were astonished at how well the wild young men of the city had settled down, once the riots had ended in their favor. Especially remarkable was the performance of what Americans call dead-end kids, for it was they who had dashed under the guns of the tanks. It was they who had strung the grenades across the streets. It was they who had fought to the last ounce of their energy. Now they were policing the same streets and putting out unguarded boxes into which people tossed thousands of forints for the care of poor families whose men had been killed in the fighting. All over Budapest, Eva and Zoltan saw these boxes, full of money, standing along the streets. Nobody stole from them, and at dusk each day the dead-end kids collected the money and distributed it.
In these heady days of freedom the Pals thought about the structure of their new nation a good deal. Zoltan says, “At first all we wanted was free elections, no AVO, no Russians, and newspapers. Then we realized that we would have to have some new kind of government, too, and that called for basic changes. Frankly, I didn’t know what would be best. About as far as I went was to think that Imre Nagy would form a liberal government and arrange for the Russians to leave. I knew Nagy was a communist himself, but a pretty decent one.” Eva Pal had other ideas. All her life she had been a good Catholic, even when perseverance in her faith cost her much, and now she heard news which thrilled her deeply. The announcement came over the radio one morning at ten o’clock: “Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, Prince Primate, who was liberated on Tuesday by our victorious revolution, arrived at his residence in Buda at 0855 this morning.”
For Eva Pal there was a kind of exaltation in this simple message, for her parents had told her repeatedly that the cardinal was a man to be trusted. In secret she had heard of the trials he had suffered, the punishments and the tortures. Her mother always said first, “Loyal to Hungary.” Then she would add, as if she had blasphemed, “And he was loyal to God, too.”
During the day, news of his incredible escape from prison swept through Budapest, and Eva heard that on the previous night four officers of the Hungarian army, fighting with the freedom forces, had learned that Cardinal Mindszenty was being held by fourteen AVO men in a mansion outside Budapest. The officers had hurried there without orders, had disarmed the AVO guard and had carried the cardinal away to safety. A few minutes later a Russian tank arrived, to protect the cardinal, the driver said, but Mindszenty was now with his own people.
The next morning these daring officers brought the cardinal to his official residence in Buda. From there the churchman made his first announcement to the Hungarian people:
“I admire what the weapons of the youth, the soldiers, the university students, the villagers, the peasants and the workers accomplished. After eight years of imprisonment, they tore open the door of my prison. These brave officers of Retsag cared for nothing, they came to the house where I was imprisoned and took me along with them. I rested in the barracks. I send my pontifical blessing to the Hungarian weapons. I wish the glory acquired by Hungarian weapons to be multiplied by our peasantry when need comes. I want to be informed of the situation before I do or say more.”
For some years Eva Pal, like a good many Hungarians, had kept hidden among her possessions a secret portrait of Cardinal Mindszenty, holding him in her mind as a symbol of resistance against communism and the Russians. Now, as she unfolded the battered portrait and placed it on her wall, the idea came to her that in the days ahead free Hungary would need the leadership of a man like this.
“He ought to be premier,” she told her husband.
Zoltan, never one for religion, said, “Maybe not premier. I don’t think a cardinal ought to run the government.”
“But he ought to be in the government,” Eva persisted.
“That might be all right,” Zoltan agreed.
And in the next days, when the cardinal’s powerful voice was heard speaking gravely of the tasks ahead, Eva Pal became more satisfied than ever that the unwavering churchman ought to help run Hungary. She argued with her husband, “Otherwise we have no leader. Who can really trust Nagy Imre?” In Hungarian, names are given in reverse order, and the communist leader’s name, when Eva spoke it, sounded like Nodge Imry, but all in one word.
“I like Nagy Imre,” Zoltan said. “He’s a man of great courage.”
“Why not a government of Mindszenty and Nagy Imre?” Eva suggested.
“Maybe, if Nagy Imre were premier,” Zoltan grudgingly agreed.
Eva saw nothing strange in her proposal for a Hungarian government based on Nagy, the old communist who still adhered to the economic theory of communism, and Mindszenty, the prince of the church. When she suggested this strange team to her neighbors, she found that many of the women approved.
Zoltan, however, talked mostly with workmen, and while they agreed that a towering moral symbol like Mindszenty should have a place in the government, they felt that even Imre Nagy was too old-fashioned. “We’ll make him president, since everyone respects him, but we want younger men, the ones who led the revolution, to run the government.” And they spoke of a middle-of-the-road system which would preserve the main outlines of the 1945 socialist state that had replaced fascism, but which would be based above all else on respect for human dignity.
“I know two things,” Eva said. “Mindszenty ought to be in the government, and the AVO should be thrown out.”
“And the Russians, too,” Zoltan added.
On the evening of November 2, exciting reports circulated through Budapest detailing the terms which Cardinal Mindszenty had insisted upon as those under which he would agree to participate in the government. Eva Pal was relieved to know that arrangements were being completed, but the workmen with whom Zoltan talked were most apprehensive. “The Russians will hear of these terms,” they argued, “and they’ll have an excuse for coming back to Budapest. You watch. They’ll claim the revolution was run by priests and reactionaries.”
Zoltan talked about this fear with his wife, but she reasoned that since the revolution had already succeeded before Cardinal Mindszenty was even out of jail, such Russian arguments would be ridiculous. “I think we’re going to have a wonderful new country,” she repeated hopefully.
The vision of an honorable Hungary, free from Russian domination, seemed to bring out the best in many kinds of people, for additional proposals on how to organize the new nation came from all parts of the country and showed a greater statesmanship than the initial series. For example, Zoltan was deeply impressed when he and Eva listened to the sober plans which a committee of farmers had initiated for abolishing collectivized farms in Hungary. The reforms were not reactionary, nor were they stupid. The farmers said, “Our basic principle is that only those collectivized farms which produce surpluses and whose members want them to remain in operation should be continued. Those that cannot stand on their own feet, or whose members object, should be ended. But liquidation must be carried out gradually, after the completing of the autumn sowing and at the beginning of spring. Where a collectivized farm is liquidated, the land should be distributed among the peasants. This winter experts should study what size farm would be best, thus enabling the farmers to begin spring planting on their own lands. If a collectivized farm is continued, its norms and the way each farmer’s work is evaluated must be changed to insure more justice. For the time being, the present system of collectivized farms may have to remain, but control must be reorganized, and all of us must get a more just opportunity to use the machine
ry.”
Men who ran factories were making proposals of equal responsibility. Political leaders were suggesting ways of combining powers to form a stable government, and the philosophers of the country were beginning to talk about the genesis of a true national spirit that would reflect Hungary’s love of freedom, her courage and her determination to exist as a sovereign power. There was a great deal of talk about making Hungary the Switzerland or the Sweden of Eastern Europe. “I like the idea,” Zoltan said. “We are a small country. We should be neutral.” And he found that Eva agreed with him heartily.
In fact, in these great sweet days of freedom, the people of Hungary talked good sense, and it seemed as if a basis were being built for a powerful and dedicated nation. “Certainly we have earned the right to be a nation,” Eva told her friends.
Then came ominous news from the east. A boy came running into the street crying that hundreds of Russian tanks were in motion at the airport. “Not little ones like before. Big ones.”
Men confirmed the evil news. “It looks as if the Russians were going to come back in force,” a soldier said. “And those new tanks! They have extra machine guns that point down between the treads. You can’t blow them up.”
There was a rumble to the east, a cold wind blowing from the steppes of Russia. At four o’clock the next morning, on Sunday, November 4, Budapest was awakened by the shattering sound of Russian tanks tearing the city apart.
The tanks did not reach northern Buda till late, but when they did they rolled up the street where Zoltan and Eva Pal lived and methodically began to blow apart a house where a sniper had been seen. It was not the house in which the Pals lived, but, huddling together by the shivering window of their fourth-floor apartment, the young couple knew that theirs might be next. The glorious days of freedom were ended. The five brief days which had provided a glimpse into a different kind of future were over. Even the memories were being destroyed by the Russian tanks.
5
The Russian Terror
At four o’clock on Sunday morning, November 4, the Russians returned to Budapest. With a terror unparalleled in recent years they destroyed a city, and in doing so they stood unmasked before the world for the aggressors, the murderers, the insane fanatics that they are.
In the rubble of Budapest, in the graves of women and children mowed down by machine guns, and in the unrelieved terror of Soviet revenge lay buried Russia’s claims to friendship with the satellite countries who live within her orbit. In eight hellish days Russia proved that she holds Poland and Bulgaria and Lithuania and many of the Central Asian Republics by cold, brute force.
Budapest was a dreadful price to pay for such knowledge, but if the knowledge is widely disseminated among those who were unaware of it before, and if Russia’s cynical and disgraceful lies are laid bare to the rest of the world, the death of this noble city will not have been in vain.
The Russians were quite brave in their assault on the unarmed city. First they took command of Gellert Hill, a rocky height which rises 770 feet in one sheer sweep up from the western shore of the Danube. To the top of this Buda hill the Russians sped mobile heavy artillery and enormous stores of ammunition. Shells from these guns, which landed with terrifying force in apartment houses and government buildings, measured nearly four feet long and were vastly destructive.
From Gellert Hill, the highest point in Budapest, the Russian artillerymen could command the entire city. The guns, which were established near a monument erected to Russian soldiers who had helped drive Hitler out of Budapest, looked directly down at the eight main bridges that spanned the Danube and connected Buda with Pest.
To the north the powerful guns could fire into the old town of Buda, whose Castle Hill was a handsome collection of narrow streets, quaint houses and historic sites. The Russians knew that with enough high-explosive shells they could blow the old town completely apart.
East of the river, the great guns could pinpoint university buildings, railway stations, museums, the radio studio, the factories in Csepel and one particular spot whose continued resistance infuriated the Russians: the sagging, gutted remnants of Kilian Barracks, where some soldiers and officers still held out.
In fact, these massive guns on Gellert Hill could by themselves have destroyed Budapest. But they were, in some respects, the least weapon in the Russian commander’s arsenal. He had in addition about 140,000 of the most ruthless foot soldiers in the Soviet army, plus another 60,000 available in the immediate vicinity, if the going got rough. Each soldier was equipped with a sub-machine gun and huge supplies of ammunition that could be momentarily replenished. These soldiers had been given one simple order: “Shoot!” It did not matter whether the moving target was a student with a gasoline bomb or a housewife with a loaf of bread. “Shoot!”
Next came four thousand new tanks. These were not the vulnerable, old-style T-34s, with high turrets and machine guns which could not deflect, like the kind Sergeant Csoki had destroyed in the first days of fighting. These were lowslung, swift, superarmored and well-gunned T-54s with a turret from which shells would deflect because of its sloping sides. They could do forty miles an hour, and run over a trolley car or crush an automobile. They carried in addition a powerful gun which could fire semi-automatically and deliver a punch that would destroy a house. The Russians brought two thousand of these tanks into the city and kept an equal number in reserve.
In the air, jet planes and propeller-driven bombers were called in to hit specific targets or to bomb whole areas. These planes were usually armed with rockets carrying enormous concentrations of high explosives, and one rocket could rip out a factory wall. Since the Hungarian rebels had neither planes of their own nor more than one antiaircraft gun, nor the ammunition if they had had the guns, the Soviet pilots flew courageously and accomplished great damage.
On the ground there were rockets, too. Nests of rocket launchers could be wheeled into position behind fast-moving trucks and discharge in rapid-fire order six giant rockets against a building that was attempting to hold out. Usually one volley was enough to collapse a building and kill all occupants.
But even these formidable weapons were not enough for what the Russians had in mind. Squads of men with flame throwers moved throughout the city, burning down large areas and incinerating the inhabitants. There were also armor-piercing batteries in case Hungarian freedom fighters turned up with armor or captured tanks. There were antitank guns to deal with the latter, bazookas in case of extreme trouble, and a new kind of baby tank that was extremely mobile and well armed. In addition they had an intricate system of communications, flares, walkie-talkies, reconnaissance cars and armed jeeps. Most important, for this second assault each Soviet soldier had been issued a new type of sub-machine gun twice as effective as the old Russian guitar.
Against this concentration of Soviet power the Hungarians had some homemade gasoline bombs.
Even so, the Russians were not willing to take any chances. Before launching their attack, they lured into a phony meeting the one Hungarian who might have defeated them. Colonel Maleter, now a major-general because of his amazing skill in defending Budapest and driving out the Russians, took the Russians’ promise of safe passage at its face value and went to a meeting “to discuss the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Hungary.” The Russians, stalling for time so that their last gun could be drawn into position, made concessions which amounted to a total Hungarian victory.
Hardly able to believe what he heard, Maleter accepted the Russian surrender. “Come back later and we’ll sign the papers,” the Russians said. “In the meantime, no fighting.”
During the truce thus obtained, the Russians consolidated their strangle hold on the city, and when General Maleter returned for the subsequent meeting, safeguarded by a flag of truce, the Russians promptly brushed aside the flag, arrested the hero of Budapest and whisked him off to prison, possibly in Siberia.
In the dreadful days of fighting that were to follow, the young men of Hung
ary marched out almost unarmed against the Russian tanks, without a leader, without generals and without lines of communication. What these young patriots accomplished against their Russian oppressors is an epic of human endurance.
The heroic Russians spent Sunday shelling the city from the safety of Gellert Hill and sending out squads of swift tanks to shoot up the boulevards. They kept their foot soldiers in reserve and tried to terrorize the Hungarians so completely that on Monday mopping up could begin.
They made a bad guess. The Hungarians stayed indoors during the worst part of the shelling, and tried to dodge bullets during the swift tank forays. Even so, courageous freedom fighters did find time to erect barricades across many of the streets of Pest, and there were some teams of young boys and girls who tackled any tank that slowed down. At one important intersection, Moricz Zsigmond Square, in Buda, a college student who had been forced by the communists to study military science cried, “It looks to me that if we can hold this square, the Russians will be tied up. Let’s barricade it.”
Assuming command, he devised a masterful defense plan, but before he could complete his work a boy shouted, “Here come five cars of soldiers!”
The college student ordered his best men onto the nearby roofs, and when the reconnaissance cars swung into the partially barricaded square, he gave a signal and brought the cars under very heavy fire. Sixty-seven Russians were killed, and the three cars that were able to turn about fled back toward Gellert Hill.
Before the next Russian attack came, the college student directed his forces to overturn all the street cars in the area. They interlaced the street cars with timbers, and blocked themselves in. He gained unexpected support from some Hungarian soldiers who delivered two captured Russian tanks to the square, and these formed the main artillery of the defense.