One Day That Shook the Communist World : The 1956 Hungarian Uprising and Its Legacy

On October 23, 1956, a popular uprising against Soviet rule swept through Hungary like a force of nature, only to be mercilessly crushed by Soviet tanks twelve days later. Only now, fifty years after those harrowing events, can the full story be told. This book is a powerful eyewitness account and a gripping history of the uprising in Hungary that heralded the future liberation of Eastern Europe. Paul Lendvai was a young journalist covering politics in Hungary when the uprising broke out. He knew the government officials and revolutionaries involved. He was on the front lines of the student protests and the bloody street fights and he saw the revolutionary government smashed by the Red Army. In this riveting, deeply personal, and often irreverent book, Lendvai weaves his own experiences with in-depth reportage to unravel the complex chain of events leading up to and including the uprising, its brutal suppression, and its far-reaching political repercussions in Hungary and neighboring Eastern Bloc countries. He draws upon exclusive interviews with Russian and former KGB officials, survivors of the Soviet backlash, and relatives of those executed. He reveals new evidence from closed tribunals and documents kept secret in Soviet and Hungarian archives. Lendvai's breathtaking narrative shows how the uprising, while tragic, delivered a stunning blow to Communism that helped to ultimately bring about its demise. __One Day That Shook the Communist World__ is the best account of these unprecedented events. Contents Introduction 1. A Day That Shook the Communist World 2. The Road to Revolution 3. A Night of Cataclysmic Decisions 4. The Legend of the Corvinists 5. Wrestling for the Soul of Imre Nagy 6. Deadlocked 7. A Turnaround with a Question Mark 8. The General, the Colonel, and the Adjutant 9. The Dams Are Breaking 10. The Condottiere, the “Uncle,” and the Romantics 11. Decision in the Kremlin: The End of Patience 12. Double Dive into Darkness 13. The Puppeteers and the Kádár Enigma 14. Operation Whirlwind and Kádár’s Phantom Government 15. The Yugoslav-Soviet Conspiracy 16. The Second Revolution 17. The Moral Bankruptcy of the U.S. Liberation Theory 18. Worldwide Reactions 19. The Barbarous Vendetta of the Victors 20. 1956–1989: Victory in Defeat? Epilogue: Whose 1956? Acknowledgments Chronology Notes Bibliography Index