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Unlock This CourseAt the end of October 1956 the Soviet leaders were unsure what to do about Hungary. On 30 October they were ready to pull their troops out and talk. On 31 October they changed their minds and decided to crush the rising by force. Four reasons pushed Khrushchev to that decision.
Nagy's promise to end one-party rule, announced on 30 October, meant the Communists could be voted out. A Hungary outside the Warsaw Pact would leave a gap in the buffer zone that protected the Soviet Union from the West. On 1 November Nagy announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. Moscow already knew which way he was heading when it decided to invade.
If Hungary broke free, people in Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Romania might try the same. The whole ring of satellite states could fall apart.
Hardliners in Moscow, who wanted no reform at all, already blamed the secret speech for the unrest. If he lost Hungary, Khrushchev might lose his job. Mao's China also urged him to act.
Israel invaded Egypt on 29 October, and on 31 October Britain and France began bombing Egypt. The USA was furious with its own allies. The West was split and the world was looking at Egypt.
The first two reasons explain why Khrushchev felt he had to act. The Suez Crisis explains why he felt it was safe to act when he did.
Key terms:
On Hungary. At least 2,500 Hungarians and about 700 Soviet soldiers were killed. Around 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees, most of them across the border into Austria. Many were young and well educated, so the country lost skilled people. Kádár then punished those who had taken part: more than 20,000 people were sent to prison and more than 200 were executed. Nagy left the Yugoslav embassy on 22 November after being promised that he would be safe. Soviet troops seized him at once. He was tried in secret and hanged in June 1958. Hungary stayed a one-party state inside the Warsaw Pact, with Soviet troops on its soil.
On Eastern Europe. The invasion showed every satellite state where the limits were. Poland's Gomułka had been allowed some reforms because he kept Poland Communist and in the Warsaw Pact. Nagy had tried to leave, and he paid with his life. The message was plain: change a little if you must, but never try to leave. The people of Eastern Europe also learned that the West would not come to save them. Soviet control was stronger after 1956 than before it.
On Khrushchev and the Cold War. Khrushchev had shown the hardliners that he could be tough, which helped him for the moment. But the hopes raised by peaceful co-existence took a heavy blow. People in the West who had believed that the Soviet Union was changing now saw tanks firing on workers, and many members of Communist parties in Western Europe resigned in disgust. The friendlier mood between East and West faded and mistrust between the superpowers grew again.
President Eisenhower condemned the invasion. In the United Nations, the Soviet Union used its veto to block action by the Security Council. The General Assembly then voted by a large majority to call on Soviet troops to leave. Moscow ignored it. Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland pulled out of the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne in protest.
On 2 November, two days before the invasion, the USA had offered Hungary 20 million dollars of food and medical supplies. Afterwards Western countries, including the USA and Britain, took in tens of thousands of refugees. But no Western government sent a single soldier or weapon.
Many Hungarians felt betrayed. For years American leaders had talked of 'liberating' Eastern Europe, and Radio Free Europe had encouraged the rebels to keep fighting, which made them think that help was coming. It never came. The United States lost respect in Eastern Europe, and its talk of 'liberation' was quietly dropped.
Don't say the West 'did nothing': it condemned the invasion, offered aid and took in refugees, but it gave no military help. Don't say the invasion made the Soviet Union weaker in Eastern Europe: its reputation in the world suffered, but its grip on the satellite states grew tighter. And keep the dates straight: the first Soviet tanks came on 24 October, but the invasion that crushed the rising began on 4 November.
Explain two effects of the Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956) on Soviet control of Eastern Europe. [8 marks]
One effect was that Hungary itself was brought firmly back under Soviet control. Nagy had announced the end of one-party rule and, on 1 November, that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. The invasion of 4 November, with about 200,000 troops, removed his government and put János Kádár in power with Moscow's backing. More than 20,000 Hungarians were imprisoned, and Nagy was hanged in June 1958. Because the reformers had been killed, jailed or driven abroad, there was nobody left to lead opposition, so Hungary stayed a one-party state inside the Warsaw Pact.
A second effect was that Soviet control over the other satellite states was strengthened. The invasion showed that Khrushchev would use force against any country that tried to leave the Warsaw Pact, however much he talked of de-Stalinisation. It also showed that the West would not step in: the USA condemned the invasion and took in refugees, but sent no troops. This meant that people elsewhere in Eastern Europe knew a rising would be crushed and that they would face the Red Army alone, which discouraged them from challenging Soviet rule.
What lifts this to the top level: each paragraph names one effect, backs it with precise facts, and then explains how the invasion caused it, using linking phrases such as 'because' and 'this meant that'.
One effect alone cannot score more than 4 marks, however well you write it, so always give two. Read the last words of the question carefully: this one asks about Soviet control of Eastern Europe, so the refugees or the Olympic boycott would earn little here. If the question asked about relations between the superpowers, you would choose different effects, such as the damage to peaceful co-existence.