Even if we assume the obvious, namely that the insurrection in Hungary was immediately motivated by previous developments in Poland, our assumption still begs the question. How could the Hungarian people muster such a valiant spirit of defiance in the face of Russian tanks, artillery fire and aerial bombing overnight, after the long years which must have appeared to die impartial observer as inglorious submission? After all, there was an active resistance in Poland in 1945-46 and even General Mihailovitch managed to continue for a while his resistance against Tito in the Yugoslavian mountains. Czechoslovakia, although by peaceful means, maintained her partly Western orientation until the beginning of 1948.

During all these years between 1945 and 1948 the Magyars appeared docilely to accept their submergence behind the iron curtain, the open Communist flouting of the anti-Communist popular vote at the General Elections in 1945 and 1947, Rákosi’s ‘salami tactics’ to reduce the Smallholder Party’s parliamentary majority, the liquidation of the Ferenc Nagy Government, the imprisonment of the Protestant Bishop Ordass and Cardinal Mindszenty.

However profound the impact of the Polish developments on Hungary may have been, particularly in view of the centuries-old Hungaro-Polish sentimental attachment, could the news from Warsaw have changed the national character of the Magyars in a matter of a few hours? Of course not! If we seek to explain the contrast between the Hungarian attitude before and after October 23, 1956, we must go back a few years in history to show that Hungary’s loss of independence came about with a slow graduality which precluded any spontaneous resistance in the past.