The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Superpowers

Békés, Csaba (2003) The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Superpowers. Hungarian Studies, 17 (1). pp. 65-77. ISSN 0236-6568

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Abstract

The fate of East-Central Europe until the fall of the communist regimes was determined by the status quo that the allies set up in 1945. Despite the fact that it has never been formally recorded in any official document, both superpowers, which controlled the bipolar world order after World War II - namely the United States and the Soviet Union - attributed a pivotal role to this tacit agreement in the East-West relationship. Their mutual consent started to work as an automatic rule of thumb in the chilliest years of the Cold War era, and developed afterwards, when the sporadic East-West conflicts needed to be managed. On the basis of this conception, the passivity of the West at the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 is not as surprising and incomprehensible as contemporary public opinion in Hungary regarded it. The Hungarian uprising was not merely inconvenient for the western powers but it totally contradicted their policy, which especially after 1955 aimed at a compromise with the Soviet Union through the mutual acquiescence of the existing status quo.

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