UNGARN 1956
HUNGARY 1956

Summary/Abstract: The Hungarian revolution was not unexpected: the alienation of the working class from the new regime was, above all, the result of economic policy, which consisted of ex-tremely rapid industrialization. The pressure on the peasants and the workforce in-creased in the 50s, their resistance was broken with repression. "The number of arrest-ed is greater than before. But the most alarming fact is that most of the arrestees were recruited from the workers, the industrial workers," Imre Nagy said in his will in 1954, written in political exile. Between 1949 and 1952, the standard of living fell by 20 percent, and in 1956 there was no doubt about the masses' opposition to the regime. In countering the invasion forces, workers-youth made up the main contingent. The first samizdat publication in Hungarian history, the Hungaricus pamphlet on the course of Hungarian October, writes: "According to the hospitals, 80 to 90 percent of the wounded were young work-ers and three to four percent students." And most of the combatants had hardly ever heard anything about the intellectual Petofi's circle, and nothing at all about Gomułka; and when asked why they then took part in the fighting they replied: "Is it worth living for 600 Forints a month?"

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