expression-and soon after, pere-stroika-attempts at economic and political reform. Gorbachev freed political prisoners and exiles between 1986 and 1989. His UN speech of December 7, 1988, praised the once spurned Universal Declaration of Human Rights and revised the 1977 Constitution accordingly. But he reformed too little too late. Four months after his near-overthrow in the August 1991 coup by his own reactionary appointees, the Soviet Union split into three once-again independent Baltic republics and twelve newly independent states, including the Russian Federation.
Boris Yeltsin, Russian president from 1991 until his resignation in 1999, forced on Russia the 1993 Constitution increasing presidential power but also containing Article 2: “The individual and his rights and freedom are the highest value. The recognition, observance and defense of the human rights and freedoms of the individual and the citizen are the obligation of the state.” The Constitution proclaims a broad range of civil, political, social, and economic rights. Contrasting realities under overbearing and corrupt state administrations infringed on freedom of expression, religion, fair and humane justice, freedom of movement, and freedom from racial, ethnic, and homophobic bigotry, and hate crimes. Moreover, during the wars to retain Chechnya just about every human right was violated. Inequality, poverty, and homeless-ness haunted the land while the new rich lived high. Women experienced inequality and exploitation in employment, widespread divorce, abandonment, and domestic violence, and trafficking into prostitution. Life expectancy fell to third-world levels, especially among men, owing to stress, accidents, alcoholism, and the pervasive inadequacy of health care (Juviler, 2000; Human Rights Watch).
Such political and social human rights violations prompted the formation of numerous free but under-funded human rights advocacy groups-
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nongovernmental organizations. They ranged from Russian Soldiers’ Mothers, who were against the wide abuses of military recruits, to the anti-Stalinist and pro-rights Memorial Society, to Muslim cultural and aid societies.
Seventy years of Communist social and legal cleansing are not overcome in a decade or two. In Ken Jowitt’s words, “We must think of a ‘long march’ rather than a simple transition to democracy” (Jowitt, 1992, 189), with all sorts of human rights to redeem. See also: DISSIDENT MOVEMENT; GULAG; SAKHAROV, ANDREI DMITRIEVICH; SOLZHENITSYN, ALEXANDER ISAYEVICH
Berdiaev, Nicolas. (1960). The Origin of Russian Communism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Henkin, Louis. (1996). The Age of Rights, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Human Rights Watch World Report. (2003). «http:// www.hrw.org/wr2kr/europe11.html». Jowitt, Ken. (1992). New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Juviler, Peter. (1998). Freedoms Ordeal: The Struggle for Human Rights and Democracy in Post-Soviet States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Juviler, Peter. (2000). “Political Community and Human Rights in Post-Communist Russia.” In Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities, ed. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner. Steiner, Henry, and Alston, Philip. (2000). International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
PETER JUVILER
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the first major anti-Soviet uprising in Eastern Europe and the first shooting war to occur between socialist states. In contrast to earlier uprisings after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in March 1953, such as the workers’ revolt in East Berlin (1953) and the Polish workers’ rebellion in Poznan, Poland (October 1956), the incumbent Hungarian leader, Imre Nagy, did not summon Soviet military troops to squelch the revolution. Instead, he attempted to withdraw Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. Hence, the Hungarian revolution symbolizes perhaps the first major “domino” to fall in a process that ultimately resulted in the Soviet Union’s loss of hegemony over Eastern Europe in 1989.
When Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, delivered his Secret Speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956, he not only exposed Stalin’s crimes, but also presented himself as a proponent of different paths to socialism, a claim that would later prove hard to fulfill. All over Eastern Europe, hardline Stalinist leaders wondered fearfully how far destalinization would go. Meanwhile, their opponents, who criticized Stalinist policies, suddenly gained in popularity. In Hungary, Nagy was one such critic and reformer. He had served as Hungary’s prime minister from July 4, 1953, to April 18, 1955. In the spring of 1955, however, Nagy was dislodged by a hard-line Stalinist leader, M?ty?s R?kosi, who had been forced to cede that post to Nagy in mid-1953.
Social pressures continued to build in Hungary under the leadership of R?kosi, called Stalin’s “best disciple” by some. He had conducted the anti-Yugoslav campaign in 1948 and 1949 more zealously than other East European party leaders. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian communists had been executed or imprisoned after 1949. By late October 1956 the popular unrest in Hungary eluded the control of both the Hungarian government led by R? kosi’s successor, Ern? Ger?, and the USSR.
On October 23, 1956, several hundred thousand people demonstrated in Budapest, hoping to publicize their sixteen-point resolution and to show solidarity with Poland where, in June, an industrial strike originating in Poznan turned into a national revolt. The Budapest protesters demanded that Nagy replace Ger?, the Hungarian Communist Party’s first secretary from July 18 to October 25, 1956. Fighting broke out in Budapest and other Hungarian cities and continued throughout the night.
It is now known that Soviet leaders decided on October 23 to intervene militarily. Soviet troops executed Plan Volna (“Wave”) at 11:00 P.M. that same day. The next morning a radio broadcast announced that Nagy had replaced Andr?s Heged?s as prime minister. On October 25, J?nos K?d?r, a younger, centrist official, replaced Ger? as first secretary. However, this first Soviet intervention did not solve the original political problem in the country. New documents have revealed that the Kremlin initially decided on October 28 against a
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Russian tanks and armored vehicles surround the Hungarian parliament building in Budapest. © HULTON ARCHIVE second military intervention. But on October 31, they reversed course and launched a more massive intervention (Operation Vikhr, or “Whirlwind”). During the night of November 3, sixteen Soviet divisions entered Hungary. Fighting continued until mid-November, when Soviet forces suppressed the resistance and installed a pro-Soviet government under K?d?r. Gy?rkei, Jen?, and Horv?th, Mikl?s. (1999). The Soviet Military Intervention in Hungary, 1956. Budapest: Central European University Press. Litv?n, Gy?rgy, and Bak, J?nos M. (1996). The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Reform, Revolt and Repression, 1953-1963. New York: Longman.
See also: HUNGARY, RELATIONS WITH; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH;
B?k?s, Csaba; Rainer, J?nos M.; and Byre, Malcolm. (2003). The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents. Budapest: Central European University Press. Cox, Terry, ed. (1997). Hungary 1956-Forty Years On. London: Frank Cass. Granville, Johanna. (2003). The First Domino: International Decision Making in the Hungarian Crisis of 1956. College Station: Texas A amp; M University Press.
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Russian and Soviet relations with Hungary, in contrast to those with other east central European countries, have been especially tense due to factors such as Hungary’s monarchical past, historical rivalry with the Russians over the Balkans, Russia’s invasion of Hungary in 1848, Hungary’s alliances in both world wars against Russia or the USSR, the belated influence of communism in the interwar period, the Soviet invasion in 1956 to crush the nationalist revolution, and Hungary’s vastly different language and culture in general.
No part of Hungary had ever been under direct Russian rule. Instead, Hungary formed part of the Habsburg Empire, extending over more than 675,000 square kilometers in central Europe. Both empires-the tsarist and Habsburg-fought for hegemony over Balkan territories. The Habsburg empire included what is now Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, as well as parts of present-day Poland, Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia
