Leadership could have saved the Hungarian revolution

In 1956, Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian uprising that could have succeeded if only the insurgents had moderated their demands, writes Geoffrey Roberts            

Political controversy has dogged commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian popular revolt against communist rule. Hungary’s conservative prime minister, Viktor Orban, has used the occasion to condemn what he has called the ‘Sovietisation’ of the European Union by Brussels bureaucrats.

According to Orban’s rhetoric, in 1956, the Hungarian people rose against the Soviet empire; in 1989, they revolted again and opened their borders to refugees from communist East Germany, helping to collapse the Berlin Wall; and then, in 2015, Hungary’s decision to close its frontiers against mass immigration from the Middle East saved European civilisation.