Posted on 09/17/2006 6:00:21 PM PDT by Nextrush
Franklin Roosevelt was in poor health when he met Josef Stalin at Yalta early in 1945. But his pro-Soviet advisors were not and regardless of who is to blame, the deal was sealed for Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
As the Soviet armies rolled into the Eastern European nations now in the Soviet "sphere of influence" they were followed by Moscow-trained Communists who led their countries into Communism.
When the Soviet armies advanced into eastern Hungary in 1944, they were welcomed as liberators from Nazis and the Admiral Horthy regieme that allied itself with Germany.
But the goodwill quickly faded as Soviet control spread across the country in the spring of 1945. The behavior of the Red Army is blamed in particular.
Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn served as an artillery officer in 1945 in East Prussia before he was imprisoned.
He said that the Red Army was allowed to abuse women, among other things. He said that women who weren't Germans could be stripped naked and chased around while German women could be "raped and shot."
Communists were not popular in this atmosphere.
Elections that were relatively free were held in Hungary in the fall of 1945 under Allied supervision that was dominated by the Soviets.
The results gave Communists only 16 percent of the vote and 70 seats in a more than 400 seat legislature.
The Small Holders (Peasants) Party and the Social Democrats were the largest parties.
In this situation the Communists used 1917 tactics to split and divide their opposition. They formed alliances with the left leaning members of the other parties to consoldiate power.
The Communists were able to develop "collective cooperation" with the other parties for "common goals."
By 1947 the Communists gained control of an economic council that ordered private industry and banks to be taken over by the government.
By 1948 Soviet domination was established over the Baltic states, Poland, Czecheslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The Soviets also controlled eastern Germany.
German scientists and factories were hauled off to the Soviet Union to prop up the weak Soviet economy and build its military power.
The other countries also provided the goods of their factories and food to prop up the Soviet Union at the expense of their own people.
One notable exception to Soviet dominance was the free-lance Communist government of Yugoslavia, led by Josip Tito. Tito became a critic of Soviet policy, while maintaining a less repressive dictatorship over his own people.
With the death of Stalin in 1953, hopes were raised for more freedom in Eastern Europe. Millions of prisoners were released including some Germans who were captured during World War II.
In 1955 Austria was enabled to become a free, independent state in a Soviet-Western diplomatic deal that many gave credit to British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden for negotiating.
Hopes were high and people deeply desired more freedoms but the Soviets and their Communist Party puppets who led the Eastern European countries were not so ready.
They had the guns and the people who wanted freedom didn't.
On May Day 1956, Czech students demonstrated in Prague and Bratislava, demanding freedom of speech and access to the Western press.
A crackdown on the leaders put that out of the picture.
A World Youth Festival has held in Warsaw in the summer of 1956. The Communists staged these events to spread Communist ideas to other nations but the foreign students brought in their clothes, music and ideas.
Calls for reform ran high and workers in Poznan protested low wages and high production targets. On June 28, 1956 they took to the streets and a crowd of over 100-thousand was soon massed.
Riots soon broke out and after a day and night of street fighting 40 were killed and 270 injured officially, but unofficialy 80 were killed and thousands hurt.
Polands Communist leadership was plunged into turmoil.
Hungary's Communist leaders needed to deal with their own leadership in the summer of 1956. They went to Soviet Ambassador Yuri Andropov for direction.
Moscow sent Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan as a troubleshooter to tell the Hungarians to install Erno Gero as the top Communist in Budapest.
Tension was in the air as the fall came to Eastern Europe in 1956 with most eyes focused on Poland but in the end it would be Hungary where rebellion would flourish.
My mother and grandmother were two of the people who managed to get out of Hungary during this particular event.
the 'article' seems to end abruptly... waiting for the rest of the story.
I'm posting more between now and November to approximate the
50th anniversary of the events.
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