The hungarian revolution 1956

Triumph and Tragedy

A documentary by Paul Lendvai

The Hungarian uprising on the 23rd of October 1956 was an epochal event, a political earthquake without a centre, without a concept and without a coordinated leadership. Yet it destroyed the Communist regime within days. Secret documents now accessible reveal the confusion, fear and split in the party leadership in Budapest and Moscow, the fateful decisions about two Soviet military interventions, the betrayal of the Imre Nagy Government by the West and by the Tito regime in neighbouring Yugoslavia. Even after the bloody crushing of the revolution, the resistance went on.

More than 300 executions, tens of thousands in jail and internment camps and finally the secret trial of Prime Minister Nagy and his associates were the results of the revenge taken by the reconstructed Communist regime under the leadership of Janos Kadar. The 1956 Revolution was a victory in defeat in Hungarian history and a milestone in modern European history. "The main actors of the documentary are the still living freedom and resistance fighters in Hungary with the international background highlighted by exclusive interviews with the former KGBChief General Vladimir Kriuchkov in Moscow and the longterm Russian Ambassador Valery Musatov as well as with the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger in Washington D.C."

A Coproduktion of Interspot Film, ORF and bm:bwk funded by Bundeskanzleramt und Land Burgenland.