HUNGARY IN THE MIRROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD

CLOSING REMARKS

The goal of the Gabor Aron Study Group was to create a report of English language literature concerning Hungary, limited to the years between 1938-1958. The members felt that an objective report about this very turbulent time would be beneficial.

During their research the members of the workshop became convinced that the English language literature contained the answers to some of the questions which were hotly debated in Hungary for decades. These questions are:

(a) Who was the most helpful to Hungary in her quest to regain lost territories from Czechoslovakia and Romania?

Was it Hitler and Ribbentrop or was it Mussolini and Count Ciano? The answer is Mussolini and Ciano.

(b) Why did Hungary lose the above mentioned territories again, after the war?

Because Hungary participated in the war against the Soviets?

Because the Hungarian masses voted against the Communists in 1945?

Or, because Stalin had territorial demands on Czechoslovakia and Romania and, to make his demands more palatable, demanded the return of territories from Hungary to those two States?

The correct answer is the last.

(c) Who prevented Prime Minister Kallay's plan to surrender to the Western Allies, and when? Was it Hitler, because he occupied Hungary? Was it Stalin, because he negated Churchill's plan for an invasion through the Balkans?

The correct answer is that it was Stalin who, at the meeting at Teheran in 1943, eliminated Churchill's plan for a Balkan invasion in favor of an invasion into Normandy and, by doing so, made it impossible for any Western military to reach the Hungarian border.

(d) Was the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 doomed to failure from day one, and why?

The correct answer is that it was doomed to failure from the beginning because the Soviets were willing to wage war in order to maintain her satellite empire at the time when the West was not ready to enter a new war.

(e) Was the Hungarian Revolution in vain?

The answer is an emphatic "no", because the uprising against the Soviets and the brutal response of the Soviets, helped to remove many of the negative feelings about Hungary which had existed at the end of the war.

HUNGARY IN THE MIRROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD