Conference held on 1956 revolution in Vienna

Vienna, March 3 (MTI) – A research conference attended by historians and other academics was held on Hungary’s anti-Soviet uprising of 1956 at the Hungarian embassy in Vienna on Thursday.

Historian Miklós Kun talked about the role of Russia’s secret service in the crushing of the revolution. He said the history of the revolution was still somewhat blurry, noting that the report on then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s talks in Budapest in 1957 has not been made accessible to researchers. He added that details on Hungarian communist-era leader János Kádár’s visit to Moscow at the time were also limited. Kun said the “Western political elite” had “betrayed” Hungary in 1956 while the people of the West had shown an “unprecedented” level of solidarity to Hungarians.

Levente Benkő, a historian and publicist, talked about youth mobilisation in Transylvania in 1956 and the retaliation that followed the revolution in Romania. Between 1956 and 1962, some 28,000 people were arrested and around 10,000 people were sentenced to prison or death, he said.