Opposition statements: Orbán spat in the face of 1956 heroes, ‘Russians, go home!’

Hungarian opposition parties have made statements in connection with the commemoration of the anti-Soviet uprising 68 years ago, in 1956.

Green party LMP said in a statement on Wednesday that October 23 sent the clear message that when a people stood up for its own freedom, “even if their struggle fails, their sacrifice will not and cannot be in vain”. “Our heroes gave their lives so the next generations could weigh the true sense of freedom, so their children and grandchildren would not live in servitude.”

The Dialogue-Greens party said in a post on Facebook that the “regime” of Viktor Orbán had “spat in the face of” the 1956 heroes, adding that “we must create a new community based on values”. “We’re once again living under oppression: a narrow elite has stolen Hungary and closed its doors to the West while opening its doors to the East once more.”

Jobbik Hungary Movement deputy leader Koloman Brenner said: “We hold the [1956] flag high and proclaim the revolution’s central motto, “Russians, go home!”

Speaking at a commemoration held at the statue of Péter Mansfeld, who was executed at a tender age in Budapest, the Jobbik politician said those who flooded the streets in 1956 were “Hungarian patriots who wanted to live in freedom in their own country”. Jobbik, he added, objected to any attempt to falsify history, “whether by a Russian textbook in which the heroes of fifty-six are described as fascist mobs, or by Fidesz career patriots”.

Socialist Party leader Imre Komjáthi marked the national holiday on Tuesday evening in Kaposvár, in southern Hungary. Speaking at a commemoration at the statue of martyred prime minister Imre Nagy, a native of Kaposvár, Komjáthi said the holiday was a celebration of freedom and heroism.

The heroes of 1956 “burned with a yearning for freedom and love of the homeland,” he said, adding that statements “belittling the memory of our fallen compatriots are unacceptable”. “People who use sovereignty as a rhetorical tool against an imaginary enemy, but who would offer the keys of the country to an aggressor in real trouble have no place in Hungarian politics,” he said.

At the Democratic Coalition’s commemoration in Budapest, party leader Ferenc Gyurcsány said that Hungary was living “in an upside-down world where traitors are making to be celebrating the holiday of freedom and national independence on behalf of the community”.

The revolution had aimed to rid Hungary of Russian-Soviet rule, he said. “That’s what it was about, and then it’s about how everyone who watches Ukraine’s fight against Russian rule in disgust is a traitor.”

“There’s a special place in hell for those who maintain neutrality in times of moral crises,” he said. “The Hungarian government is even worse, because they are simply taking the murderers’ side … and betraying the cause of fifty-six, that of Hungarian freedom and independence…” he said.

The party’s board members laid a wreath at the memorial at the Square of the Heroes of 1956.

Péter Magyar, the head of the opposition Tisza Party, and the party’s Budapest representatives laid wreaths at the New Public Cemetery in the capital. The Tisza Party laid flowers at plots 301, 300 and 298 at the graves of martyred Prime Minister Imre Nagy and other 1956 heroes. “Glory and respect to the heroes without whom Hungary would not be free in its current form,” the statement said.

Photo: Facebook/Péter Magyar

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