• LIFE

A Rip in the Iron Curtain: Photos From the Hungarian Revolution, 1956

4 minute read

It lasted less than three weeks, from Oct. 23 until Nov. 10, but the Hungarian Revolution that convulsed Budapest and the rest of Hungary in late 1956 sent shock waves through eastern and central Europe that reverberated for decades. More than a few historians, in fact, cite the popular revolt as the first rip in the Cold War’s Iron Curtain.

The general lineaments of the 1956 conflict are well-known: In the autumn of that year, hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, in cities and the countryside, rose up against occupying Soviet forces and, critically, against the country’s brutal, homegrown secret police, the State Protection Authority. For a few heady weeks, it seemed like the insurgents might actually push the Russians out altogether. By mid-November, though, the Soviet army had regrouped and launched an all-out assault on a nation that was, nominally, both an ally and a protectorate.

Roughly 3,000 Hungarian civiliansmen, women, childrenwere killed during those three weeks. The uprising was crushed. But the ripples of the revoltthe Prague Spring in ’68, Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement in the 1980s and other rebellions, large and smallwere wide-ranging, and long-lasting.

Here, LIFE.com recalls the events through photos made by the great Michael Rougier, a photojournalist whose pictures routinely conveyed both an unmistakable authority and a seductive intimacyoften in the very same frame.

In its Nov. 12, 1956, issue, meanwhile, in an article titled, “Patriots Strike Ferocious Blows at a Tyranny,” LIFE magazine commemorated the short-lived uprising like this:

For three incredible days in Hungary last week the flames of liberty and revenge against tyranny rose high. It almost seemed as if they could go on burning. The pictures on this and the following pages document this terrifying and exhilarating event.

Rebel patriots stormed recklessly toward freedom, Communist henchmen reaped the frightful wrath they had sowed. The most hotly hated of the rebels’ targets were the Soviet-controlled Hungarian secret police. These were cut down as ruthlessly as they themselves had murdered countless anti-communists. Soviet occupation troops felt the national fury. Daredevil teenagers burned up their tanks with “Molotov cocktails” until Soviet columns evacuated Budapest, leaving their dead behind them. Most of the Hungarian army, siding with the rebels, stood off Soviet troops throughout the country. Workers not engaged in the fighting went out on a general strike against Communism.

The Soviets struck back with old-time Stalinist savagery. They poured reinforcements in, ringing Budapest. They encircled the Hungarian army in the provinces. At the end of the week, the Budapest radio burst out brokenly: “Russian MiG fighters are over Budapest. . . . The Russian infantry division is going toward the parliament. . . . Gyor is completely surrounded. . . . Pecs was attacked. . . . The Russians are using phosphorous bullets. . . . We shall die for Hungary and Europe. . . . Any news about help? Quickly, quickly, quickly . . .” Then Budapest fell.

The ballistic missile test violates UN resolutions

A month after Soviet troops had retaken the capital and the rest of the country, LIFE published another major article on the insurrectionthis time singling out the fearlessness of Hungary’s women for praise:

In Budapest last week . . . the Russian masters and their desperate Hungarian puppets faced a new and formidable foe. The city’s women, some of whom had fought earlier at the side of their men and then had bitterly buried the men who had fallen, suddenly banded together in a series of fresh demonstrations of defiance.

“Only women are wanted this time,” they shouted as they joined up in the streets. Then, ignoring the ominous presence of security police and Russian tanks, they marched with flowers and flags to a service commemorating their dead. The men doffed their hats in tribute as the women paraded past and joined with them in the stirring words of a forbidden song“We shall never be slaves.”

Thirty-three years to the day after the start of the uprising, on Oct. 23, 1989, president Mátyás Szűrös officially declared the establishment of the Hungarian Republic, replacing in an instant the Hungarian People’s Republic. A few weeks later, on Nov. 9, 1989, thousands of people attacked a brute, concrete symbol of the Cold War—and of the Warsaw Pact’s illegitimacy—not with rifles and Molotov cocktails, but with sledgehammers and pickaxes. Four decades after the Hungarian Revolution had ended in defeat, the Berlin Wall—which had not yet been built when Budapest first rose up against the USSR—peacefully fell.

The Cold War was over.


Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE


Rebels shoot vainly at an observation craft flying over Jozsef Circle. Soviet jet planes also . . . strafed the streets in support of the Soviet ground forces.
Caption from LIFE. "Rebels shoot vainly at an observation craft flying over Jozsef Circle. Soviet jet planes also . . . strafed the streets in support of the Soviet ground forces."Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hungarian Revolution, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Hungarian Revolution, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Rebels firing on Soviet troops during the Hungarian Revolution, Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Rebels firing on Soviet troops during the Hungarian Revolution, Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hungarian rebel fighter, Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Hungarian rebel fighter, Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hungarian rebel fighters, Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Hungarian rebel fighters, Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
On a man's mission, Pal Pruck, 15, was one of the many brave teen-agers who fought in the rebellion. He is standing in a rubble-strewn Budapest street.
Caption from LIFE. "On a man's mission, Pal Pruck, 15, was one of the many brave teen-agers who fought in the rebellion. He is standing in a rubble-strewn Budapest street."Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Firing at secret police, insurgents emplace old machine gun in a doorway on Rakoczi Avenue, where they had taken hasty refuge from police fusillade.
Caption from LIFE. "Firing at secret police, insurgents emplace old machine gun in a doorway on Rakoczi Avenue, where they had taken hasty refuge from police fusillade."Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Scene in a hospital during the Hungarian Revolution, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Scene in a barricaded hospital room during the Hungarian Revolution, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hungarian rebel fighters, Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Hungarian rebel fighters, Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
"Street justice" meted out by rebel fighters during the Hungarian Revolution, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. "Street justice" meted out by rebel fighters during the Hungarian Revolution, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Death and destruction in the streets of Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Death and destruction in the streets of Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hungarian rebel fighters, Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Hungarian rebel fighters, Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Death and destruction in the streets of Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Death and destruction in the streets of Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Death and destruction in the streets of Budapest, 1956.
Death and destruction in the streets of Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Caption from LIFE. "A young Hungarian, one of a crowd of 400 which came to the U.S. legation to demand U.N. help for their cause, grimly grits out the words of his country's stirring song, 'Magyars rise, your country calls you.' The police cleared the square with rifle butts and the sound of singing died." Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Burying the dead, Hungary, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Burying the dead, Hungary, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
A reaction to carnage in the streets of Budapest, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. A reaction to carnage in the streets of Budapest, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Graves of Hungarian freedom fighters lie in the same cemetery with the Russian dead but are covered with offerings of flowers and wreaths.
Caption from LIFE. "Graves of Hungarian freedom fighters lie in the same cemetery with the Russian dead but are covered with offerings of flowers and wreaths."Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Budapest, Hungary, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Budapest, Hungary, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Budapest, Hungary, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Budapest, Hungary, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Budapest, Hungary, 1956.
Not published in LIFE. Budapest, Hungary, 1956.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Caption from LIFE. "Carrying flags of old Hungary and singing a patriotic song, Budapest women march in honor of men who died fighting communists."Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.LIFE Magazine
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.LIFE Magazine
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.LIFE Magazine
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.LIFE Magazine
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.
LIFE magazine, Nov. 12, 1956.LIFE Magazine

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com