Students, faculty and members of the community gathered together
last Thursday to hear a leading scholar defend his unconventional
approach to analyzing the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Charles Gati, a professor of European studies at Johns Hopkins
University, came to UCLA to discuss the ideas presented in his
latest book called “Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington,
Budapest, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt.”
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a popular revolt against
the Communist government of Hungary which was controlled by the
Soviet Union. Thousands of revolutionaries armed themselves in a
struggle for democratic reform but were quickly overwhelmed by the
Soviet military which controlled Hungary at that time.
At the event, Gati argued strongly against the traditional
belief that military intervention by the Soviet Union was
inevitable.
Gati cited the incompetence of Hungarian revolutionary leaders
and the apathy of the United States government as main reasons for
the revolution’s failure.
“It was very critical of both the American government and
of the Hungarian government,” Beth Greene, a graduate student
in history, said of Gati’s lecture.
The lecture was part of a series of events planned by the Center
for European and Eurasian Studies to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
UCLA history Professor Ivan Berend, who also spoke at the event,
praised Gati’s book as “extraordinary, outstanding …
the best book of 1956 I know of.”
“Failed Illusions” topped the best-seller list in
Hungary for weeks.
Gati suggested his book’s immense popularity has to do
with his controversial methods. In the book, Gati asks
“questions that have never been asked before” and has
reached “a conclusion so contrary to” those of other
scholars, he said.
Some students familiar with Gati’s new book agreed that
Gati’s work departed from previous historians’ analysis
of the revolution.
“The work goes against all the writings of previous
scholars on the Hungarian Revolution,” Greene said.
Gati said it was the duty of the leaders of the revolution to
temper the expectations of the revolutionaries.
“They should have (understood that) something is better
than nothing, a good guideline for any country’s foreign
policy. It was not understood by mature (government officials) and
Americans who should have known better,” he said.
Gati also condemned the Eisenhower administration’s policy
of containment and rollback of Soviet power as hypocrisy, as the
United States took no action during the Hungarian Revolution.
In the operative files of the CIA, Gati found that only one CIA
agent was present in Hungary in 1956 and that the U.S. had no plans
to assist Hungary.
“It’s like a comedy routine here. … The CIA was
prepared not at all,” Gati said.
Gati claimed that shifts in Soviet foreign policy before the
Hungarian revolution meant the Soviet Union was more open to
demands for reform and may have tolerated the revolution had the
revolutionary leaders, particularly Imre Nagy, prime minister of
Hungary in 1955, been more reasonable and perceptive.
“There was no wisdom there on the part of the Hungarians,
no rational thinking,” Gati said.
Instead of making unrealistic demands, Nagy should have guided
the revolutionaries to a more gradual, evolutionary process for
reform, according to Gati.
“If the revolution had more modest goals it could have
succeeded,” Gati said.
Gati said he was “critical of the U.S., even more
so” than of the Hungarian leaders. Gati said the Eisenhower
administration was not interested in gradual change, and the
mentality of the White House in 1956 was to leave the country to
the Soviets unless it could become “a free, independent
country.”
While Berend praised Gati’s new approach, he also stressed
the improbability of any self-limitation on the part of the
Hungarian revolutionaries.
“The questions (Gati poses) are probably not realistic of
course. … In real terms, revolution is never self-limited,”
Berend said.
Berend called the possibility of avoiding Soviet invasion in
1956 “slight.”
Although improbable, Berend stressed that the questions Gati
poses provided the historian with “an excellent analytical
tool in this case.”