WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 Welcome back to another deep dive. Today, we 00:00:03.419 --> 00:00:06.719 are starting somewhere. Well, somewhere incredibly 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:10.900 grim. I want you to picture a cemetery in Budapest. 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:13.980 Right. It's called the New Public Cemetery, and 00:00:13.980 --> 00:00:15.960 we're in a very specific part of it, Section 00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:21.300 301. And the date is June 1989. Exactly. And 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:23.559 there's this massive crowd. I mean, something 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:27.420 like 200 ,000 people. Just a sea of humanity. 00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:29.179 It was one of those moments where the air just 00:00:29.179 --> 00:00:31.539 feels heavy. You know, the entire country is 00:00:31.539 --> 00:00:34.280 holding its breath. And Section 301, well, it 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:35.960 wasn't a place of honor back then. Not at all. 00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:38.060 It was dumping ground. It was the overgrown, 00:00:38.119 --> 00:00:40.500 forgotten corner where the regime buried the 00:00:40.500 --> 00:00:42.439 people they wanted everyone to forget. And they 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:44.869 were all there to dig someone up. Imre Nagy. 00:00:44.950 --> 00:00:47.109 But when I was reading through the source material 00:00:47.109 --> 00:00:49.829 you sent over, the details of how they found 00:00:49.829 --> 00:00:53.649 him, it just it stopped me cold. I mean, we talk 00:00:53.649 --> 00:00:56.109 about political enemies being silenced, but this 00:00:56.109 --> 00:00:58.670 was this was something else. It's the kind of 00:00:58.670 --> 00:01:01.450 detail that sounds like fiction, but it's documented 00:01:01.450 --> 00:01:04.730 fact. When they finally exhumed the body, they 00:01:04.730 --> 00:01:07.670 found him buried face down. Face down. Face down. 00:01:07.890 --> 00:01:11.079 And. It gets worse. How does it get worse than 00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:13.159 that? His hands and feet were bound with barbed 00:01:13.159 --> 00:01:16.099 wire. Barbed wire in the grave. In the grave. 00:01:16.299 --> 00:01:19.180 Yeah. I just, I don't understand that. Yeah. 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:22.219 Why? What is the point of that? He's dead. He's 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:24.900 been executed. Why? Why the wire? Why bury him 00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:26.900 face down? And that's the question that really 00:01:26.900 --> 00:01:28.379 sets the stage for everything we're going to 00:01:28.379 --> 00:01:31.760 talk about today. Burying someone face down isn't, 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:34.040 you know, standard procedure. Obviously not. 00:01:34.140 --> 00:01:36.219 It's actually an old superstition in that part 00:01:36.219 --> 00:01:38.879 of the world. A superstition? Yeah. You bury 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:41.379 a man face down so his spirit can't find its 00:01:41.379 --> 00:01:43.700 way back to haunt the living. It's an act of 00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:47.439 pure fear. No. And the barbed wire, that was 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:50.120 hatred. That was a message. It said, even in 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:52.659 death, you are our prisoner. You are a criminal. 00:01:52.819 --> 00:01:55.859 You don't deserve rest. That is genuinely terrifying. 00:01:56.040 --> 00:01:58.060 It implies that the people who killed him were, 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:00.599 what, still scared of him? 30 years later? They 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:03.640 were. And rightly so. Because this man, Imri 00:02:03.640 --> 00:02:06.230 Nagy. He was the ghost that haunted the Hungarian 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:09.449 communist regime for three decades. But here's 00:02:09.449 --> 00:02:11.129 the part I'm having trouble wrapping my head 00:02:11.129 --> 00:02:15.210 around. The paradox of it all. Imre Nagy wasn't 00:02:15.210 --> 00:02:17.830 some capitalist crusader from the West. He wasn't 00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:21.050 a spy for the CIA. He was a communist, a lifelong 00:02:21.050 --> 00:02:24.650 card carrying comrades. Let's build the future 00:02:24.650 --> 00:02:27.030 kind of communist. That's the central tension. 00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:29.879 He wasn't an outsider. Yeah. He was one of them. 00:02:29.900 --> 00:02:32.039 He was a man who spent years in Moscow. Right. 00:02:32.159 --> 00:02:35.039 He even worked for the Soviet secret police at 00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:38.599 one point. He was a true believer. And yet he 00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:42.060 ends up being the face of the 1956 revolution 00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:44.780 against the Soviet Union. He becomes the ultimate 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:47.680 martyr for Hungarian independence. It's just 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.060 a massive pivot. How do you go from being an 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:52.479 NKVD informer, which we definitely need to get 00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:55.199 into that because that is a bombshell, to being 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:57.240 the guy they're burying face down in the dirt 00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:59.439 for defying them? To understand that, we can't 00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:01.460 just look at the statue of the hero. We have 00:03:01.460 --> 00:03:03.620 to look at the messiness of the man. We have 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:06.360 to look at the compromises, the fear, and the 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:09.520 slow, reluctant radicalization. So our mission 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:11.979 today is to figure out who this guy actually 00:03:11.979 --> 00:03:14.960 was. Was he a hero, a traitor, or, you know, 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:16.919 something much more complicated? I think he was 00:03:16.919 --> 00:03:19.419 both at different times. And that's what makes 00:03:19.419 --> 00:03:21.360 him so fascinating. Okay, let's go back, way 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:23.719 back, before the revolution, before the barbed 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:27.039 wire. Let's go to 1896. He's born in Kapusvar. 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:29.639 This is still the Austro -Hungarian Empire. What 00:03:29.639 --> 00:03:32.240 kind of world is he born into? He's born into, 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:35.439 well, the bottom rung of the ladder. His father 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:37.840 was a carriage driver for the local county office. 00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:41.819 His mother was a maid. So working class. Deeply. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.080 These are people who had left the peasantry to 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:47.219 move to the town. But they were barely, and I 00:03:47.219 --> 00:03:50.699 mean barely, scraping by. So not part of the 00:03:50.699 --> 00:03:53.780 intellectual elite. Oh, far from it. Nagy didn't 00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:56.780 grow up discussing philosophy in salons. He grew 00:03:56.780 --> 00:03:59.199 up seeing his parents work themselves to the 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:02.080 bone. And that peasant identity, that connection 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:05.060 to the soil, to the little man, that never really 00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:07.000 left him. You can almost see it in the pictures 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.539 of him. You can. Even when he was prime minister, 00:04:09.740 --> 00:04:12.000 he wore these slightly ill -fitting suits. He 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.419 had that big walrus mustache. He looked like 00:04:14.419 --> 00:04:17.180 a genial grandfather from the village, not a 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:19.360 dictator. And I saw a note that he wasn't exactly 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:22.620 a star student either. No, not initially. He 00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:24.699 actually dropped out of the gymnasium, which 00:04:24.699 --> 00:04:26.300 is, you know, like the academic high school. 00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:28.920 Right. Because he wasn't performing well and 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:30.740 the family just didn't have the money. He became 00:04:30.740 --> 00:04:33.560 a locksmith's apprentice. A locksmith. That's 00:04:33.560 --> 00:04:37.379 a very practical blue -collar start for a future... 00:04:38.009 --> 00:04:40.430 revolutionary leader. It crowns him, doesn't 00:04:40.430 --> 00:04:42.250 it? Yeah. He did eventually go back to school, 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:43.930 a commercial trade school, and he did better. 00:04:44.170 --> 00:04:46.769 But just as he's starting to figure out his life, 00:04:46.910 --> 00:04:51.850 history intervenes. 1914, World War I. The machine 00:04:51.850 --> 00:04:54.290 that just chewed up an entire generation. Exactly. 00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:57.569 Nagy is drafted into the Austro -Hungarian army 00:04:57.569 --> 00:05:00.949 in 1915. He's sent to the Italian front first. 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:03.639 And we have to imagine what that was like. The 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:06.000 Isonzo battles were horrific. Just brutal, yeah. 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:07.899 Trench warfare in the mountains. He gets wounded 00:05:07.899 --> 00:05:10.939 there. But he recovers. And then, talk about 00:05:10.939 --> 00:05:14.360 bad luck, he gets sent to the Eastern Front to 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:16.240 fight the Russians. And this is where the story 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:18.339 really takes a turn. Because he doesn't just 00:05:18.339 --> 00:05:21.740 fight, he gets captured. Right. It's 1916. The 00:05:21.740 --> 00:05:25.000 Brusilov Offensive. This was a massive Russian 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:28.300 attack that just shattered the Austro -Hungarian 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:32.000 lines. Nagy is wounded again. shrapnel in the 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.220 leg, I believe, and he's taken prisoner by the 00:05:34.220 --> 00:05:36.579 Imperial Russian Army. Okay, so picture this. 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:40.100 You're a Hungarian boy, a locksmith, you're wounded, 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:42.939 and now you're being hauled off to Russia. And 00:05:42.939 --> 00:05:45.660 not just anywhere in Russia. They send him to 00:05:45.660 --> 00:05:49.319 Siberia. Camp Berezovka, near Lake Baikal. Deep, 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:52.019 deep Siberia. And you have to understand the 00:05:52.019 --> 00:05:54.540 atmosphere of these POW camps. It wasn't just 00:05:54.540 --> 00:05:56.860 sitting around playing cards. These camps were 00:05:56.860 --> 00:06:00.009 huge. overcrowded, and they were boiling with 00:06:00.009 --> 00:06:02.029 political agitation. Because this is right around 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:03.589 the time the Russian Revolution is kicking off, 00:06:03.649 --> 00:06:05.970 right? 1917. Exactly. The world is collapsing 00:06:05.970 --> 00:06:08.629 outside the fences. The czar is overthrown. The 00:06:08.629 --> 00:06:11.089 Bolsheviks are rising. And inside the camps, 00:06:11.189 --> 00:06:13.529 you have these red agitators coming in, talking 00:06:13.529 --> 00:06:15.230 to the prisoners. And what are they telling them? 00:06:15.370 --> 00:06:17.050 They're saying, why are you fighting for the 00:06:17.050 --> 00:06:18.589 emperor? Why are you fighting for the rich men 00:06:18.589 --> 00:06:20.449 who sent you here to die? They don't care about 00:06:20.449 --> 00:06:23.459 you. Join us. Join the revolution. And for a 00:06:23.459 --> 00:06:26.000 poor kid from Kaposvar, that must have sounded 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.180 pretty good. It did. He listens. He's young. 00:06:29.319 --> 00:06:31.540 He's from a poor background. And the Marxist 00:06:31.540 --> 00:06:34.220 message makes perfect sense to him. It explains 00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:36.740 why he's hungry. It explains why his father was 00:06:36.740 --> 00:06:39.319 poor. It gives him a framework for the whole 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:43.139 world. So he makes a choice. He does. By 1918, 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:46.360 the Russian Civil War is raging, and Nagy chooses 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:49.560 a side. He joins the Red Army. He joins the guys 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.019 who captured him. He joins the ideological movement. 00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:54.720 He fights in the Russian Civil War for the Bolsheviks. 00:06:54.860 --> 00:06:57.319 He officially joins the Communist Party in 1920. 00:06:57.740 --> 00:07:00.639 He is by this point fully radicalized. Now hold 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:02.680 on, because this is where we hit the first major 00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:05.879 controversy. The dark rumor. I saw this in the 00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:08.379 notes and I genuinely did a double take. There 00:07:08.379 --> 00:07:10.939 is a file or an allegation called the Urovsky 00:07:10.939 --> 00:07:14.980 document. Ah, yes. The Romanov execution. Tell 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:17.250 me if I'm reading this right. There is a theory, 00:07:17.329 --> 00:07:19.410 a serious theory at one point, that Imran Nagy 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:21.629 was one of the guards, or maybe even one of the 00:07:21.629 --> 00:07:24.110 executioners, who killed the Tsar and his family 00:07:24.110 --> 00:07:26.810 in that basement in Ekaterinburg. That is the 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:29.029 allegation. It's one of those historical phantom 00:07:29.029 --> 00:07:31.589 stories that just won't die. Because if that's 00:07:31.589 --> 00:07:35.170 true, I mean, that changes everything. The man 00:07:35.170 --> 00:07:37.370 who becomes a hero of liberty was the guy who 00:07:37.370 --> 00:07:39.810 shot the Romanov daughters. Okay, so let's break 00:07:39.810 --> 00:07:42.750 it down. The rumor comes from lists of names 00:07:42.750 --> 00:07:45.410 found later on, and there was a name Imran Nagy. 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:48.079 on a list of people in the squad. Right. And 00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:50.639 for a long time, anti -communist historians and 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.220 even some Soviet propagandists later on used 00:07:53.220 --> 00:07:56.279 this to paint him as a ruthless butcher from 00:07:56.279 --> 00:07:58.779 the very beginning. But is it him? Imre Nagy 00:07:58.779 --> 00:08:01.180 sounds like it could be a pretty common name 00:08:01.180 --> 00:08:04.060 like John Smith in Hungary. That's exactly the 00:08:04.060 --> 00:08:07.699 problem. Nagy just means big or great. It's incredibly 00:08:07.699 --> 00:08:10.870 common. And Imre is a standard first name. So 00:08:10.870 --> 00:08:14.110 what do serious historians think now? Serious 00:08:14.110 --> 00:08:16.230 historians, people like Ivan Plotnikov, who have 00:08:16.230 --> 00:08:19.009 combed through the actual archives of the Romanov 00:08:19.009 --> 00:08:21.910 execution, have largely debunked this. The actual 00:08:21.910 --> 00:08:25.350 execution squad was mostly ethnic Russians, Yurovsky, 00:08:25.569 --> 00:08:28.629 Nikolin, Medvedev. There were some Latvians involved, 00:08:28.810 --> 00:08:31.730 but the idea that our Imre Nagy was there is 00:08:31.730 --> 00:08:34.169 almost certainly false. So it's a case of mistaken 00:08:34.169 --> 00:08:37.559 identity that got weaponized. Most likely. There 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:39.700 were plenty of Hungarian POWs who joined the 00:08:39.700 --> 00:08:42.399 Bolsheviks. But the chances of him being in that 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:45.139 specific basement at that specific time are slim 00:08:45.139 --> 00:08:47.379 to none. Still, the fact that the rumor even 00:08:47.379 --> 00:08:50.539 exists tells you something. It does. It tells 00:08:50.539 --> 00:08:52.559 you that he was in the mix. He wasn't on the 00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:54.919 sidelines. He was a soldier for the Bolshevik 00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:57.460 cause. No question about it. Okay, so he probably 00:08:57.460 --> 00:09:00.559 didn't kill the Tsar. But he's a trained revolutionary 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:03.980 now. The Civil War ends. It's 1921. And he goes 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:06.870 back to Hungary. He returns home. But Hungary 00:09:06.870 --> 00:09:09.169 has changed, too. There was a brief communist 00:09:09.169 --> 00:09:12.129 revolution in Hungary in 1919 under a guy named 00:09:12.129 --> 00:09:14.809 Bela Kun. But it failed miserably. It was crushed. 00:09:15.090 --> 00:09:18.429 So now there's a right -wing authoritarian government 00:09:18.429 --> 00:09:21.909 in power. And communism is illegal. So Nagy is 00:09:21.909 --> 00:09:24.370 basically an undercover agent. In theory, yes. 00:09:24.490 --> 00:09:26.570 He's supposed to be building these secret underground 00:09:26.570 --> 00:09:28.990 networks for the party. But here's the funny 00:09:28.990 --> 00:09:30.789 thing about Emre Nagy, and this is a recurring 00:09:30.789 --> 00:09:34.330 theme. He was terrible at being a spy. The locksmith 00:09:34.330 --> 00:09:36.639 couldn't pick the lock. He just didn't have the 00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:38.240 temperament for it, for all the cloak and dagger 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:40.759 stuff. He was an open guy. He liked to talk to 00:09:40.759 --> 00:09:42.779 people. He got a job at an insurance company, 00:09:42.879 --> 00:09:45.620 the first Hungarian general insurance, and tried 00:09:45.620 --> 00:09:48.539 to organize trade unions. But he was clumsy about 00:09:48.539 --> 00:09:50.960 it. He kept getting arrested. He just struggled 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:53.500 with the whole clandestine lifestyle. And I read 00:09:53.500 --> 00:09:56.059 somewhere that he actually got in trouble with 00:09:56.059 --> 00:10:00.720 the party for being too legal. Yes. This is crucial 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.100 to understanding it. He was expelled from the 00:10:03.100 --> 00:10:07.340 party briefly for... Right deviancy. Right deviancy. 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:09.159 That sounds like a completely made up condition. 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:11.299 What does that even mean? Well, in the rigid 00:10:11.299 --> 00:10:14.919 world of 1920s communism, left usually meant 00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:18.259 radical, violent, revolutionary. Right. Meant 00:10:18.259 --> 00:10:21.039 moderate, reformist, willing to compromise. Okay. 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:23.820 Nagy argued that instead of doing all this illegal 00:10:23.820 --> 00:10:25.639 underground stuff that just got everyone arrested, 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:27.940 they should try to work legally. Maybe run for 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:30.580 parliament. Push for land reform through the 00:10:30.580 --> 00:10:33.059 existing system. And the hardliners hated that. 00:10:33.519 --> 00:10:35.879 They despised it. They thought it was soft. They 00:10:35.879 --> 00:10:37.559 thought it was bourgeois. So they kicked him 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:40.200 out. He eventually got back in. But this tag 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:43.799 of being a rightist, a moderate, it stuck to 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:46.340 him for his entire life. So he's struggling in 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:49.419 Hungary. The police are watching him. He's failing 00:10:49.419 --> 00:10:51.960 at the underground stuff. So in 1929, he decides 00:10:51.960 --> 00:10:54.080 to get out. He goes back to the mothership. He 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:57.080 goes to Moscow. And this begins really the most 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.279 difficult, the most dangerous, and I think the 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:02.580 most morally complex period of his life, the 00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:07.059 Moscow years, 1930 to 1944. The era of Stalin. 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:10.100 The Great Terror. It's hard to overstate how 00:11:10.100 --> 00:11:12.179 dangerous Moscow was for a foreign communist 00:11:12.179 --> 00:11:15.139 in the 1930s. It was a death trap. Stalin was 00:11:15.139 --> 00:11:17.340 paranoid. He was purging everyone. The Hungarian 00:11:17.340 --> 00:11:20.419 Communist Party in exile was absolutely decimated. 00:11:20.580 --> 00:11:23.600 Really? Oh, yeah. Bela Kun, the leader. Executed. 00:11:23.659 --> 00:11:26.299 Most of leadership. Shot or sent to the gulag. 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:28.220 It was a meat grinder. If you looked at someone 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:30.080 the wrong way, you disappeared. If you didn't 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:31.779 clap loud enough at a speech, you disappeared. 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:35.580 But Nagy didn't disappear. He survived. And not 00:11:35.580 --> 00:11:37.500 only did he survive, he worked at a prestigious 00:11:37.500 --> 00:11:39.860 institute, the International Agrarian Institute. 00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:42.799 How did he pull that off? And this is the part 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:44.539 that really hurts the hero narrative. This is 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:46.980 where we have to talk about Agent Volodia. Agent 00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:48.980 Volodia. That was his codename. That was his 00:11:48.980 --> 00:11:52.590 codename. In the late 1980s, after the archives 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:54.789 opened up a bit, documents came out that confirmed 00:11:54.789 --> 00:11:59.029 what many had suspected. From 1933 to 1941, Imre 00:11:59.029 --> 00:12:02.090 Nagy was an informer for the NKVD. The Soviet 00:12:02.090 --> 00:12:04.450 secret police. Stalin's secret police. I want 00:12:04.450 --> 00:12:06.590 to pause here because this is heavy. We're talking 00:12:06.590 --> 00:12:08.289 about the man who is supposed to be the symbol 00:12:08.289 --> 00:12:11.409 of freedom. And he was snitching on his friends 00:12:11.409 --> 00:12:13.950 to Stalin's executioners. That is the reality. 00:12:14.129 --> 00:12:16.070 The files are there. He supplied information. 00:12:16.490 --> 00:12:19.450 He wrote reports on his fellow Hungarian exiles. 00:12:19.490 --> 00:12:22.250 Do we know? Do we know if anyone died because 00:12:22.250 --> 00:12:26.269 of what he wrote? It's murky. The files list 00:12:26.269 --> 00:12:28.549 names of people he reported on. And yes, some 00:12:28.549 --> 00:12:30.889 of those people were arrested and executed, whether 00:12:30.889 --> 00:12:33.190 his report was the smoking gun or just one piece 00:12:33.190 --> 00:12:37.539 of a much larger puzzle. But he cooperated. There 00:12:37.539 --> 00:12:40.460 is no doubt that he cooperated. Yeah. The NKVD 00:12:40.460 --> 00:12:42.679 files praise him. They called him a qualified 00:12:42.679 --> 00:12:45.840 agent with great initiative. They liked him because 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:48.860 he was that genial, sociable guy. People trusted 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:51.139 him. He would have a drink with you, listen to 00:12:51.139 --> 00:12:53.019 your complaints about the party, and then he 00:12:53.019 --> 00:12:55.600 would report it. God, that's chilling. It's almost 00:12:55.600 --> 00:12:57.279 worse than being a thug. It's the betrayal of 00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:00.740 intimacy. It is. But, and I'm not excusing it, 00:13:00.759 --> 00:13:02.639 just trying to contextualize it, you have to 00:13:02.639 --> 00:13:06.110 ask yourself. What was the alternative? In Solon's 00:13:06.110 --> 00:13:08.970 Moscow, you had two choices. You cooperate or 00:13:08.970 --> 00:13:11.809 you die. There was no third option. Nagy was 00:13:11.809 --> 00:13:14.409 a survivor. He had a wife, a daughter. He chose 00:13:14.409 --> 00:13:16.730 survival. It's the classic totalitarian trap. 00:13:16.929 --> 00:13:18.929 Everyone becomes complicit because everyone is 00:13:18.929 --> 00:13:21.909 terrified. So this stain, this secret, he carries 00:13:21.909 --> 00:13:24.129 it with him. I think it ate away at him. Some 00:13:24.129 --> 00:13:27.029 historians argue that his heroism in 1956 was, 00:13:27.169 --> 00:13:29.450 in a way, an attempt to wash away the sins of 00:13:29.450 --> 00:13:31.850 Moscow years. A redemption arc. Maybe. But the 00:13:31.850 --> 00:13:33.389 Soviets didn't see it that way at the time. To 00:13:33.389 --> 00:13:36.049 them, he was a loyal asset. That's why when World 00:13:36.049 --> 00:13:38.429 War II ends and the Red Army liberates Hungary, 00:13:38.669 --> 00:13:40.950 they bring Nagy back with them. Because they 00:13:40.950 --> 00:13:43.250 trust him. They think, here's a guy we can trust. 00:13:43.490 --> 00:13:47.470 He's Volodya. He's our man. So 1945 comes around. 00:13:47.649 --> 00:13:50.549 The Nazis are defeated. The Soviets are in control 00:13:50.549 --> 00:13:53.370 of Eastern Europe. Nagy comes back to Hungary, 00:13:53.549 --> 00:13:56.279 and he gets a big job. Minister of Agriculture. 00:13:56.580 --> 00:13:58.580 And this is where the good Nagy really starts 00:13:58.580 --> 00:14:01.799 to emerge. Hungary at the time was a country 00:14:01.799 --> 00:14:05.039 of massive inequality. You had these huge estates 00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:08.139 owned by aristocrats and then millions of peasants 00:14:08.139 --> 00:14:10.860 with basically nothing. Right. Nagy oversees 00:14:10.860 --> 00:14:13.000 the land reform. He breaks up the biggest states 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.200 and gives land to the peasants. Which must have 00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:17.700 made him incredibly popular. He was a hero to 00:14:17.700 --> 00:14:20.919 the countryside. For millions of people, Nagy 00:14:20.919 --> 00:14:23.519 Imre... became a household name, not because 00:14:23.519 --> 00:14:26.539 of some complex ideology, but because he gave 00:14:26.539 --> 00:14:29.159 us our farm. It was tangible. But he also had 00:14:29.159 --> 00:14:31.620 a stint as minister of the interior. That's the 00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:34.860 police. That's the hard power. Yes. And we can't 00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:37.179 ignore that part. He wasn't innocent there either. 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:40.279 He oversaw the expulsion of ethnic Germans from 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:42.379 Hungary after the war. How many people are we 00:14:42.379 --> 00:14:44.480 talking about? Hundreds of thousands of people 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:47.620 kicked out of their homes, forced to leave just 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:49.679 because of their ethnicity. So again, we see 00:14:49.679 --> 00:14:52.159 the duality. He's giving land to one group with 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:54.419 one hand and kicking another group out with the 00:14:54.419 --> 00:14:56.460 other. He's a functionary of the state. But he's 00:14:56.460 --> 00:14:58.919 still not the top dog yet. There's someone above 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:02.340 him, the villain of our story, really. Machias 00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:05.519 Rokosi. Oh, Rokosi. If you were casting a movie, 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:09.220 Rokosi is the cartoon villain. Short, bald, thick 00:15:09.220 --> 00:15:12.639 neck, and absolutely ruthless. He actually bragged 00:15:12.639 --> 00:15:15.039 about being Stalin's best disciple. I've heard 00:15:15.039 --> 00:15:17.460 the term salami tactics associated with him. 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:19.480 What was that? That was his phrase. He described 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:21.379 how he destroyed all the non -communist parties 00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:24.399 slice by slice, like you'd cut up a salami. First, 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:26.220 you accuse them of being fascist. Then you arrest 00:15:26.220 --> 00:15:28.519 their leaders. Then you ban their meetings slice 00:15:28.519 --> 00:15:31.340 by slice until there's nothing left but the Communist 00:15:31.340 --> 00:15:34.100 Party. And under Rakosi, Hungary was a nightmare. 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:37.639 A total police state. The AVH, the secret police, 00:15:37.700 --> 00:15:39.720 was everywhere. People were disappearing in the 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:41.360 middle of the night. There were show trials. 00:15:41.620 --> 00:15:44.610 It was basically the Moscow Terror. Imported 00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:47.950 directly to Budapest. But then 1953 happens. 00:15:48.350 --> 00:15:52.610 Stalin dies. And the earth moves. Stalin's death 00:15:52.610 --> 00:15:55.129 changed everything. The new leadership in Moscow, 00:15:55.289 --> 00:15:57.789 Khrushchev, Malenkov, they looked at Rokosi and 00:15:57.789 --> 00:15:59.549 they thought, this guy is too intense. He's going 00:15:59.549 --> 00:16:01.929 to cause an explosion. They wanted to de -escalate. 00:16:01.950 --> 00:16:04.090 They wanted a softer communism. So they call 00:16:04.090 --> 00:16:06.690 the Hungarian leadership to Moscow. And they 00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:08.769 basically tell Rokosi, you're done being prime 00:16:08.769 --> 00:16:11.539 minister. We need someone nicer. And who is the 00:16:11.539 --> 00:16:14.620 nice face of Hungarian communism? Imre Nagy, 00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:18.799 the land reform guy, the peasant grandpa, the 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:21.659 moderate. So Nagy becomes prime minister in 1953, 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:24.580 and he introduces what he calls the new course. 00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:26.860 What was that? It was like opening a window in 00:16:26.860 --> 00:16:29.320 a stuffy, smoke -filled room. The new course 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:31.320 was all about shifting focus away from heavy 00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:34.220 industry, building tanks and steel mills, and 00:16:34.220 --> 00:16:36.039 towards consumer goods. Things people actually 00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:39.480 need. Food, clothes, housing. He stopped the 00:16:39.480 --> 00:16:41.929 terror. He closed the internment camps. He released 00:16:41.929 --> 00:16:44.970 political prisoners. He made life, well, livable. 00:16:45.070 --> 00:16:47.870 He gave people hope. He did. For the first time 00:16:47.870 --> 00:16:49.990 in years, people weren't terrified of a knock 00:16:49.990 --> 00:16:53.309 on the door at 3 a .m. And for that, the people 00:16:53.309 --> 00:16:56.970 loved him. But the party apparatus, the hardliners, 00:16:57.070 --> 00:17:00.529 they hated him for it. And Rikosi was still lurking, 00:17:00.610 --> 00:17:02.990 right? He wasn't gone. No, this was the problem. 00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:05.509 Rikosi was forced to give up the prime ministership, 00:17:05.509 --> 00:17:07.410 but he was still the head of the party. So it 00:17:07.410 --> 00:17:09.869 was this constant power struggle. Good cop versus 00:17:09.869 --> 00:17:13.210 bad cop. And Nagy, being the rightist, the moderate, 00:17:13.410 --> 00:17:15.930 he just didn't have the killer instinct that 00:17:15.930 --> 00:17:18.609 Rokosi had. So what happened? How did Rokosi 00:17:18.609 --> 00:17:22.230 win? The winds shifted in Moscow again. The hardliners 00:17:22.230 --> 00:17:24.730 got a bit more influence back. Rokosi seized 00:17:24.730 --> 00:17:27.349 the moment. He went to Moscow, whispered in their 00:17:27.349 --> 00:17:29.950 ears that Nagy was incompetent, that he was destroying 00:17:29.950 --> 00:17:31.730 the socialist economy, that he was weak. And 00:17:31.730 --> 00:17:34.309 the Soviets bought it. They did. In April 1955, 00:17:34.730 --> 00:17:37.250 Nagy is fired, sacked. And not just fired, but 00:17:37.250 --> 00:17:39.130 stripped of all his positions. He's kicked out 00:17:39.130 --> 00:17:41.269 of the party. He's a nobody again, a non -person. 00:17:41.369 --> 00:17:43.009 That must have been devastating for him personally. 00:17:43.490 --> 00:17:46.470 Personally, yes. He had a heart attack. He became 00:17:46.470 --> 00:17:50.390 very depressed. But politically, it was the best 00:17:50.390 --> 00:17:51.910 thing that could have happened to his legacy. 00:17:52.130 --> 00:17:54.789 How so? Because it made him a martyr while he 00:17:54.789 --> 00:17:57.309 was still alive. If he had stayed in power, he 00:17:57.309 --> 00:17:58.910 would have had to make compromises. He would 00:17:58.910 --> 00:18:01.230 have eventually disappointed people. But by being 00:18:01.230 --> 00:18:04.210 kicked out by the hated Rakosi, he remained pure 00:18:04.210 --> 00:18:06.670 in their minds. He became the symbol of everything 00:18:06.670 --> 00:18:09.130 that could have been. The great hope. The great 00:18:09.130 --> 00:18:11.990 hope. The intellectuals, the writers, the students, 00:18:12.089 --> 00:18:15.250 they all rallied around the idea of Imre Nagy. 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:19.009 Which brings us to 1956. The pressure cooker 00:18:19.009 --> 00:18:21.809 is just about to blow. Yeah. Khrushchev gives 00:18:21.809 --> 00:18:25.569 his secret speech condemning Stalin. In Poland, 00:18:25.670 --> 00:18:28.089 there are riots. And in Hungary, people are starting 00:18:28.089 --> 00:18:30.970 to talk loudly. And this is where the Petufi 00:18:30.970 --> 00:18:33.349 Circle comes in. Yes, named after Sandor Petufi, 00:18:33.369 --> 00:18:36.690 the great poet of the 1848 revolution. It started 00:18:36.690 --> 00:18:39.289 as a debating club for young communists, but 00:18:39.289 --> 00:18:41.569 it just turned into an explosion of dissent. 00:18:41.630 --> 00:18:43.789 What were they debating? Everything. They were 00:18:43.789 --> 00:18:46.230 openly criticizing the regime. Thousands of people 00:18:46.230 --> 00:18:48.170 would show up to these debates. Nagy didn't go. 00:18:48.250 --> 00:18:50.109 He was always very cautious. But his name was 00:18:50.109 --> 00:18:52.630 on everyone's lips. We want Nagy back. We want 00:18:52.630 --> 00:18:54.650 the new course. And that leads us to October 00:18:54.650 --> 00:18:58.470 23rd, 1956. The day it all begins. It starts 00:18:58.470 --> 00:19:01.750 as a student protest. A solidarity march for 00:19:01.750 --> 00:19:05.470 the Poles. They have a list of 16 demands. Free 00:19:05.470 --> 00:19:08.970 press. Free elections. Soviet troops out. And 00:19:08.970 --> 00:19:11.910 number one on the list. Bring back Imre Nagy. 00:19:11.990 --> 00:19:14.630 The crowd grows. Workers join in. It becomes 00:19:14.630 --> 00:19:17.150 massive. We're talking 200 ,000 people. They 00:19:17.150 --> 00:19:19.529 march to the parliament. They are chanting for 00:19:19.529 --> 00:19:23.089 Nagy. Nagy Imre! Nagy Imre! Now you'd think Nagy 00:19:23.089 --> 00:19:25.089 would be thrilled. This is his moment. The people 00:19:25.089 --> 00:19:27.170 are calling for him. But he wasn't. He was terrified. 00:19:27.549 --> 00:19:29.769 Why? You have to remember, he's an old Bolshevik. 00:19:29.890 --> 00:19:32.849 He believes in party discipline. He sees a disorderly 00:19:32.849 --> 00:19:35.809 mob in the street. And he thinks, anarchy. He 00:19:35.809 --> 00:19:37.549 thinks counter -revolution. Right. He didn't 00:19:37.549 --> 00:19:39.390 want to lead a rebellion against the party. He 00:19:39.390 --> 00:19:41.809 wanted to reform the party from within. So the 00:19:41.809 --> 00:19:44.009 students basically have to drag him to the parliament 00:19:44.009 --> 00:19:47.150 balcony. It's dark. The square is packed. He 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:50.170 steps out to speak, and he makes a huge, huge 00:19:50.170 --> 00:19:52.369 mistake. He leans into the microphone, and his 00:19:52.369 --> 00:19:55.690 first word is, comrades. Oh, no. You can just 00:19:55.690 --> 00:19:58.190 feel the air go out of the crowd. Exactly. The 00:19:58.190 --> 00:20:01.440 crowd erupted. They whistled. They booed. They 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:05.000 shouted back, we are not comrades. We are Hungarians. 00:20:05.079 --> 00:20:07.559 That is such a telling moment. He was still speaking 00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:09.680 the old language and they had moved on. He was 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:12.420 completely out of touch with the mood on the 00:20:12.420 --> 00:20:15.700 street. He gave this boring wooden speech telling 00:20:15.700 --> 00:20:18.200 everyone to go home and wait for the central 00:20:18.200 --> 00:20:20.759 committee to make a wise decision. The crowd 00:20:20.759 --> 00:20:23.460 was just deflated. They wanted a firebrand. They 00:20:23.460 --> 00:20:25.519 got a bureaucrat. But the crowd didn't go home. 00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:28.279 They went to the radio building. The secret police 00:20:28.279 --> 00:20:31.220 opened fire and suddenly. It's not a protest 00:20:31.220 --> 00:20:34.400 anymore. It's a revolution. It's a war. The Soviets 00:20:34.400 --> 00:20:37.460 panic. They send in the tanks that night. And 00:20:37.460 --> 00:20:39.859 in a desperate attempt to calm things down, the 00:20:39.859 --> 00:20:42.640 party reinstates Nagy as prime minister the next 00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:45.039 morning, October 24th. So he's back in charge. 00:20:45.180 --> 00:20:47.960 But is he really? Not at all. He's a prisoner 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:50.380 in the party headquarters. He's surrounded by 00:20:50.380 --> 00:20:52.420 hardliners. He doesn't even have a clear picture 00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:54.480 of what's happening on the streets. He signs 00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:57.839 or is tricked into signing a decree establishing 00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:01.039 martial law. So he's ordering them to shoot the 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:03.759 protesters? Effectively, yes. He goes on the 00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:07.000 radio and calls the fighters counter -revolutionaries. 00:21:07.519 --> 00:21:10.440 This is his low point. The freedom fighters on 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:13.519 the street feel completely betrayed. They think 00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:15.920 Nagy is just another Soviet puppet. And for a 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:18.420 few days, he kind of was. For the first three 00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:20.720 days, he was a puppet. He was trying to find 00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:23.279 a socialist solution. He was trying to negotiate 00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:25.480 with the Soviets to stop the shooting, but he 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:27.940 was also telling the rebels to surrender. He 00:21:27.940 --> 00:21:29.920 was straddling the fence and the fence was on 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.640 fire. So what changed? How do we get from that 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:36.240 hesitant, out of touch guy to the hero who gets 00:21:36.240 --> 00:21:38.720 buried face down? This is the period of the 12 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:40.700 days of freedom. Right. It's the period between 00:21:40.700 --> 00:21:44.230 roughly October 25th and November 4th. This is 00:21:44.230 --> 00:21:46.789 where the real transformation happens. Nagy starts 00:21:46.789 --> 00:21:49.009 meeting with delegations from the streets. He's 00:21:49.009 --> 00:21:50.630 actually talking to the rebels. He's talking 00:21:50.630 --> 00:21:53.329 to workers, councils, students, even some of 00:21:53.329 --> 00:21:55.650 the fighters. And he starts to see the reality 00:21:55.650 --> 00:21:58.509 of the situation. He realizes these aren't fascists 00:21:58.509 --> 00:22:01.069 or CIA agents like the propaganda was saying. 00:22:01.210 --> 00:22:03.569 Right. He sees they are workers. They are students. 00:22:03.769 --> 00:22:05.529 They're the people he always claimed to represent. 00:22:05.750 --> 00:22:07.769 And then he sees the brutality of the Soviets 00:22:07.769 --> 00:22:11.309 firsthand. On October 25th, there's a massacre. 00:22:11.769 --> 00:22:13.369 right in front of the parliament building. What 00:22:13.369 --> 00:22:16.210 happened? Soviet tanks just opened fire on an 00:22:16.210 --> 00:22:19.970 unarmed crowd. Hundreds die. That shook him to 00:22:19.970 --> 00:22:23.589 his absolute core. So he has a choice. Stick 00:22:23.589 --> 00:22:25.410 with the party that is massacring his people 00:22:25.410 --> 00:22:28.589 or side with the people against the party. And 00:22:28.589 --> 00:22:31.329 he chooses the people. It's a slow turn, but 00:22:31.329 --> 00:22:34.390 by October 28th, he makes his move. He announces 00:22:34.390 --> 00:22:37.089 a ceasefire. He orders the Hungarian army to 00:22:37.089 --> 00:22:39.980 stop shooting. He goes on the radio and... This 00:22:39.980 --> 00:22:42.420 is key. He stops calling it a counterrevolution. 00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:44.079 What does he call it? He calls it a national 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:46.980 democratic movement. He validates them. He completely 00:22:46.980 --> 00:22:49.900 validates them. And then he starts dismantling 00:22:49.900 --> 00:22:52.880 the dictatorship piece by piece. He dissolves 00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:55.940 the AVH, the secret police. Can you imagine the 00:22:55.940 --> 00:22:58.599 relief that washed over the country? The organization 00:22:58.599 --> 00:23:01.099 that had terrorized them for a decade was just 00:23:01.099 --> 00:23:04.539 gone. That's huge. But he goes even further. 00:23:04.920 --> 00:23:07.200 On October 30th, he announces the end of the 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:09.519 one -party system. This is the point of no return. 00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:12.180 He forms a coalition government. He brings in 00:23:12.180 --> 00:23:14.240 non -communists from the old Democratic parties. 00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:17.519 He is, for all intents and purposes, creating 00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:20.380 a democracy. And the Soviets, what are they doing 00:23:20.380 --> 00:23:22.940 while their satellite state is going completely 00:23:22.940 --> 00:23:26.140 rogue? It's fascinating. For a few days, they 00:23:26.140 --> 00:23:29.039 are actually hesitant. Khrushchev is oscillating. 00:23:29.220 --> 00:23:31.539 At one point, they actually start to pull their 00:23:31.539 --> 00:23:33.700 troops out of Budapest. They issue a declaration 00:23:33.700 --> 00:23:36.299 saying they are willing to discuss the relationship 00:23:36.299 --> 00:23:38.720 between socialist states on a more equal footing. 00:23:38.900 --> 00:23:40.960 So for a moment, it looks like it might work. 00:23:41.140 --> 00:23:43.940 For a moment, just a shimmering moment, it looked 00:23:43.940 --> 00:23:46.500 like Nagy might pull it off. It looked like they 00:23:46.500 --> 00:23:49.420 had won. I can't imagine the euphoria in Budapest. 00:23:49.420 --> 00:23:51.680 The tanks are leaving. The secret police are 00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:54.400 gone. The newspapers are free. It was pure joy. 00:23:54.700 --> 00:23:56.940 People were tearing the communist emblems out 00:23:56.940 --> 00:23:58.539 of the Hungarian flies. That's where you get 00:23:58.539 --> 00:24:00.440 that famous image of the flag with the hole in 00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:02.930 the center. It was a symbol of freedom. But the 00:24:02.930 --> 00:24:05.289 Kremlin is watching and the hardliners in Moscow 00:24:05.289 --> 00:24:08.170 must be screaming, we are losing Hungary. They 00:24:08.170 --> 00:24:10.589 are. And not just Hungary. They were terrified 00:24:10.589 --> 00:24:13.190 of the domino theory. If Hungary becomes a democracy, 00:24:13.450 --> 00:24:16.329 what about Poland? What about East Germany? Their 00:24:16.329 --> 00:24:20.130 entire empire could collapse. And then the Suez 00:24:20.130 --> 00:24:22.670 crisis happens. How does that play into it? The 00:24:22.670 --> 00:24:25.309 West gets completely distracted. Britain, France, 00:24:25.670 --> 00:24:28.049 Israel are invading Egypt. The world's attention 00:24:28.049 --> 00:24:31.509 shifts. Khrushchev decides. This is our chance. 00:24:31.650 --> 00:24:34.130 We have to crush this. So the tanks turn around. 00:24:34.410 --> 00:24:37.450 October 31st. Reports start coming into Nagy's 00:24:37.450 --> 00:24:40.670 office. Massive columns of Soviet armor are crossing 00:24:40.670 --> 00:24:42.789 the border back into Hungary. They weren't leaving. 00:24:42.890 --> 00:24:44.869 They were preparing for a full -scale invasion. 00:24:45.289 --> 00:24:48.069 Nagy confronts the Soviet ambassador, right? 00:24:48.210 --> 00:24:52.730 A young Yuri Andropov. Yes. Andropov, the future 00:24:52.730 --> 00:24:55.849 leader of the USSR. A very cold, calculating 00:24:55.849 --> 00:24:59.289 man. Nagy summons him and asks, what are these 00:24:59.289 --> 00:25:02.400 tanks doing? And Andropov lies to his face. He 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:04.099 says, oh, it's just routine maneuvers. Don't 00:25:04.099 --> 00:25:06.900 worry about it. But Nagy knows. He sees the noose 00:25:06.900 --> 00:25:09.240 tightening. And this pushes him to the final 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:12.319 fatal decision, November 1st. The declaration 00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:15.079 of neutrality. Break this down for us. Why was 00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:19.460 this the absolute red line for Moscow? Nagy realized 00:25:19.460 --> 00:25:21.779 he couldn't win a military fight against the 00:25:21.779 --> 00:25:24.180 Soviet Union. It was impossible. His only hope 00:25:24.180 --> 00:25:27.099 was diplomacy. So he makes this dramatic announcement 00:25:27.099 --> 00:25:30.019 that Hungary is withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact, 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:31.839 the Soviet military alliance. You know what else? 00:25:32.019 --> 00:25:34.160 He declares Hungary a neutral state like Switzerland 00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:36.740 or Austria. And he sends a desperate appeal to 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:38.599 the United Nations for protection. He's trying 00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:40.559 to take Hungary off the Cold War trust board 00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:43.680 entirely. Exactly. He's saying we are West. We 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:45.720 aren't East. We are neutral. Just leave us alone. 00:25:45.980 --> 00:25:48.900 But to the Soviets, this was the ultimate treason. 00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:51.900 You can reform your economy, maybe, but you cannot 00:25:51.900 --> 00:25:54.180 leave the military alliance. That was a direct 00:25:54.180 --> 00:25:56.640 threat to their security. That seals his fate. 00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:00.400 And the West. The UN. Did they answer the call 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:03.359 for help? No. Radio Free Europe broadcast all 00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:05.420 these words of encouragement, which tragically 00:26:05.420 --> 00:26:07.420 led many Hungarians to believe help was on the 00:26:07.420 --> 00:26:09.779 way. But Eisenhower wasn't going to risk starting 00:26:09.779 --> 00:26:12.259 World War III over Budapest. They were on their 00:26:12.259 --> 00:26:14.940 own. Sunday morning, November 4th, Operation 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:18.720 Woolwind. 4 .am. A massive artillery barrage 00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:22.500 hits Budapest. 60 ,000 Soviet troops, thousands 00:26:22.500 --> 00:26:26.259 of T -54 tanks, jets strafing the streets. It 00:26:26.259 --> 00:26:28.480 was an overwhelming, brutal force. Nagy goes 00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:31.019 to the radio station for one final, desperate 00:26:31.019 --> 00:26:33.200 broadcast. I have the text here. It's just haunting. 00:26:33.420 --> 00:26:35.640 This is Imre Nagy speaking. Our troops are fighting. 00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:37.779 The government is in its place. It's one of the 00:26:37.779 --> 00:26:39.839 most famous and heartbreaking speeches in Hungarian 00:26:39.839 --> 00:26:43.640 history. But... It was also a bit of a lie. A 00:26:43.640 --> 00:26:46.220 lie? How so? The part about our troops are fighting. 00:26:46.359 --> 00:26:48.559 In reality, Nagy had issued an order to the Hungarian 00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:51.460 army not to resist. Why would he do that? He 00:26:51.460 --> 00:26:54.380 knew it would be a slaughter, a pointless bloodbath. 00:26:54.420 --> 00:26:57.839 He wanted to save lives. The people who fought 00:26:57.839 --> 00:26:59.779 back heroically in the streets were civilians, 00:26:59.880 --> 00:27:02.740 kids with Molotov cocktails, workers with hunting 00:27:02.740 --> 00:27:06.099 rifles. The regular army mostly stood down on 00:27:06.099 --> 00:27:09.140 his orders. And the part about the government 00:27:09.140 --> 00:27:12.309 is in its place. Also not true. Minutes after 00:27:12.309 --> 00:27:14.509 that broadcast, he and his inner circle left 00:27:14.509 --> 00:27:17.009 the parliament building and fled to the Yugoslav 00:27:17.009 --> 00:27:20.250 embassy. He ran. He sought asylum. He thought 00:27:20.250 --> 00:27:22.569 the Yugoslavs... Being these independent communists 00:27:22.569 --> 00:27:24.529 under Tito would protect him. And while he's 00:27:24.529 --> 00:27:26.769 holed up in the embassy, the Soviets install 00:27:26.769 --> 00:27:30.750 a new leader, Yanos Kadar. Kadar, another tragic, 00:27:30.789 --> 00:27:33.470 complex figure. He'd been with Nagy during the 00:27:33.470 --> 00:27:35.410 revolution, part of his government, but at the 00:27:35.410 --> 00:27:37.529 last minute he defected to the Soviets. He rode 00:27:37.529 --> 00:27:40.190 back into Budapest on a Soviet tank. He was the 00:27:40.190 --> 00:27:42.690 puppet that Nagy refused to be. So Nagy is in 00:27:42.690 --> 00:27:44.609 the embassy. The revolution is being crushed 00:27:44.609 --> 00:27:47.309 in the streets. Thousands are dead. And Kadar 00:27:47.309 --> 00:27:50.200 wants Nagy out of that embassy. Kadar negotiates 00:27:50.200 --> 00:27:53.859 with the Yugoslavs. He signs a document, a formal 00:27:53.859 --> 00:27:57.059 written guarantee of safe conduct. He promises 00:27:57.059 --> 00:27:59.240 that if Nagy and his group leave the embassy, 00:27:59.460 --> 00:28:02.220 they will be allowed to go home freely. No arrest, 00:28:02.500 --> 00:28:04.900 no harm. I feel like I know exactly where this 00:28:04.900 --> 00:28:08.279 is going. It's a trap. A blatant, cynical trap. 00:28:09.019 --> 00:28:12.440 November 22nd. Nagy and his group pack their 00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:15.079 bags. They board a bus that is supposed to take 00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:17.039 them to their homes. But it doesn't. It doesn't. 00:28:17.390 --> 00:28:19.930 The bus drives a few blocks and then it's surrounded 00:28:19.930 --> 00:28:22.730 by Soviet armored cars. Russian officers jump 00:28:22.730 --> 00:28:25.710 on board. They kidnap him on Hungarian soil. 00:28:25.890 --> 00:28:27.589 Where do they take him? They fly him to Romania 00:28:27.589 --> 00:28:30.150 to a place called Snagov, which is a kind of 00:28:30.150 --> 00:28:32.529 resort town. They hold him there in a villa under 00:28:32.529 --> 00:28:34.789 guard. This is the part of the story that is 00:28:34.789 --> 00:28:36.990 often skipped, but I feel like it's crucial. 00:28:37.269 --> 00:28:39.750 He's in captivity for months. What are they trying 00:28:39.750 --> 00:28:41.750 to do to him there? They're trying to break him. 00:28:41.970 --> 00:28:44.650 This is the psychological battle. Kedar and the 00:28:44.650 --> 00:28:48.150 Soviets. desperately needed Nagy to resign. They 00:28:48.150 --> 00:28:50.789 needed him to sign a piece of paper saying, I 00:28:50.789 --> 00:28:54.089 was wrong. The revolution was a counter -revolutionary 00:28:54.089 --> 00:28:57.309 mistake. Yanos Kadar is the legitimate leader. 00:28:57.950 --> 00:29:00.829 If Nagy did that, it would legitimize the whole 00:29:00.829 --> 00:29:02.869 bloody invasion. And remember, this is the guy 00:29:02.869 --> 00:29:05.349 who compromised before. He was Agent Volodya. 00:29:05.349 --> 00:29:07.750 He knew how to play the game to survive. That's 00:29:07.750 --> 00:29:09.329 what they were counting on. They thought... He's 00:29:09.329 --> 00:29:11.849 an old Bolshevik. He knows the drill. He'll confess. 00:29:11.869 --> 00:29:13.569 We'll give him a nice retirement dacha. Everyone 00:29:13.569 --> 00:29:16.670 moves on. But he didn't. He refused. He absolutely 00:29:16.670 --> 00:29:19.430 refused. He argued with his captors. He wrote 00:29:19.430 --> 00:29:22.309 memos. He said, I am the lawful prime minister 00:29:22.309 --> 00:29:25.549 of Hungary. You are the traitors. He found this 00:29:25.549 --> 00:29:28.190 backbone of steel that maybe he never had before. 00:29:28.410 --> 00:29:30.529 He knew that if he signed that paper, he would 00:29:30.529 --> 00:29:32.690 be betraying the memory of all the kids who died 00:29:32.690 --> 00:29:35.190 on the barricades. That is the redemption, isn't 00:29:35.190 --> 00:29:37.410 it? The spy who refused to come in from the cold. 00:29:37.849 --> 00:29:40.769 It is. He sealed his own death warrant with that 00:29:40.769 --> 00:29:44.089 refusal. Kadar realized Nagi would never cooperate. 00:29:44.589 --> 00:29:48.289 And as long as Imre Nagi was alive, Kadar's rule 00:29:48.289 --> 00:29:51.289 was illegitimate. So they bring him back to Budapest, 00:29:51.349 --> 00:29:55.809 1958, for the trial. A secret trial. No press. 00:29:55.930 --> 00:29:59.589 No public. Just a room full of party loyalists 00:29:59.589 --> 00:30:02.289 acting as judges. The charges were, of course, 00:30:02.589 --> 00:30:05.309 treason and organizing the overthrow of the People's 00:30:05.309 --> 00:30:07.710 Democratic Order. Did he defend himself? He did. 00:30:07.849 --> 00:30:10.869 He took notes. He argued legal points. He never 00:30:10.869 --> 00:30:13.289 begged. When the death sentence was read, he 00:30:13.289 --> 00:30:15.930 didn't ask for clemency. He famously said, I 00:30:15.930 --> 00:30:18.049 do not appeal the court's decision for mercy. 00:30:18.250 --> 00:30:21.369 He left the judgment to history. June 16th, 1958. 00:30:21.910 --> 00:30:24.579 They hanged him. In the prison courtyard. And 00:30:24.579 --> 00:30:26.940 then the burial, the final insult. They put his 00:30:26.940 --> 00:30:28.880 body in a packing crate. They buried him in the 00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:31.339 prison yard under a pile of trash. Years later, 00:30:31.400 --> 00:30:33.819 they secretly moved him to Section 301. They 00:30:33.819 --> 00:30:35.539 wrapped the wire around his hands and feet. They 00:30:35.539 --> 00:30:37.640 buried him face down. They put a fake name on 00:30:37.640 --> 00:30:39.920 the cemetery register. They tried to erase him 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:42.140 from the face of the earth. But Kadar, he stayed 00:30:42.140 --> 00:30:44.559 in power for 30 years. They say he was haunted 00:30:44.559 --> 00:30:48.000 by what he did to Nagi. There's a story. Probably 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:50.200 apocryphal, but it tells a deeper truth. That 00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:52.660 towards the end of his life, when Kadar was old 00:30:52.660 --> 00:30:55.019 and senile, he would wander around his house 00:30:55.019 --> 00:30:57.900 looking for Imre. He could never escape the ghost. 00:30:58.140 --> 00:31:01.380 And then, 1989, the whole Soviet system is crumbling. 00:31:01.700 --> 00:31:04.319 Gorbachev is in power in Moscow. The Hungarians 00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:06.500 are pushing for change again. And the first thing 00:31:06.500 --> 00:31:09.420 they demand is the truth about 1956. They demand 00:31:09.420 --> 00:31:13.240 a proper burial for Imre Nagy. The regime, weak 00:31:13.240 --> 00:31:15.619 and collapsing, had to agree. They exhumed the 00:31:15.619 --> 00:31:18.079 body. And we are back at the beginning, June 00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:22.700 16th, 1989, Heroes Square in Budapest. It wasn't 00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:24.920 just a funeral for a man. It was the funeral 00:31:24.920 --> 00:31:28.440 of the entire communist dictatorship. Six coffins 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:30.960 on the dais. Nagy and his martyred colleagues 00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:33.900 and one empty coffin to represent the unknown 00:31:33.900 --> 00:31:35.980 revolutionary. I watched the footage of this. 00:31:36.059 --> 00:31:38.200 The speeches were fiery. And there's this young 00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:40.240 guy with long hair and a beard, a very young 00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:43.880 Viktor Orban. The very same. The current prime 00:31:43.880 --> 00:31:46.599 minister of Hungary. Back then, he was a young, 00:31:46.660 --> 00:31:49.500 liberal student leader, and he gave the most 00:31:49.500 --> 00:31:52.160 radical speech of the day. He was the one who 00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:54.259 openly demanded that the Soviet troops go home. 00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:57.799 Now, he connected Nagy's memory directly to a 00:31:57.799 --> 00:32:00.799 free, democratic future. It's just amazing how 00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:04.559 history rhymes, how these figures reappear. Nagy 00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:06.779 was the bridge from one era to the next. He was. 00:32:06.900 --> 00:32:10.519 That funeral broke the spell. It's almost a Shakespearean 00:32:10.519 --> 00:32:14.259 ending. Kadar died. literally died on the very 00:32:14.259 --> 00:32:16.579 day that the Hungarian Supreme Court officially 00:32:16.579 --> 00:32:19.839 rehabilitated Imre Nagy. Wow. It's like the country 00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:21.839 couldn't move on until it was gone. But the story 00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:24.420 isn't over. Because recently, in the last few 00:32:24.420 --> 00:32:26.960 years, Nagy has become controversial again. He 00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:29.880 has. In 2018, the Orban government had the statue 00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:32.640 of Imre Nagy moved. It used to stand on a little 00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:34.240 bridge near the parliament looking towards the 00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:36.920 building. A very poignant, powerful spot. And 00:32:36.920 --> 00:32:38.809 they moved it. They moved it to a less prominent 00:32:38.809 --> 00:32:41.630 location on a nearby square. Why? I thought Orban 00:32:41.630 --> 00:32:43.289 basically launched his career at Nagy's funeral. 00:32:43.609 --> 00:32:47.450 He did. But politics changes. The current government 00:32:47.450 --> 00:32:50.509 narrative in Hungary is very, very anti -communist. 00:32:50.509 --> 00:32:53.670 And Nagy, well, he was a communist. It's an awkward 00:32:53.670 --> 00:32:56.390 fact for them. They want to emphasize the pre 00:32:56.390 --> 00:32:59.470 -communist nationalist history of Hungary. So 00:32:59.470 --> 00:33:01.730 what did they put where Nagy's statue used to 00:33:01.730 --> 00:33:04.059 be? They put up a reconstruction of a monument 00:33:04.059 --> 00:33:07.599 to the victims of the 1919 Red Terror, the first 00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:10.819 failed communist revolution. So they're swapping 00:33:10.819 --> 00:33:13.079 one historical memory for another. A communist 00:33:13.079 --> 00:33:15.440 martyr replaced by the victims of communism. 00:33:15.539 --> 00:33:17.680 Exactly. For the modern Hungarian right wing, 00:33:17.900 --> 00:33:21.180 Nagy is a communist hero. And that's a contradiction 00:33:21.180 --> 00:33:23.859 in terms. They respect his sacrifice in 1956, 00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:25.819 but they don't want to celebrate his ideology. 00:33:26.349 --> 00:33:28.150 It just goes to show that history is never really 00:33:28.150 --> 00:33:30.410 settled. It's always being rewritten to fit the 00:33:30.410 --> 00:33:32.430 needs of the present. And that leads to the biggest 00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:34.369 question of all, I think. The great what if. 00:33:34.609 --> 00:33:37.289 If the tanks hadn't come back, if the West had 00:33:37.289 --> 00:33:40.029 helped, if Nagy had actually succeeded, what 00:33:40.029 --> 00:33:42.009 kind of Hungary would he have built? Well, he 00:33:42.009 --> 00:33:44.569 didn't want capitalism. He wasn't trying to be 00:33:44.569 --> 00:33:46.769 like America. He wanted a third way. He wrote 00:33:46.769 --> 00:33:49.150 about it while he was in captivity. A socialism 00:33:49.150 --> 00:33:51.309 that was democratic, that had multiple parties, 00:33:51.349 --> 00:33:53.569 that respected human rights, but still kept the 00:33:53.569 --> 00:33:55.230 major industries in the hands of the people. 00:33:55.769 --> 00:33:59.849 A national communism independent of Moscow. Could 00:33:59.849 --> 00:34:02.329 something like that have even worked in the middle 00:34:02.329 --> 00:34:06.650 of the Cold War? In 1956? Probably not. The Cold 00:34:06.650 --> 00:34:09.090 War was too frozen. The polarization between 00:34:09.090 --> 00:34:11.909 East and West was too extreme. But it was a beautiful 00:34:11.909 --> 00:34:14.929 dream. A dream that you could have equality without 00:34:14.929 --> 00:34:18.090 tyranny and national independence without capitalism. 00:34:18.369 --> 00:34:22.250 Imre Nagy. The locksmith. The soldier. The spy. 00:34:22.570 --> 00:34:25.889 The prime minister. The martyr. A man of incredible 00:34:25.889 --> 00:34:28.590 contradictions. A man who did terrible things 00:34:28.590 --> 00:34:30.989 to survive and then did a magnificent thing and 00:34:30.989 --> 00:34:32.889 died for it. And maybe that's why his story sticks 00:34:32.889 --> 00:34:34.889 with us. He wasn't a saint. He wasn't born a 00:34:34.889 --> 00:34:38.030 hero. He was a flawed human being who, when the 00:34:38.030 --> 00:34:40.449 ultimate test came, finally found his courage. 00:34:40.690 --> 00:34:42.469 And that's all we can really ask of anyone, I 00:34:42.469 --> 00:34:45.070 suppose. Well, this has been quite a journey. 00:34:45.110 --> 00:34:48.780 From the Siberian POW camps. to the streets of 00:34:48.780 --> 00:34:50.840 Budapest. I don't think I'll ever forget the 00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:53.400 image of that barbed wire. It's a reminder that 00:34:53.400 --> 00:34:56.219 the truth always surfaces eventually, even if 00:34:56.219 --> 00:34:59.260 you try to bury it face down. Thank you for listening 00:34:59.260 --> 00:35:01.539 to The Deep Dive. If you want to know more, check 00:35:01.539 --> 00:35:03.420 out the show notes. We've got links to some of 00:35:03.420 --> 00:35:05.579 the original footage of the 1956 revolution. 00:35:06.019 --> 00:35:08.920 It is absolutely worth watching. Until next time, 00:35:08.940 --> 00:35:09.480 keep digging.