After the Twentieth Party Congress, Hungarian demonstrators demanded de-Stalinisation resume and that Nagy be restored. Iurii Andropov, the Soviet ambassador to Hungary at the time, supported Rakosi, and called his opposition 'dangerous counter-revolutionaries'. The reformist riots in Poznan encouraged Hungarians to push for more reform. In July 1956, Mikoyan went to Budapest to replace Rakosi with a less Stalinist figure. In the following weeks and months, the peculiarly close alliance relationships between Moscow and Eastern Europe were repeatedly demonstrated. Mikoyan participated in Hungarian Politburo meetings in July, Janos Kadar in Soviet Politburo meetings in November, and Liu Shaoqi in Soviet Politburo meetings about Hungary in the
autumn. [231]
By October, student demonstrators had crossed a red line: they demanded not only the restoration of Nagy, but the withdrawal of all Soviet armed forces. Nagy was restored to the Politburo on 23 October, but the Soviet Politburo, save Mikoyan, agreed to deploy Soviet troops against the Hungarian protestors the same day. During Soviet Politburo discussions, Molotov took advantage of the occasion to remind his colleagues how wrong Khrushchev had been about tolerating difference, especially with regard to Yugoslavia. Khrushchev himself was having second thoughts, coming to see Nagy as a dangerous acolyte of Tito. Molotov preferred Ferenc Miinnich, who had spent half his life in the Soviet Union, as Nagy's replacement. The rest ofthe Politburo preferred Kadar, because he had been imprisoned by the Stalinist Rakosi. Molotov opposed him for the very same reason![232]
The pivotal day was 30 October. In a document on relations between the Soviet Union and other socialist countries adopted that day, Moscow admitted it had erred, violated its allies' sovereign equality and was committed to re- examining its troop deployments in Eastern Europe, save Germany. But later the same day, Suslov and Mikoyan reported from Budapest that the Hungarian army could not be trusted and that Nagy had asked that negotiations begin on Hungarian withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. Difference had already become dangerous disloyalty.
Fear of falling dominoes, loss of credibility and promises of a short war were all evident in Soviet decision-making on Hungary. As Khrushchev told the rest of the Politburo on 31 October, 'If we leave Hungary . . . the imperialists, the Americans, English, and French, will perceive it as weakness on our part and will go on the offensive.' At the same time, a series of intelligence and foreign ministry reports from embassies, especially in Romania and Czechoslovakia, spoke of the degenerative effect of Hungary on the political situations in these countries. Hungarians along the Romanian border had begun to seek support in Romania; ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Czechoslovakia had begun to manifest sympathy for events in Budapest; and Romanian students demonstrated in support of Nagy. In Moscow and other Soviet cities students were meeting in support of Nagy. By 1 November, Presidium members began invoking the fears of their allies in Eastern Europe, arguing that these friends were losing confidence in Moscow. Finally, Marshal Konev promised Khrushchev and the Politburo that it would take only three to four days to crush the counter-revolution in Hungary. He was right.
The invasion of Hungary stalled the Thaw in the Soviet Union. The limits of tolerable difference had been reached and breached. Hungarian events alerted Soviet elites to the danger of difference at home. Often when Khrushchev would consider reviving the Thaw he was met by references to Hungary, before which 'he would retreat'.[233] And there was reason for such fears. Especially in the Baltic republics, local party leaders reported growing unrest, support for Gomulka and Nagy and anti-Soviet, nationalist and religious demonstrations. On the night of 2 November, for example, in Kaunas, Lithuania, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 35,000 Lithuanians, mainly students, gathered to demand that Russians end their Communist occupation. In Vilnius, people questioned why the Soviet declaration on relations with other socialist countries did not apply to them, as well![234]
Reformist Communists abroad were so worried about the orthodox reaction that they petitioned the Kremlin not to purge their more tolerant allies in Moscow.[235] Orthodox Soviet allies in the GDR, Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, took advantage of Moscow's fear of deviation.[236] Richter shows how Hungary empowered Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich in foreign policy, leading to their June 1957 attempt to depose Khrushchev.72 But Khrushchev, too, had learned the limits of difference. Khrushchev came to regard Tito increasingly as China did, a dangerous deviant within the ranks.[237] The threat from Hungary was reflexively linked to the threat from the US; deviation there was closely associated with US intentions to undermine socialism in Eastern Europe in general. Many future initiatives of Khrushchev in the area of arms control and troop withdrawals from Eastern Europe were opposed by other Politburo members invoking the lessons of Hungary.[238]
One might expect that the discourse of difference would have soured relations with Stalinist China. This prediction is inaccurate, but only in timing. While national roads to socialism violated Chinese adherence to a single Stalinist model, and they did oppose treating Tito's Yugoslavia as a socialist country, Soviet admissions of past mistakes compensated for the toleration of deviance. Moreover, Khrushchev's decision to use force in Hungary, sanctioned and urged by the Chinese leadership at the time, reassured Beijing that there were some limits Khrushchev would thankfully not tolerate.[239]
Soviet aid in the construction of industrial and defence plants accelerated after Stalin's death. In May 1953, the Soviet Union agreed to an additional ninety-one enterprises, and to the replacement of fighter aircraft and tanks with newer models.[240] During Khrushchev's first visit to China in October 1954, Mao asked to acquire nuclear weapons. Khrushchev suggested China concentrate on economic reconstruction, pledging it could rely on the Soviet deterrent, but did offer a civilian nuclear reactor. In March 1955, Moscow agreed to build another 166 industrial enterprises and help China build an atomic reactor and cyclotron. Seventy per cent of China's foreign trade in the 1950s was with the Soviet Union.[241]
Mao cautiously supported Khrushchev's campaign against Stalin, though not the discourse of difference more generally. As Mao told the Soviet ambassador, Iudin, in May 1956, if he 'had always followed Stalin's advice, he wouldbe deadby now'.[242] Mao was dissatisfied with the ambiguity createdby the ongoing debates in the Soviet Union between difference and orthodoxy. In April 1956, Mao published his own interpretation of the Twentieth Party Congress, crafting the 70 : 30 rule of thumb about Stalin: he was 70 per cent right (about the economic and political development model) and 30 per cent wrong (on treatment of China and murder of colleagues).[243] Mao fashioned his own Thaw, the Hundred Flowers campaign launched in January i957. But it was aimed not at expanding the boundaries of difference, but at flushing out 'Rightists' who would then be arrested.[244]
231
At theJune 1957 plenum, Khrushchev thanked China forits advice on Hungary in October 1956. 'Posledniaia "Antipartiinaia" Gruppa',
235
English,
240
Boris T. Kulik,
241
Shu Guang Zhang,
244
81 Hopf,