Revolution, uprising, civil war: the conceptual dilemmas of 1956

Abstract

There were from the very beginning two ways of conceptualising the events of 1956 in Hungary, labelling it as a revolution or a national uprising. There also emerged a third way of conceptual definition when what occurred in 1956 was named an anti-totalitarian movement. From the theoretical perspective of Begriffsgeschichte the Hungarian events of 1956 cannot simply be assumed under the notion of ‘revolution’, the term first applied to what took place in France in 1789, since it was not the kind of a forceful collective effort leading to an unknown future. The notion of ‘revolutio’ works better to describe the analytical meaning of the Hungarian anti-Soviet and anti-Communist disturbance. The reason has been that the main thrust of the Hungarian situation in 1956 was similar to the seventeenth-century English and the eighteenth-century American ‘revolutions’, to return definitively to a point of departure by regaining some of the formerly lost social and political liberties.

Keywords:

• revolution
• revolutio
• counter-revolution
• uprising
• freedom fighting
• national unrest
• anti-totalitarianism
• Begriffsgeschichte

Notes

 1. Arendt, On Revolution, 271. The scope of the present paper will not allow a discussion of the changes in Arendt's theoretical views on the Hungarian revolution.

 2. Lomax, Hungary 1956, 203.

 3. Rakovski, Towards an East European Marxism, 31.

 4. Varga, A forradalom hangja, 470.

 5. Váli, Rift and Revolt in Hungary.

 6. Váli, Rift and Revolt in Hungary, 494.

 7. As an extreme manifestation of this, a British (Holocaust denier) historian depicted 1956 as an anti-Semitic uprising. Irving, Uprising! One Nation's Nightmare.

 8. Litván, Az 1956-os magyar forradalom, 7.

 9. Arendt, On Revolution, 47–8.

10. Koselleck, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution,” 45.

11. Koselleck, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution,” 49.

12. Koselleck, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution,” 50, 51, 52.

13. Koselleck, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution,” 54–5. For more on the historical development of the term ’revolution’, see Ungvári, “Revolution: a textual analysis,” 1–21.

14. The line of reasoning of this section is an abbreviated version of one of my earlier writings: Gyáni, “Socio-psychological roots of discontent,” 65–73. Readers are referred to this article for bibliographical information.

15. Cf. Szakács, “Az ötvenes évek agrárpolitikája,” 34–66.

16. Tyekvicska, “Helyi forradalom,” 37, 41 and 49.

17. “It was the Western European émigrés, and most notably the Imre Nagy Institution of Brussels, who represented the reform socialist tradition most forcefully, and even somewhat one-sidedly.” Litván, Az 1956-os magyar forradalom, 7.

18. For the background to the statement see Pittaway, “The social limits of state control,” 271–301; Pittaway, “The reproduction of hierarchy,” 737–69.

19. One may find ample evidence on this subject in an important work that reflects the continuous traumatisation of twentieth-century Hungarian society in Losonczi, Sorsba fordult történelem, 115–205.

20. Váli, Rift and Revolt in Hungary, ix.

21. Kende, “Elkerülhetetlen volt-e a forradalom,” 4.

22. Kossok, “Az újkor összehasonlító forradalomtörténete,” 69.

23. Horváth, “Hooligans, spivs and gangs,” 199–223.

24. A useful study revealing the diverse meanings ascribed to the worker in the 1950s: Szabó, “A dolgozó mint állampolgár,” 151-171.

25. Kozák, “Szent csôcselék,” 264–9. Here is a quote from the latest criticism of the thesis: ‘the assumption, whereby the insurgents came from the lowest segment of society, does not necessarily bear scrutiny’. Vajda and Eörsi, “Szent suhancok,” 71. See also Eörsi, The Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

26. In addition to the earlier quoted works by Arendt and Lomax, also see Kemény and Lomax, Magyar munkástanácsok; Lomax, “1956 öröksége,” 724–42.

27. On the gradual development of the narrative of a revolutionary event (1789), see Furet, A forradalomról, 15–55.

28. Kende, Eltékozolt forradalom, 112.

29. Kende, Eltékozolt forradalom, 113.

30. Kende, Eltékozolt forradalom, 113. Emphasis in the original.

31. Cf. e.g. Fitzpatrick, “Introduction,” 1–14.

32. Kende, Eltékozolt forradalom, 110.

33. Kende, Eltékozolt forradalom, 109.

34. In this way the term unnoticeably returns to its ordinary meaning, which was described in a mid-nineteenth-century dictionary under the entry ’revolution’ as follows: ‘In the stricter sense, an uprising staged by either the entire nation or a multitude in it against either the sovereign ruler or the authority for the purpose of establishing a new system of government or state structure.’ Czuczor and Fogarasi, A magyar nyelv szótára, vol 2, 914.

35. Arendt, On Revolution, 50.

36. For more on these historical analogies and genetic interconnections, see Standeisky, “Követett és elvett múlt,” 99–100.

37. Furet, A forradalomról, 91, 93.

38. Deák, The Lawful Revolution, 99 (emphasis added).

39. Deák, The Lawful Revolution, 106.

40. Furet, A forradalomról, 149, 150.

41. Condorcet, “A ‘forradalmi’ szó jelentésérôl,” 429.

42. Kende, Eltékozolt forradalom, 115.

43. Koselleck, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution,” 47.

44. Cf. Gyarmati, “Töprengések 1956 októberéről,” 58–60.

45. To this see Gyáni, “Memory and Discourse on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution,” 1199–1208.