9: Hungary: Freedoms' Choice
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Hungary-Freedom's Choice(1)
At Kilian barracks there was such a big crowd that Peter was about to quit and go home
when someone called for a truck driver, and he came forward. Peter drove "a tall
colonel who seemed to be in charge" to an arms depot, called the Lamp Factory, where
they loaded cases of rifles and machine guns...
Three days later Peter Szanto, full fledged Freedom Fighter, fought in the biggest tank
battle of the revolution. When word reached the barracks that Russian tanks were coming,
the colonel ordered complete quiet. The tanks came close to the barracks wall, but no one
stirred. Some infantry appeared and shot up the building, but the Freedom Fighters did not
return the fire. Finally there were 20 tanks, some 75 infantrymen, a truck, and an armored
car outside the barracks. "Colonel Maleter came and looked down," recalls Peter
Szanto. "He picked up a small nitroglycerin bottle and threw it at the truck. The
truck disappeared in one big roar. Then we all threw nitroglycerin bottles and benzine
flashes and used machine pistols on the infantry. It was a fine trick. We killed the
infantry, got the truck, the armored car, and four of the tanks in about five
minutes."
After that, morale at the barracks was sky-high. When citizens called up to report the
presence of Russian tanks or the whereabouts of the AVH, the Freedom Fighters forayed out
to do battle.
Lazlo and his friends heard Radio Budapest, in rebel hands on Oct.27, tell all
factories to set up workers' councils. Lazio was one of 14 elected by secret ballot at his
mill. "I thought to myself, 'My God! What is happening? Are we really practicing
democracy?' I felt like crying."
"There were happy meetings everywhere," says Lazio. Everything went well
until the day that the Soviet army at tacked again. The workers got 6,000 rifles from the
Hungarian army, but when 87 Soviet tanks and armored cars suddenly descended on Vac, there
was no resistance.
The Russians had no food, and the Vac people gave them bread and a little meat, for
which the soldiers were grateful. Says Lazio: "Our people were not afraid of the
Russians, and talked to them. Some of the Russians thought they were in East Germany and
that they would soon meet American 'fascists' who had invaded the country. Other troops
thought they were in the Suez Canal zone. Our people explained what was going on and what
the Hungarian objectives were and what the Russians had done in Budapest. There was one
captain who listened to all of this. He got redder and redder. We thought he was angry at
us. Suddenly he threw his hat down and said: 'Bulganin and Khrushchev would rape their own
mothers!' He was very angry, but not with us." [22]
1. From "Hungary - Freedom's Choice," Time, LXIX
(January 7, 1957), 18-22. Courtesy TIME. Copyright Time Inc. 1957.
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