 After Tito-Stalin split there was a purge of communists in Eastern Europe  1949 Polish culture was organized on the Soviet model  After Stalin’s death 1953 people began to voice their anger at the communist party  1956 Polish leader, Boleslaw Bierut dies with no one to take his place

 Public protests erupted, the party refuses to elect a Soviet loyal leader (Rokossowski) and instead elect Wadislaw Gomulka  Gomulka had been kicked out of the communist party in 1951 for “nationalist” tendencies and had not been rehabilitated

 There’s a surprise visit by Soviet leaders at a meeting of the Polish Communist Party, the Poles refuse to let them in  Soviets accuse them of anti-Soviet behavior and threaten an invasion.  Gomulka promises: (1) Poland will remain in the Soviet Bloc (2) Communism would stay in power (3) Poland would remain in the Warsaw Pact and support Soviet policies

 Persuaded Soviets to forgive Poland’s debts to USSR  Ended collectivization  Made a compromise with the Roman Catholic Church (becomes important in the fall of communism in Poland in the 1980’s)  Reinstated censorship of the arts  Public feels betrayed and becomes cynical & apathetic

 Rakosi was an ultra Stalinist leader, kills or imprisons over 200,000 after Tito-Stalin split  After Stalin’s death Rakosi was kicked out and the more liberal Imre Nagy took control  Nagy relaxes censorship and oppression  Rakosi regains control and cracks down on the people. Soviets replace him with Erno Gero, who was more liberal

 University of Budapest students organize meetings, inspired by the Poles  Gero made a Stalinist speech that infuriates the people who expected more freedom  Mass demonstrations occur against the government, a statue of Stalin is destroyed  Hungarian Secret Police fire on the crowd when they try to take over the Radio station

 More demonstrations occur calling for Nagy to be in power, troops sent to break them up end up joining them  Hungarian Politburo panics and appeal to Soviets for help and appoint Nagy as Prime Minister, yet keep Gero as the real leader  Soviets arrive and agree to remove Gero and replace him with Janos Kadar

 Revolutionary feelings sweep through Hungary, inflamed by American radio broadcasts suggesting help from the West…it never comes  October 27 th Nagy creates a coalition of communists, October 28 th Soviet forces begin to withdraw…  October 31 st, Soviets were told Hungry would become a multi-party state and would leave the Warsaw Pact, becoming a neutral country

 Soviets could not afford to let this happen  Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Chinese leaders call for Soviet intervention  France, England and Israel attack Egypt over the Suez Canal, diverting World attention away from Hungry  November 1 st Soviets put Kadar in power and denounce Nagy as a counter-revolutionary

 November 3 rd, Hungarian defense minister was arrested by the Red Army and Soviet forces advance on Budapest

 Fighting broke out between protestors and Red Army, 20,000 are killed  Nagy seeks refuge in the Yugoslavian embassy in Budapest. He is lured out by the KGB  Nagy and his friends were taken to Romania where they are executed and buried in an unmarked grave  180,000 Hungarians flee across the border into Austria

 Marshall law is imposed and mass arrests occur  Soviets allow Kadar to provide more consumer goods to the people and a very gradual relaxation of tension  The people never forgot or forgave what happened to Nagy, whose memory helps to bring down communist rule in 1989  Worldwide communists begin to question their beliefs and the Soviet Union

 1956 US spy planes illegally fly over USSR taking pictures of their defense sites  A US research program was created to observe USSR from space  1957 British explode their 1 st hydrogen bomb  1957 Both USA and USSR have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s) that can travel 6,000 miles

 July 1960 US creates the Polaris Submarine, able to fire nuclear missiles and get really close to the USSR  1 Polaris Sub could carry more destructive power than ALL the bombs dropped in WWII  1961 President Kennedy announces program to build nuclear bomb shelters & pamphlets are given out on how to survive a nuclear attack

 US military worked on the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), a plan on how to win a first strike against the Eastern Bloc, launching 3,200 nuclear missiles at 1,060 targets…= 285 MILLION DEAD

 Eisenhower and Dulles create policy of MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction to deter from a nuclear war. If everyone dies, then don’t start a war  Another foreign policy for the US was Massive Retaliation: If one of our friends is attacked we will NUKE you.  Thus the communists should not try anything or they will destroy the world because we will nuke everything… phew, I feel much safer