The discussion of the “Hungarian Question” in the UN and the problem of Hungary’s Exit from the political isolation, 1957–1963

Abstract

The most powerful uprising in Budapest on October 23, 1956, which immediately threatened the existence of the communist regime in Hungary, and the entry of Soviet troops in order to suppress it caused a wide international resonance, which on October 28 led to the discussions on the Hungarian question at the UN Security Council, and later, in November, at the UN General Assembly. In November, as tensions in the Middle East following the British, French, and Israeli attacks on Egypt, which had nationalized the Suez Canal, eased, discussions of the situation in Hungary came to the fore at the UN. Facing the opposition from the USSR, the adoption by the UN General Assembly in November-December 1956 of numerous resolutions on Hungary did not bring any real effect, with the exception of those that made it possible to improve the situation of 200,000 Hungarian refugees who rushed to Austria and Yugoslavia after the suppression of the revolution. In 1957, the General Assembly discussed the report of the special UN committee on Hungary, formed to study the situation in the country that had developed as a result of the Soviet military intervention. In the subsequent years, the United States and their allies used the discussion of the “Hungarian question” in the UN for propaganda purposes, in an effort to weaken the Soviet influence on the countries of the awakening “Third World”. At the same time, it occupied an increasingly peripheral position every year. Its subsequent fate was directly dependent on the further evolution of the János Kádár regime. The removal of this issue from the UN agenda in 1963 was a response to the announced general amnesty for the convicted participants of the 1956’s uprising. It finally brought Kádár’s Hungary out of the diplomatic isolation, in which the country found itself after the illegal change of power with the direct Soviet military support in November 1956.