318. The announcement broadcast from Budapest at 9 a.m., on 24 October, stated that “The dastardly armed attack of counter-revolutionary gangs during the night” has created an extremely serious situation. The governmental organs were unprepared for these attacks and “they have therefore applied for help to the Soviet formations stationed in Hungary under the terms of the Warsaw Treaty. In compliance with the Government’s request, the Soviet formations are taking part in the restoration of order …”(3) At the 582nd plenary meeting of the General Assembly on 19 November 1956, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Mr. Shepilov, read the text of a telegram apparently received by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on 24 October from the Prime Minister of the Hungarian People’s Republic - whose name he did not mention - by which the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People’s Republic requested the Government of the Soviet Union to send troops to Budapest “to put an end to the disturbances that have taken place in Budapest, restore order quickly and create conditions favourable to peaceful and constructive work”. Mr. Shepilov then stated that the “Soviet Union could not, of course, refuse to respond to the request of a friendly State for help”.
319. As to the second intervention of Soviet troops, Mr. János Kádár declared on 4 November that “the Hungarian Revolutionary Workers-Peasant Government requested … the Soviet Army Command to help our nation in smashing the sinister forces of reaction and to restore order and calm”. At the 582nd plenary meeting of the General Assembly, Mr. Shepilov
referred to this application to the Soviet Union “for assistance in beating off the attack by the forces of fascism and in restoring order and normal life in the country”, and added “Let me admit openly that this was not an easy problem for the Soviet Government to deal with. We fully realized the difficulties which inevitably arise when the armies of one country are being used in another. The Soviet Union, however, could not remain indifferent to the fate of friendly Hungary.”
320. The official explanations formulated by the USSR and Kádár Governments for the Soviet military interventions in Hungary have been summarized in their broader context and in greater detail in chapter III of this Report. The basic points of their argument, as officially stated in the United Nations and elsewhere, were that on 23 October (Mr. Kádár and his spokesmen seldom refer to the exact nature of the first request of Soviet intervention), and again on 4 November, “anti-democratic elements” brought about serious disturbances of public order and created “the danger of a non-democratic fascist-type system opposed to social progress coming into being”. Exercising the sovereign right of a State “to take through its government any measures it considers necessary and proper in the interest of guaranteeing the
State order and the peaceful life of the population”, the Hungarian Government has “called for the assistance of Soviet troops stationed in Hungary under the Warsaw Defence Treaty so as to avoid further bloodshed and disorder and to defend the democratic order and people’s power. With this step the Government warded off anarchy in Hungary and the creating of a situation which would have seriously imperilled peace and security”.(4) As to the Nagy Government, it had collapsed and its communications to the United Nations had no legal force. As these occurrences had no effect on international peace and security, and related to events within Hungary, or only to the application of an international treaty “under the exclusive purview of the Hungarian and Soviet Governments and of the other Member States of the Warsaw Treaty”, the United Nations could not intervene or even consider the matter by virtue of paragraph 7 of Article 2 of the Charter.
321. While the latter was the only provision of the United Nations Charter mentioned, two provisions of other international instruments were referred to in the statement of the Soviet and the Kádár Governments’ position. Firstly, that of article 4 of the Hungarian Peace Treaty which created an obligation for Hungary not to permit in the future “the existence and activities of organizations of a fascist-type on Hungarian territory, whether political, military or paramilitary”; secondly, that of article 5 of the Warsaw Treaty providing for “concerted action” by the contracting parties “necessary to reinforce their defensive strength, in order to defend the peaceful labour of their people, guarantee the in violability of their frontiers and territories and afford protection against possible aggression”.
322. In the course of the lengthy debates which the Security Council and the General Assembly devoted to the Hungarian question, these and other arguments were abundantly discussed by representatives of Member States. The provisions of article 2 of the Hungarian Peace Treaty guaranteeing human rights and fundamental freedoms, including political rights, to the Hungarian people; the principles and the character of the Warsaw Treaty as a defensive arrangement against an external aggression; the unacceptability of the position that armed forces stationed in a foreign country by virtue of a defensive alliance against outside aggression might be used to quell popular movements aiming at a change of government or of régime; the protests against the Soviet intervention and demands to the Soviet Union and to the United Nations for the withdrawal of Soviet forces put forward by the properly constituted Government of Imre Nagy; the doubtful constitutional nature of the Kádár Government at the time of its call for Soviet military assistance - all these arguments were invoked against the thesis of the Soviet Government and the Kádár Government, together with the Charter provisions on sovereign equality of Member States, the principles of equal rights and self- determination of peoples and those of paragraph 4 of Article 2 of the Charter prohibiting the threat or use of force against the political independence of any State. All these considerations led to the solemn declaration by the General Assembly in resolution 1131 (XI) of 12 December 1956 that “by using its armed force against the Hungarian people, the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is violating the political independence of Hungary”; and to the condemnation by the same resolution of the “violation of the Charter of the United Nations by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in depriving Hungary of its liberty and independence and the Hungarian people of the exercise of their fundamental rights”. 323. The Committee does not consider it necessary to review these arguments anew. It wishes merely to refer to its findings and conclusions contained in other chapters of this Report which directly bear on the assumption on which are built the Soviet and the Hungarian Governments’ legal and political explanations namely, that the uprising was not of a fascist or anti-democratic character as these terms are generally understood; that armed Soviet assistance was sought in all probability before a peaceful demonstration had taken on a violent character
and that whether the intervention took place in a regular or irregular manner under the terms of Hungarian constitutional processes is a matter which the Committee was not able to ascertain; that Imre Nagy’s Government, whose legitimacy during the events was uncontested, had taken practical steps for re-establishing public order and conditions for a normal pursuit of peaceful activities of the people, and was reconstituting a democratic and parliamentary régime which would have given to all Hungarians the exercise of political and human rights; that the Nagy Government was endeavouring to bring about the withdrawal and not the intervention of the Soviet armed forces, the presence of which it did not find necessary to maintain itself in power; and that Mr. Kádár’s Government, on the other hand, not only was established because of the assistance of the Soviet armed forces, but could not under the terms of the Hungarian Constitution claim any but the most doubtful element of legality at the time of its appeal to the Soviet Command for intervention. The Committee’s conclusions support, therefore, the assumptions on which were based the resolutions of the General Assembly on the question of Hungary and, in particular, resolution 1131 (XI).
324. As was pointed out to the Committee in a communication from an international group of jurists, the Soviet action in Hungary, “seen in its true light”, would probably be open to condemnation under the Soviet Government’s own definitions of aggression. The Committee confines itself, in this respect, to recalling that, in a long series of proposals aimed at establishing guiding principles with a view to determining which State would be guilty of aggression, the latest of which were submitted to the United Nations 1956 Special Committee on the Question of Defining Aggression,(5) the Government of the USSR sought to obtain a declaration by the General Assembly that, in an international conflict, that State should be declared the attacker which first committed the act of “Invasion by its armed forces, even without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State”. A State would be declared to have committed an act of aggression if it “promotes an internal upheaval in another State or a change of policy in favour of the aggressor”. This proposal provides, in particular, that the direct attack or indirect aggression may not be justified by “(A) The internal situation of any State, as for example: … (b) Alleged shortcomings of its administration; … (d) Any revolutionary or counter-revolutionary movement, civil war, disorders or strikes; (e) Establishment or maintenance in any State of any political, economic or social system”.
325. Leaving aside arguments of a juridical nature, it appeared quite clear to the Committee that the Soviet military intervention had its essential reason in the desire to save a political régime, and retain a military ally within its area of economic dominance. As reported by the Budapest Radio, on 15 November 1956, Mr. Kádár explained to a delegation of the Greater Budapest Workers’ Council that “we were compelled to ask for the intervention of Soviet troops … It has been made clear by the events of the past weeks that we were threatened with the immediate danger of the overthrow of the people’s power … We realized that this whole movement could not be described as a counter-revolution, but we would have been blind if we had ignored that, apart from the deep indignation felt over grave mistakes and the just demands of the workers, there were also counter-revolutionary demands … It was in such a situation that some of us reached the conclusion that, first of all and by all means, even with the help of Soviet troops, the counter-revolution must be broken by the people’s power consolidated with the help of armed workers …”(6) At the sixth session of the USSR Supreme Soviet held in February 1957, Mr. Shepilov stated that “By assisting the Hungarian people, the USSR did its international duty to the working people of Hungary and other socialist countries, in keeping with the interest of world peace”, and in the “Joint Declaration of the Government of the Soviet Union and the Government of the Hungarian People’s Republic”, issued upon the conclusion of the negotiations held between the two Governments in Moscow from 20 March
to 28 March 1957, it was again stated that “The participation of Soviet Army units in crushing the fascist rebels was a supreme act of proletarian solidarity”.(7) György Marosán, former First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Hegedűs Government and at present Minister of State in the Kádár Government, speaking in Republic Square in Budapest on 29 March 1957 and recalling that during the night of 23-24 October 1956 he personally had demanded that Soviet troops be called in, seems to have correctly summarized the situation from the point of view of the present rulers of Hungary by saying: “We know but one legality: the legality of the Revolution.”(8)