The revolution began in Budapest on October 23, 1956. Students marched to demand reform and free elections, and workers joined them, and the crowd tore down a statue of Stalin and moved on the radio station. The shooting started that night.
The uprising spread fast. Within days the rebels had taken much of the capital, and the government, shaken, promised changes, and a reform-minded leader named Imre Nagy came to power. He declared that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact and be neutral. It was too much.
The Soviet Union intervened. Tanks rolled into Budapest in early November, and the fighting was brutal, and thousands of Hungarians were killed in the streets. Nagy was seized, tried in secret, and hanged, and the old order was restored by force. The world watched and did nothing.
The West condemned and stood back. The United States had encouraged resistance to Soviet rule, but when Hungary rose, no help came, because the risk of war with a nuclear power was too great. The lesson was bitter for those who had believed the promises.
The revolution failed but was not forgotten. It showed that reform in the Soviet empire would be met with tanks, and it hardened the division of Europe for another thirty years. The statue of Stalin that fell that day stayed down, even if the system it stood for did not.