General Assembly

Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary: The Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, at its last meeting, June 7, 1957, adopted its report to the General Assembly. The committee, composed of representatives of Australia, Ceylon, Denmark, Tunisia, and Uruguay, had been appointed by the General Assembly at its second emergency special session to provide information regarding the situation created by Soviet intervention in the internal affairs of Hungary as well as the developments relating to the Assembly's recommendations on this subject. The report, based on available documentation and the testimony of in witnesses, dealt with a brief history of the Hungarian uprising, the movement as seen by the Soviet Union and by the government of Janos Kadar, the Soviet military intervention and its political background, the effects of the use or threat of use of force on the political independence of Hungary, and specific acts violating other rights of the Hungarian people. The committee believed that the uprising in October and November 1956 had been a spontaneous, improvised national movement, stemming from resentments caused by longstanding grievances, particularly against the inferior status of Hungary in relation to the Soviet Union. The thesis put forth by the Soviet Union and the Kadar government that the uprising had been fomented by Hungarian reactionary circles and strengthened by western “imperialists†was unacceptable to the committee, which felt that the movement had been led by students, workers, soldiers and intellectuals, who had demanded, inter alia, that democratic socialism should be the basis of the Hungarian political structure and that such social achievements as land reform should be safeguarded. Reporting that Soviet authorities had taken steps as early as October 20 to make armed intervention possible, the committee felt that it could not say whether the Soviets had anticipated the occurrence. It stressed, however, that the Warsaw Treaty did not provide for Soviet armed intervention to dictate political developments within any signatory's frontiers.