The 'Thaw'

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A: Khrushchev revealed that the pilot, Gary Powers, was alive and in Soviet hands, along with the plane's spy camera and film, exposing the American cover story. B: the Paris Summit collapsed when Khrushchev walked out after Eisenhower refused to apologise.

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Source A shows a cover-up because NASA describes the U-2 as a 'research aircraft' on a 'weather research mission', when it was really a spy plane. It says the plane went down near Lake Van in Turkey, far from where it was actually lost, and it claims that the pilot reported problems with his oxygen supply. This story suggested that the pilot might have lost consciousness and drifted into Soviet airspace by accident, so that any flight over the USSR would look like an innocent mistake.

My knowledge shows that this was untrue. The U-2 was a CIA spy plane that had been photographing the USSR from about 70,000 feet since 1956. On 1 May 1960 Francis Gary Powers took off from Peshawar in Pakistan to fly right across the USSR to Norway, and he was shot down near Sverdlovsk. The provenance helps to explain the story: a civilian agency, NASA, was used to make it believable, and the statement was issued before the government knew that the Soviets had captured Powers alive. Khrushchev set a trap: on 5 May he announced only that a plane had been shot down, and on 7 May he revealed that the pilot was alive and showed the camera and film. The USA had been caught lying, and Eisenhower had to admit the truth.

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Source B is useful because it shows why ordinary Hungarians rose up. The writer describes economic hardship - his engineer father 'earned barely enough for meat on Sundays' - while 'the AVH men lived in the best flats', and he mentions fear of the secret police, as 'every month someone we knew disappeared'. This matches my knowledge of Rákosi's Stalinist rule, with low living standards, show trials and the AVH. He also identifies the triggers of 1956: Khrushchev's Secret Speech, which made Hungarians ask 'why Stalin's little copy still ruled us', and the Polish example, when Gomułka came to power with Soviet acceptance in October. His point that 'the shooting at the radio station made us revolutionaries' fits what happened on 23 October, when the AVH fired on the crowd. As a participant, he has first-hand knowledge of how students felt. However, he wrote in 1986, thirty years later, while living in Britain, so his memory may be shaped by hindsight and by sympathy for the cause, and it is only one person's experience.

Source C is useful in a different way. Written on 24 October, the second day of the uprising, it shows how the Soviet authorities understood the causes. The official blames 'hostile elements' and 'the propaganda of Western radio stations', which reflects the Soviet belief that the uprising was a counter-revolution encouraged by the West; Radio Free Europe did broadcast to Hungary. However, he also admits that the Hungarian party 'made serious mistakes', allowing the press and 'writers' clubs' to spread criticism, which is supported by the open debates of the Petőfi Circle in 1956, and he says Gerő had 'lost all authority'. Because it is a confidential report rather than propaganda, it is a frank account of the regime's collapse. But it is limited by its Soviet viewpoint: it says nothing about the economic hardship and hatred of Soviet control described in Source B, and blaming outsiders and local leaders protected Soviet policy.

Overall, Source B is more useful for the causes of the uprising, because it explains both the long-term grievances and the triggers of 1956, and it is supported by what we know. Source C is still valuable, because it reveals the collapse of the Hungarian regime's authority and how the Soviet leaders interpreted events, which helps to explain why they sent in troops. Used together, they show that the uprising came from deep popular grievances, released by de-Stalinisation and the Polish example, at a time when the regime had lost control.

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In terms of power, the Soviet Union gained a great deal from crushing the Hungarian Uprising. Most importantly, it restored communist control of Hungary. János Kádár, installed on 4 November 1956, kept Hungary loyal to the USSR until 1988, and Hungary remained in the Warsaw Pact, so the Soviet buffer zone in Eastern Europe was preserved. The crushing of the uprising also stopped a possible domino effect: no other satellite seriously challenged Soviet rule again until Czechoslovakia in 1968, when the USSR used the same method.

The USSR also learned that the West would not intervene in its sphere. Despite years of American talk about 'liberating' Eastern Europe, Eisenhower sent no help, and the UN's calls for Soviet withdrawal were simply ignored after the USSR vetoed action in the Security Council. The Suez Crisis, happening at the same time, divided the West and allowed the USSR to point to Western imperialism. At home, Khrushchev showed the hardliners and the Chinese leaders that de-Stalinisation did not mean weakness, which strengthened his position against rivals who tried, and failed, to remove him in 1957.

However, the USSR also suffered serious losses. Its international reputation was badly damaged. Western opinion was outraged; Time magazine named the 'Hungarian Freedom Fighter' its Man of the Year, the UN General Assembly condemned the invasion, and several countries withdrew from the Melbourne Olympics in protest. The flight of about 200,000 refugees showed the world how many people wanted to escape communism, and the execution of Nagy in 1958 caused fresh outrage.

The damage to communism's appeal was also important. Thousands of communists in Western Europe left their parties in disgust, including many intellectuals who had previously defended the USSR. Khrushchev's policy of peaceful coexistence, announced earlier that year, now looked hypocritical, and the Thaw was badly damaged. In Hungary itself, the invasion left lasting hatred of Soviet rule, which resurfaced when communism collapsed in 1989.

In conclusion, I largely agree with the statement, but it depends on how gains and losses are measured. In terms of power and security, which the Soviet leaders valued most, the USSR gained more: it kept control of Hungary, preserved the Warsaw Pact and learned that the West would not intervene. In terms of reputation and the appeal of communism, it lost a great deal, and these losses had long-term effects. But in 1956 the Soviet leaders were prepared to pay that price, and from their point of view crushing the uprising achieved what mattered most to them.