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The Parliament Square Massacre, also known as the Kossuth Square Massacre, Kossuth tér Massacre, or Bloody Thursday, was an armed attack by elements of the Communist Hungarian secret police force, the State Protection Authority (ÁVH), on an unarmed crowd of demonstrating civilians during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. It took place on Thursday, October 25, 1956 in Kossuth tér, the large square facing the Hungarian Parliament Building, and was perpetrated by ÁVH snipers atop the Ministry of Agriculture and other adjacent buildings and Soviet troops in the square.

The massacre, the bloodiest atrocity of the Hungarian Revolution and once of the bloodiest in postwar Europe [cite], galvanized support for the Revolution among ordinary Hungarians. It

Background
On October 23, 1956, a massive popular uprising broke out in Hungary against the country’s Soviet-backed Communist regime. After members of the ÁVH secret police fired on unarmed demonstrators in Budapest—and the latter began to fire back with weapons provided by the Hungarian army and regular police—the government of Ernő Gerő had called in Soviet troops, and a full-scale uprising began. However, in the early days of the rising the Soviet Army was not fully engaged in combat against the revolutionaries; the wrath of the latter was largely focused on the ÁVH, and many Soviet soldiers even showed sympathy for the demonstrators. Appeals were even made by protesting students and workers to the Soviet troops not to shoot, and the two groups were often seen fraternizing with each other.

At the same time, Ernő Gerő, the General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party, was under great pressure. He was widely loathed by the Hungarian public at large as a symbol of the repression they had experienced, and his recalcitrant rejection of the revolution's demands only added to their fury [cite]. His own Soviet superiors had begun to doubt his governing abilities, and many had become disillusioned with him.

The massacre
Around noon on October 25, a crowd of around 3,000 protesters began to move towards Parliament Square to join them, with many riding there on Soviet tanks displaying Hungarian flags. They joined a crowd of another 5,000 people which had already formed in the square, which had been the site of earlier protests in the previous few days. The protesters carried slogans calling for Ernő Gerő's dismissal from the government, the firing of other Stalinist hardliners, and another public speech by Prime Minister Imre Nagy. Soon, around 20,000 people were gathered in the square; despite martial law being in effect and demonstrations being banned, most of the protesters were not worried and the demonstration was allowed to continue for around half an hour. An ÁVH officer ordered the crowd to disperse, but was ignored. Unbeknownst to the demonstrators, a group of secret policemen had been stationed on the rooftop of the nearby Ministry of Agriculture building to control the crowd.

Accounts differ as to what happened next. According to British journalist Noel Barber, who was in Budapest at the time, the ÁVH opened fire suddenly and without warning at the crowd, killing hundreds. Some shots, either on purpose or by accident, hit the Soviet troops in the square, who returned fire and silenced the ÁVH guns. But many of said soldiers, believing that they had been led into a trap by the protesters, also opened fire and added to the massacre.

According to then-Budapest police chief Sándor Kopácsi, ---

Other firsthand accounts state that the Soviet troops were the first to open fire, as many of the victims were of shellfire and other weaponry the ÁVH did not have access to.

Estimates for the casualties of the massacre vary by source. According to the 1957 UN report of the events, between 300 and 800 were acounted as dead, and the British Embassy reported twelve truckloads of corpses being carried from the square. http://www.hungarianreview.com/print/20140115_bloody_thursday_1956_the_anatomy_of_the_kossuth_square_massacre (Mention Kádár regime lies about 22 killed)

Aftermath
The massacre was the bloodiest atrocity of the Hungarian Revolution, and indeed one of the bloodiest in postwar Europe. In its aftermath, thousands of young Hungarians flocked to the revolutionary bannder, galvanized in their support of the uprising by the atrocity. ---

Research into the massacre was suppressed for decades by the Kádár regime, which maintained the line that only 22 people had died and that it had been the "counter-revolutionaries" who opened fire first.

In postwar Hungary
After Soviet armies expelled Nazi German forces from Hungary in early 1945, Moscow decided to hold free elections in that country hoping that the local Hungarian Communist Party would win them. However, the general elections in November 1945 resulted in an overwhelming victory for the non-Communist Independent Smallholders' Party, which won a whopping 57% of the vote and 245 out of 409 Parliamentary seats. The Social Democratic Party of Hungary won 17.4% while the Communists won 17%.

The Communists set out to reverse this defeat by all possible means, with Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi declaring that the defeat would not impact their plans at all. They set up a Supreme Economic Council soon after the elections which had the power to sidestep the elected government itself. All parties had pledged to continue the coalition arrangement set up at the end of the war, but with the support of the Allied Control Commission in Hungary—dominated there by the Soviet Union—the Communists demanded key seats in the new government. These included the Deputy Premiership which went to Rákosi and the Interior Ministry which went to the Communists Imre Nagy and then László Rajk, giving the Communist Party control over the country's police forces. The Smallholder's Party leader Zoltán Tildy became Prime Minister of a cabinet in which his party held half the ministries, but the roots of a "people's democracy" had already been planted.

In February 1946, Hungary was formally proclaimed a republic, and Tildy became President while his ally Ferenc Nagy succeeded him as Prime Minister of the same cabinet. The Communists immediately set out to win total control of the government. On 5 March 1946, they formed a "Left-Wing Bloc" with the Social Democrats and National Peasant Party, which took the opposite position of the majority Smallholder's on every issue and caused a series of coalition crises intended to weaken the non-Communists. With the open backing of their Soviet sponsors, the Hungarian Communists began demanding the removal of ostensibly "reactionary" members of the Smallholders' Party from the coalition. Under extreme pressure, the Smallholder's Party leaders capitulated before most of these demands, soon losing their absolute majority in Parliament as a result. Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy believed that by doing so, he could put Hungary a in a better positions vis-à-vis the Soviets for the upcoming peace conference, as the Hungarian Communists would thus be able to negotiate better terms with Moscow in exchange for their domestic demands. The Hungarian government was hoping for some—however minor—revision of the country's borders as established at the Treaty of Trianon. This policy was a failure, as the Soviets and other Allies had no intention of any border changes for Hungary.

On 17 July 1946, there was a mysterious attack on Soviet troops in central Budapest, officially blamed on a member of the Catholic Scouts Association. The Communists used this as an excuse to systematically dismantle all independent civic institutions, including youth and religious groups.

This is a list of members of the unicameral National Assembly of Hungary according to the results of the elections of 1945. This was the first legislature in Hungary's history to be freely and fairly elected by full and universal suffrage, and would be the last such parliament until 1990.

At the opening of Parliament
List of members of the National Assembly of Hungary, 1945–1947

List of members
Members and their parties upon the opening of Parliament, 29 November 1945. Independent Smallholders' Party

Hungarian Communist Party

National Peasant Party

Social Democratic Party

Civic Democratic Party

Independents

Source (in Hungarian): [https://library.hungaricana.hu/en/view/OGYK_LKKH_1946/?pg=56&layout=s Az 1945. november 29-ére összehívott nemzetgyűlés képviselőinek lakáskönyve (1946. január)]

Category:Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Category:Massacres in Hungary Category:Hungarian People's Republic Category:Protests in Hungary Category:Conflicts in 1956 Category:Mass murder in 1956 Category:1950s in Budapest Category:October 1956 events