A Testament of Revolution

Rating:
Summary: Gripping eyewitness account of 1956 revolution
Review: Bela Liptak has given us a tremendously valuable account as an eyewitness to, and leading participant in, the Hungarian revolution of 1956. Written in a frequently humorous, conversational style, you can't help but feel as if his younger self, a twenty-year-old student nicknamed "Ocsi", is one of your own good friends. Through Ocsi's eyes, Liptak drives home the reality surrounding historical characters who endure an incredible roller-coaster of emotions, from exhilarating joy to bitter, ultimate sacrifice of lives and hopes in the few short weeks of chaotic revolution against the Soviet occupation.

_Testament to Revolution_ is a fast, gripping read, easily accessible and rewarding to everyone, not just students of Eastern European history and politics. As a political scientist, I was especially gratified to see an account of not just the view of political events from the ground, but also how difficult it was to coordinate mushrooming centers of heroic resistance by all social classes, especially by young students. As a human being, it will be hard for anyone not to be ashamed of the indifference of the West to the tragedy played out throughout Hungary, but especially in Budapest (even after admitting that bipolar confrontation in a nuclear age would have made direct intervention in a Warsaw Pact member exceedingly risky business). If you go to the Buda side of the city today, you can still see bullet and shell marks pocking the walls of buildings around the castle, and get some idea of what Liptak and his fellow revolutionaries faced.

My major criticism concerns the strident and often indefensible nationalist statements interspersed not only in the short introductory "history lesson" but occasionally throughout the text. Sure, the Treaty of Trianon unquestionably punished Hungary harshly after losing WW I. But frequent lamentations about the vast Hungarian regional diaspora with not-so-subtle references of old Hungarian borders extending from the "artificial states" (a frequent phrase) of former Czechoslovakia to Romania to Yugoslavia to the Adriatic coast of present-day Croatia do not win Liptak any great trust or sympathy for his presentation of history. Indeed, this is exactly the kind of barely disguised irredentism that can be and is used to underpin counterproductive and often violent behavior throughout the region, with known tragic consequences. There's no physical, reasonable way to draw the borders of every East European country without leaving ethnic minorities outside the mother country, as is the case with every one, not just Hungary. And statements that Transylvania's Szeklers are today (in 2001!) "...threatened by *systematic* *forced* assimilation" (p. 73, my emphasis) are flat out wrong, not to mention dangerously tendentious when simultaneously glossing over examples of assimilationist behavior of the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 19th century (not mentioned at all).

Still, if you can look past the inflammatory nature of such unnecessary comments from a more analytical point of view, you'll gain a first-hand understanding of how Hungarian nationalism consists of not only understandable patriotic sentiment, such as antipathy to Soviet occupation, but also has its darker sides. And there's no denying that Hungarian patriotism was a mobilizing force with historical importance in the 1956 revolution.

Don't get me wrong; Liptak and his fellow revolutionaries are among my heroes for their tragic sacrifice, and Liptak himself has played an impressive political and organizational role in causes such as fighting the Gabcikovo dam debacle on the Danube (mentioned in passing near the end). If you can overlook the nationalist comments in this book, 1956 will no longer be dusty history. Instead, 1956 will become a vicariously lived memory with moral force for the future, thanks to Liptak.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping eyewitness account of 1956 revolution
Review: Bela Liptak has given us a tremendously valuable account as an eyewitness to, and leading participant in, the Hungarian revolution of 1956. Written in a frequently humorous, conversational style, you can't help but feel as if his younger self, a twenty-year-old student nicknamed "Ocsi", is one of your own good friends. Through Ocsi's eyes, Liptak drives home the reality surrounding historical characters who endure an incredible roller-coaster of emotions, from exhilarating joy to bitter, ultimate sacrifice of lives and hopes in the few short weeks of chaotic revolution against the Soviet occupation.

_Testament to Revolution_ is a fast, gripping read, easily accessible and rewarding to everyone, not just students of Eastern European history and politics. As a political scientist, I was especially gratified to see an account of not just the view of political events from the ground, but also how difficult it was to coordinate mushrooming centers of heroic resistance by all social classes, especially by young students. As a human being, it will be hard for anyone not to be ashamed of the indifference of the West to the tragedy played out throughout Hungary, but especially in Budapest (even after admitting that bipolar confrontation in a nuclear age would have made direct intervention in a Warsaw Pact member exceedingly risky business). If you go to the Buda side of the city today, you can still see bullet and shell marks pocking the walls of buildings around the castle, and get some idea of what Liptak and his fellow revolutionaries faced.

My major criticism concerns the strident and often indefensible nationalist statements interspersed not only in the short introductory "history lesson" but occasionally throughout the text. Sure, the Treaty of Trianon unquestionably punished Hungary harshly after losing WW I. But frequent lamentations about the vast Hungarian regional diaspora with not-so-subtle references of old Hungarian borders extending from the "artificial states" (a frequent phrase) of former Czechoslovakia to Romania to Yugoslavia to the Adriatic coast of present-day Croatia do not win Liptak any great trust or sympathy for his presentation of history. Indeed, this is exactly the kind of barely disguised irredentism that can be and is used to underpin counterproductive and often violent behavior throughout the region, with known tragic consequences. There's no physical, reasonable way to draw the borders of every East European country without leaving ethnic minorities outside the mother country, as is the case with every one, not just Hungary. And statements that Transylvania's Szeklers are today (in 2001!) "...threatened by *systematic* *forced* assimilation" (p. 73, my emphasis) are flat out wrong, not to mention dangerously tendentious when simultaneously glossing over examples of assimilationist behavior of the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 19th century (not mentioned at all).

Still, if you can look past the inflammatory nature of such unnecessary comments from a more analytical point of view, you'll gain a first-hand understanding of how Hungarian nationalism consists of not only understandable patriotic sentiment, such as antipathy to Soviet occupation, but also has its darker sides. And there's no denying that Hungarian patriotism was a mobilizing force with historical importance in the 1956 revolution.

Don't get me wrong; Liptak and his fellow revolutionaries are among my heroes for their tragic sacrifice, and Liptak himself has played an impressive political and organizational role in causes such as fighting the Gabcikovo dam debacle on the Danube (mentioned in passing near the end). If you can overlook the nationalist comments in this book, 1956 will no longer be dusty history. Instead, 1956 will become a vicariously lived memory with moral force for the future, thanks to Liptak.

Rating:
Summary: A much-needed perspective of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Review: I read Liptak's book with particular interest because, based on the first-hand experiences of the eyewitness and the participant, it gives an excellent and authentic insight into the Revolution and events leading up to it. I have had a personal interest because, within my means and circumstances, I was one of the Revolution's chroniclers, if not its participant. As an announcer, then reporter, at the Voice of America, I had often broadcast the speeches and statements of Eisenhower and Dulles, promising that "If you liberate yourselves, we will be with you." With my youthful naiveté and enthusiasm I, too, believed them. I believe it is safe to say that in November 1956, my generation lost its political innocence.

Rating:
Summary: Street fighting men (and women) in 1956
Review: Liptak's memoir compares favorably with Sandor Kopacsi's "In the Name of the Working Class." SK explains his role as the Budapest deputy chief of police who switched sides and aided the rebels; BL offers the view from a student leader's encounters on the pavement below the offices where SK and his counterparts worked to advance the aims of 1956. While SK insists that the revolt was for a purer, worker-dominated type of communism (perhaps akin to an anarcho-syndicalist model) free of Soviet imperialism, this argument dims in BL's account. He gives the points that the students and workers distributed and proclaimed, but the whole question of how the Hungarians' new state would contrast with both the capitalist and the communist systems appears rather muddled in his narrative. Maybe such nuanced planning could not be taken in the heat of the moment, as the Hungarians struggled in a few days to drive out the Soviets.

Where it excels is in simply telling it like it was: the hunger, the generosity, the giddy sleeplessness, the state of his corduroy jacket, the grease-slicked rifle he hoists. You become so caught up in his vivid descriptions that you wonder why so little about this revolution has reached the West in easily accessible form. His footnotes add valuable details about the fate of his fellow revolutionaries and the mental framework of a "typical" young man hearing the demands of the leaders for the first time at the university conveys itself here unforgettably.

As well, the emotion of encountering liberating and opposing troops in the street, the fear of entering the AVH (secret police) headquarters and the shock of what he and his fighters find there, and the sheer amateur heroics coming up against the jolt of a Soviet muzzle at one's neck makes for an honest re-creation of what Liptak and his young fighters encountered as the counter-attacks flattened the idealistic students waiting for NATO to arrive. Liptak, to his credit, narrates all of the conflicting emotions that result once these guerrillas faced the Soviet troops--some in the latter's ranks thought that they faced the Nazis or Israelis on the Suez Canal!

Liptak clearly tells how the Suez crisis overshadowed the Hungarian revolt--and how the Hungarians believed that the West engineered it to distract the world from the revolt. Also, Liptak reminds us of Eisenhower's upcoming election, and why Ike might have wanted to avoid the issue of sending aid to Budapest as he faced re-election.

A couple of points that would have benefitted from more in-depth analysis: first, the role of the CIA in infiltrating the National Student Association and the Hungarian students assisted in their education after they fled to the US is not mentioned. As one who participated in this process, Liptak, given his smarts, either keeps silent out of loyalty or ignores the pressures faced by these students to spy for the CIA as perhaps tangential to his own story. Still, given the importance of this whole event of the 1956 rebellion in Cold War terms, Liptak's silence on this topic surprises me.

Second, the lack of comparative bibliographical references appears to weaken the wider impact of his testimony. Why does BL not mention SK's own memoirs, published about a decde earlier in North America? I'd be interested in what BL thinks about the previous work, and other first-person accounts and third-person studies of 1956 and its aftermath. He does not fit his own detailed account into any broader tradition of such narratives.

Overall, Liptak's account, in its verve and freshness, remains worthwhile reading and I recommend it as one non-fiction book that kept me up late in the night to finish it! Inevitably, all of our own individual accounts rely upon our own limits of evaluation and Liptak does present the tale at its heart as one from "Ocsi," his younger self. But the older self might have stepped into the conclusion and presented how he had changed and evolved in his historical understanding of the events which his younger self helped shape. Maybe a sequel is in order?

Rating:
Summary: Retrospective and engaging personal history
Review: Very engaging, thoughtful and critically reflective personal story about being a major participant in the Hungarian revolution. The book is well written and moves along quickly. What I gained most from the book is an understanding of the emotions, values and personalities of the "revolutionaries." The insights provided could only be done by someone who was there and had to make the choices. And, to understand the context of those choices, the author gives us his perspective on Hungarian history.