In 1956 Nagy became leader of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet-backed government, for which he was sentenced to death and executed two years later. Nagy was a committed communist from soon after the Russian Revolution, and through the 1920s he engaged in underground party activity in Hungary.
What reforms did Nagy introduce?
Nagy's reforms included:
- free elections to choose a democratic government;
- an impartial legal system to ensure fair trials;
- the total withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary;
- farmers to be allowed private ownership of their land (instead of it being state owned);
What did the Hungarian freedom fighters do?
The freedom fighters' most effective tactic was the “decoy and ambush,” in which a decoy team of two or three Hungarians fired small arms at a Soviet tank to attract the crew's attention and then “fled” down an alley or side street to lure the pursuing tank into a predetermined “kill zone.” An ambush team then threw ...
