THE HUNGARIAN UPRISING: NOW
October 25, 2022 -Durt Fibo

This week is the beginning. It is the beginning of the anniversary of the bloody 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet domination of the country. The uprising was nation-wide and ended with Soviet tanks overrunning the country, the streets, and human beings, leaving around 22,500 Hungarians dead and wounded after less than 3 weeks of battling. By an interesting historical coincidence, many of the Soviet soldiers had been told that they were being sent to East Germany to fight German fascists.

This week the anniversary very unofficially commenced with an estimated 80,000 demonstrators filling Budapest, calling for livable wages for teachers and a rational and non-corrupt economic plan to stave off the nation’s ruin. There were also ample banners reiterating the old cry “Russians Go Home” and the more immediate slogan: “Orbán get lost”

The anti-government sentiment began nominally in support of underpaid teachers and deliberately starved school budgets, but ignited a virtually endless list of frustrations against the beyond-extreme-right government of President Viktor Orbán, who has erected his governmental power on judicial, cultural, class, ethnic, religious and other repressions which even disgusted his oldest senior adviser enough to quit in July after Orbán gave a “pure Nazi speech, worthy of Goebbels” (Zsuzsa Hegedüs).

Orbán, and his ruling Fidesz party have spent 22 years antagonizing the European Union with (per the EU) their river of human right abuses, diversion of EU funds to cronies, and dramatically supporting Vladimir Putin, all of which continues to this day. Keep your eyes on Hungary to see if this anniversary comes bearing a gift for that nation’s people.