ABSTRACT
The elections were ‘open’ in Hungary; a man stood in front of a committee and gave his vote, and torture followed if he voted against the government. The revolution abolished the monarchy, the barons, the landowners and capitalism as a whole. One of Hungary’s greatest poets, Petofi, led the nation into revolution against the Austrian tyrants in 1848, and although his physical life came to an early end, his words remained on the record for generations as a source of inspiration to others against other tyrants at other times. Unfortunately, however, an abnormal society can make man helpless to the point when resistance of any kind becomes impossible. The Russians had overwhelming odds in numbers and in arms, but their soldiers had lived too long in their garrisons in Hungary; they fought half-heartedly, and quite a number of them surrendered with a grin. Some even began to fight on the side of the revolutionaries.
