ABSTRACT
There is a tendency among professional and non-professional interpreters of the Hungarian revolution to simplify matters with regard to its meaning. Some call it a ‘simple matter’ of restoring national freedom, a ‘national revolution’; others an equally ‘simple matter’ of restoring political liberties, a ‘liberal revolution’. But the two concepts are not, and never have been, co-extensive, and this ‘simple matter’ is somewhat more involved. There is a third interpretation, the simplest of all. Cardinal Mindszenty, in a speech broadcast on the evening of 3 November, radically denied the revolutionary character of the events. (Apart from its arch-conservatism, the speech was notable for its being perhaps the most monumental blunder in the histories of modern revolutions in that it provided inexhaustible material for the enemy - in this case, for the Soviet and pro-Soviet propaganda.) For Mindszenty, it was a ‘fight for freedom’. Though it is of course true, and understandably so, that for the genuinely restorative and conservative forces the term ‘revolution’ was unacceptable in any sense, given that the overwhelming majority of the population unhesitatingly termed the events ‘revolutionary’ we are still left with a problem, and one that is far from being of a purely semantic nature.
