Hungarian Tragedy and Other Writings on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

by Peter Fryer

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: History, Hungary, Politics, Nonfiction, Journalism

208 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[R. Reddebrek · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important first hand account of the Hungarian Revolution. Peter Fryer was a journalist for the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the British Communist Party. Because of that he was one of a handful of Westerners allowed into the country by the Soviet occupation as they expected his writings to support their line.

It did not, what he saw and described was a genuine movement by Hungarian workers to build factory councils and resist police and military repression. This book was so influential that Fryer would be fired as a journalist and expelled from the party for publishing it.

[Kenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up hoping to learn about a local hero but instead found a pretty confused mess of paranoia, almost cult-like devotion, and a fondness for Russia that must have been dubious then and has aged terribly a century on.

[hannah carberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

learnt a lot from this book. and i’m glad the book was surprisingly easy to read

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/frye...

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Fryer went to Hungary as a reporter for the British 'Daily Worker' to cover the "reactionary uprising" taking place there in 1956. He found some reactionaries, but mostly he saw what looked to him (correctly) like soviets--workers councils! He was expelled from the Communist Party for his writings on Hungary, which he put together as a pamphlet, 'Hungarian Tragedy,' This is a book, including that pamphlet, and other material which I haven't read. (I had simply downloaded the pamphlet in PDF format). Fryer joined the British Trotskyist movement for a time but had trouble with Gerry Healy (which I tend to view as being to Fryer's credit). The Hungarian Revolution came close to causing a split in the British, US, Canadian, and other Stalinist parties. To a large extent the Stalinists were able to win back those who they had briefly lost, but this was a sign of the disintegration of world Stalinism, which would continue....

Other essential books include History of the Russian Revolution and The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?.