1956 is a year that the Hungarian people will never forget even though it represents one of the most tragic defeats in their history.
When World War Two ended, the Russians claimed to "liberate" Hungary from Nazi rule. Instead, they cut a path across the country raping, killing, and stealing from the defeated Hungarians. Once in power, they proved every bit as ruthless as the Nazis, taking Hungary's natural resources for "Mother Russia" and leaving the Hungarian people impoverished. Religion was prohibited, and children were encouraged to inform on any parent who dared mention God in a positive light. The Hungarian people were severely punished for the slightest disobedience, sometimes arrested and tortured for the slightest criticism against Russia. Because the Hungarians have always loved to read, write, debate, and commiserate, this loss of their freedom of speech was perhaps the cruelest punishment of all!
Then in 1956, eleven years into this tyranny, something within the Hungarian psyche snapped, and they hoped against great odds to take back control of their land. So strong was their hope that it united every faction of society--students, philosophers, workers, soldiers, youth and even Hungarian Communists! Like people entering the same room from different doors, each faction was surprised to find others who had arrived at the same conclusion. It was time to fight!
What they lacked in resources and organization, the Hungarians made up for in courage and ingenuity. Using hand weapons and home-made gas bombs they fought against the well-equipped Russian Army. But ultimately Russian tanks and guns crushed them into submission, and hundreds of freedom fighters lost their lives or fled across the Austrian border to safety.
Hungarians escaping across the border
James Michener was at the border to interview those escaping, and he wrote about it in his book The Bridge at Andau. He concluded that Hungary had exposed "the great Russian lie": Communism had promised to distribute the wealth of Hungary fairly among the Hungarian people. Instead, according to one Hungarian Communist who turned into a '56 revolutionary, their Russian rulers were merely "an organization of gangsters" who banded together to use the people and resources of Hungary for their personal benefit.
Michener was right about the great Russian lie, but there is one lie of communism that is even more deadly than the one the 1956 Revolution exposed. This lie began in the Garden of Eden, deceived mankind in the time of Noah, and nailed Christ to the cross before communist philosopher Karl Marx embraced it. It is the lie of atheism--the lie that God is not good, that God is not the Creator, that God does not exist and that man is on his own. This lie is at the heart of communism, and it is the worst deception of all.
Just like the gutsy '56 freedom fighters, there were Hungarian men and women who stood against this lie at great expense to their freedom and comfort. During the forty years of Communist oppression, Hungarian Christians lost jobs and houses, spent time in prison, and sometimes died in their fight against this lie.
When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1989, the Hungarians gained freedom to commemorate the '56 revolution, and they do so publicly and enthusiastically every October 23rd. But even greater than that freedom is the freedom Hungarians now have to hear about Christ and tell others about the freedom He offers.
Communism left its scars on the Hungarian people just as it did on every people and nation it oppressed. But the greatest scars were left by the communist lies about God, and the greatest heroes are those who suffered silently to fight that lie. Many of them died without anyone knowing except their LORD, but He celebrates their victory daily!
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