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One thing that rarely gets mentioned in relation to the revolution of '56 is the Warsaw Pact and Hungary's place in the organization. In 53 with Stalin's death and Khrushchev emergence meant some changing - in tiny steps - in Soviet politics, and their lackeys in Hungary had to practice self-criticism. In place of the Stalinist dictator, Rákosi Mátyás, Nagy Imre was placed who changed focus from the forced industrialization to the immediate needs of the population. But a year later with the threat of rearmament of Western Germany and her integration into the NATO the reigns - held in Moscow - tightened again, and now Nagy found himself as a target that he let the country onto the road of dangerous rightist deviations, instead of preserving the peace with the enhancement of armament production. There was the question of Austria and her becoming neutral in the near future, when Red Army units have to leave the country. The ones stationed here were here because they had to secure the supply lines to the ones in Austria. If those leave, "ours" will lose the reason why they are here. It will be so nice to finally not be occupied. But in late '54 Moscow gently nudged Czechoslovakia and us, to initiate a conference to discuss the matter of the safety of the Eastern Block, where the matter of setting up a new defense treaty can be discussed. After about half a year of preparation the Warsaw Pact was set up finally. By that time Nagy was out of office, and Rákosi was back in. Forced armament was restarted - they agreed on setting up an army in the size of 470 000 soldiers -, and after the leaders of country and the Hungarian People's Army expressed their fears that Hungary is defenceless without the protection of the great Red Army, an Air Army (actually one air division) and a mechanized infantry division from Austria was settled beside the already present mech. inf. division. Our role in the Warsaw Pact wasn't that big, but might have been strategically important(-ish). First we had to establish an airbase for Soviet bombers which could target objectives in Southern Germany, Italy and Africa from there. During a war games they also simulated an offensive in the direction of Zagreb, Ljubljana and Trieste, which suggests our troops would have participated opening up a way to the Adria and toward Italy (at least in the plans of '55, later probably everything changed). I have to interject here and note that during another joint army exercise the imagined situation was that the westerners would start with the aggression, using nuclear and chemical weapons as well, and the forces of the Eastern Block would disarm the attack and response with a counterattack, also with nuclear and chemical weapons beside the conventional ones. The containment of the entering enemy would happened in operational depth (not at the front), then would came the encirclement and their destruction. But by the second half of '56, winds changed again, a thaw came in international politics, talks started between the US and the SU, armament and the army became less important again - the number of enlisted was determined in 115 000 men. Was that a promise of freedom again? Maybe. People could interpret it as such. But the reality was the Soviet Union couldn't let out of the line (or - Marx's forbid! - leave) one of the members of her Warsaw Pact just one year after of its formation.