Hungary, 1956 — palace coup
Event Summary
In July 1956, Matyas Rakosi, the hardline Stalinist leader who had ruled Hungary since 1948, was forced to resign as first secretary of the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party under pressure from the Soviet leadership. After Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech denouncing Stalin earlier that year, Rakosi's association with mass purges and a discredited personality cult made his position untenable, and Moscow removed him partly as a gesture to reconcile with Yugoslavia's Tito, whom Rakosi had antagonized. He announced his resignation to the Central Committee on July 18, citing his health, and was replaced by his equally hardline deputy Erno Gero.
Rakosi left for exile in the Soviet Union and never returned to Hungary. His removal, and the failure of the Gero leadership to satisfy public demands, helped set the stage for the Hungarian Revolution that erupted three months later.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
31007151956
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Matyas Rakosi, first secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party (forced to resign, exiled to the USSR).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; exiled. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
Chicago Daily Tribune
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →