October 23, 1956: Counter-revolutionary uprising in Hungary backed by Western imperialism. The Soviet Union was forced to intervene to prevent the overthrow of socialism.

Top photo: Lynching of a communist in Budapest.

2: Body of executed Party member outside Communist Party headquarters.

3 & 4: Fascists burn Marxist books.

Bottom: Soviet tanks arrive to put down the contras in early November.

“The 20th Congress (1956) of the Soviet Communist Party ushered in a new period of reaction, which revived the remnants of the old ruling classes in Eastern Europe as well as the neo-bourgeois restorationist elements in the Soviet Union. This Congress, among whose leaders was Nikita Khrushchev, took advantage of the grave and serious errors made by Stalin during many years and ushered in a new period of revisionism in nearly all fields of Soviet life.

“This soon found an echo in the newly established Peoples’ governments in Eastern Europe where remnants of the older ruling class still maintained a clandestine existence and were constantly nourished by their strong economic and social connections with the Western bourgeoisie. The counter-revolutionary uprisings in 1956 in Hungary and Poland were the logical outcome of the reactionary impetus given by the 20th Congress.”

- Sam Marcy, Czechoslovakia 1968: The Class Character of the Events