gathered in different parts of Budapest. Then the demonstrators moved to the Bem Memorial. At first, the procession consisted overwhelmingly of young people and students, and these were joined by women, school students and small groups of workers. During the march, speakers repeatedly indicated that they were acting in solidarity with the Polish protesters. At the end of the demonstration, the masses did not disperse but streamed into Parliament Square and decided to send a delegation to the broadcasters’ headquarters, in order to get their demands read over the radio. Another group went to the City Park and tore down the Stalin Memorial. In the city centre, all traffic had ceased. In the meantime, the mass of the demonstration marched to the broadcasters’ headquarters, in front of whichworking people is a horror to all parties from right to left. There was no plundering, no murder, and little mob justice. The uprising was the spontaneous high point of a long development. The rapidity with which the rulers’ power structures, its party, its army and its bureaucratic apparatus crumbled, and its ideology dissolved into pieces, can only be traced back to the reality of the revolutionary uprising.

In the morning of 24 October a revolutionary council composed of workers and students emerged in Budapest. But, on the orders of the Hungarian government, Russian tanks had advanced into the centres of the uprising. There was intense fighting. On 25 October, revolutionary councils had established themselves across the country. A national council of free unions had emerged. Its demands were:

Political:

The