Russia at war 1941-1945

permission from the Yugoslav Committee of National Liberation to enter Yugoslav

territory. On October 4 it was announced that the Russian and Yugoslav armies had

joined forces in an unspecified town in the Danube valley.

On October 20, Tolbukhin's troops and Tito's Yugoslavs entered Belgrade together

amidst great popular rejoicing.

On the same day Malinovsky's troops took Debrecen in eastern Hungary, but the Russian advance in Hungary, though rapid at first, was then slowed down by veiry stiff German and Hungarian resistance, especially as the Russians approached Budapest in November.

The Germans had, by then, foiled Horthy's attempt to "do a King Michael on them", and Hitler and Salasi, the Hungarian Fascist leader, decided at their meeting early in

December, to hold Budapest "at any price". Although, officially, the Germans expressed their confidence in being able to hold Budapest, it was known that many of its industries were now being evacuated to Austria.

It took some time to set up at least the nucleus of a "democratic régime" in Russian-occupied Hungary. It was not till December 20 that it was announced that a Hungarian Provisional National Assembly had been formed at Debrecen, "the citadel of Hungarian Freedom—that Debrecen where Kossuth raised the flag of independence in 1849".

On the following day the Soviet press announced:

At the beginning of December, under the chairmanship of Dr Vasary, the mayor of

Debrecen, a group was formed of representatives of the different Hungarian parties.

In the liberated territory the election of delegates to the Provisional National

Assembly took place between December 13 and 20. 230 delegates were elected,

representing the democratic parties, the town and village councils and the trade and peasant unions... The Assembly opened with the playing of the Hungarian National

Anthem. The meeting was held in the Reformation College where, in 1849, Kossuth

proclaimed the independence of Hungary...

An Address to the Hungarian People was adopted which said:

It is time to make peace. Salasi is an usurper... We call upon the Hungarian people to rally to the banners of Kossuth and Rakoszi and to follow in the footsteps of the Honweds [volunteer militia] of 1848. We want a democratic Hungary. We guarantee

the inviolability of private property as the basis of our social and economic order.

We want Land Reform... Turn your arms against the German oppressors and help

the Red Army... for the good of a Free and Democratic Hungary!

Two days later a Provisional Hungarian Government was formed; no Communist leaders

were included in it—it would have been premature when a large part of Hungary,

including Budapest, was still in German hands. The premier was General Miklos; the

other ministers included a peasant leader, Ferenc Erdei, Janos Göngös, Count Gesa

Teleki, and General Janos Veres, the Minister of Defence, a Horthy man, who had been Hungarian chief of staff since April 1944, was then arrested by the Germans, but

managed to escape.

This assortment of back-the-winner Hungarian gentlemen were not to stay long at the

head of affairs. "Kossuth" was a convenient symbol, but did not mean much. Nor did Rakoszy. It was the other Rakosi who was waiting for the signal to enter the stage.

It was also in the eventful autumn of 1944 that in "independent" Slovakia a great rising took place against the Germans by Slovak partisans, supported by Red Army units and by part of the Slovak Army. In the end, the rising was crushed by strong German forces that were rushed to Slovakia, though some partisans escaped to the mountains. Although, at the time, there was a virtual news blackout about the whole tragic business, there was later to be much recrimination, on the part of the Russians, both against the "dubious"

and "half-hearted" rôle played in the rising by the Slovak Army and by the Czechoslovak Government in London which had not given the insurrection sufficient encouragement.