nicknicknicknick reviewed Failed Illusions by Charles Gati
Review of 'Failed Illusions' on Goodreads
3 stars
''At that time, neither the Hungarian nor the Soviet leaders agreed with Nagy's analysis. They certainly did not heed his advice. They failed to appreciate Nagy's wisdom, and they failed to recognize the centrality of his position in and out of power#-and they kept making one critical error after another. The Kremlin's first mistake was to install Nagy in June 1953, without compelling the Hungarian party to back him. The Kremlin's second mistake was to dismiss Nagy in early 1955 and return power to a group of Stalinists that offered no remedies for this increasingly unsteady and tense country's growing problems. The Kremlin's third mistake was to leave him free in 1955-56 and let him be seen, and thus make him appear to be, an alternative to Rákosi and his acolytes.
By supporting then droppying Nagy, the Soviet leaders awakened Hungary's intellectual elite and united it against Stalinism, paving the …
''At that time, neither the Hungarian nor the Soviet leaders agreed with Nagy's analysis. They certainly did not heed his advice. They failed to appreciate Nagy's wisdom, and they failed to recognize the centrality of his position in and out of power#-and they kept making one critical error after another. The Kremlin's first mistake was to install Nagy in June 1953, without compelling the Hungarian party to back him. The Kremlin's second mistake was to dismiss Nagy in early 1955 and return power to a group of Stalinists that offered no remedies for this increasingly unsteady and tense country's growing problems. The Kremlin's third mistake was to leave him free in 1955-56 and let him be seen, and thus make him appear to be, an alternative to Rákosi and his acolytes.
By supporting then droppying Nagy, the Soviet leaders awakened Hungary's intellectual elite and united it against Stalinism, paving the way for a furious challenge to the Soviet empire. By stifling within-system reform, the Kremlin made revolution all but inevitable; by removing Nagy from power, the Kremlin made him the coming revolt's only conceivable, if altogether unlikely, inadvertent, and#-sad to say#-ill-equipped leader.''
