The destruction of the Stalin Statue on Dozsa Gyorgy Street. The demonstrators felled it during the night

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Next day, broken up (Stalin Statue), it was dragged through the streets

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Eventually they stuck a Hungarian flag into what remained of them on the plinth

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

After the first attempts by authorities to combat the uprising, the demonstrators became freedom-fighters. Men, women and children banded together to fight the Soviet tanks and armour. Many of the children had been taught the basic skills of guerilla warfare by Soviet instructors. The lessons proved to have been well learned. Armed by the Hungarian military the citizens fought the Soviet tanks street by street.
The young and the old collaborated in blocking Soviet tank movements using building materials, oil, grease and even soapsuds in the attempt to halt the tanks in their tracks so they could be destroyed by petrol bombs and their crews picked off by sniper fire as they tried to escape.

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Immediately freedom-fighters seized control of Soviet armour they painted it with the Kossuth arms and flew the Hungarian flag with the Soviet star removed. Hungarian armoured troops join the freedom-fighters with their vehicle garlanded in autumn flowers.

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

The government Radio Station after the assault during the first night of fighting

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Soviet tanks were abandoned and used to block the streets.

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Russian dead in the line of Soviet duty.

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The mood of melancholy outside the Kilian Barracks where Maleter had the detachments of the Army sympathetic to the freedom-fighters

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John Sadovy’s portraits of freedom-fighters show some bemused, some triumphant in the moment of what seemed a people’s victory for a future based at last upon justice and decency.

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Poised in the aftermath of apparent victory, unaware they had been deserted by Western powers adventuring in the Middle East, the freedom fighters wandered the streets of the city they felt, at last, was theirs.

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Foodstuff was brought into beleaguered Budapest.

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London

Forrás: Weidenfeld and Nicolson London