Antifa Uprising
What do Stalin, Trump, and Viktor Orbán have in common? They’re all fragile men terrified of truth, artists, and of anyone with a moral compass.
In this week’s Gaslit Nation, we talk with 91-year-old Peter Hidas, who as a young student helped ignite the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, a movement born of courage and faith in a better world. Peter’s story is a testament to what ordinary people can do when they refuse to bow to tyranny.
The revolts that shook the Iron Curtain in 1956 laid the groundwork for the movements that would one day bring down the Soviet empire, to the unforgettable soundtrack of Swan Lake played on repeat on Soviet TV by a collapsing regime. Today, a new generation of brave Russians has reclaimed that symbol: the “Swan Lake Collective” is being played by artists on the streets of Russia, creating a rallying cry “Let the swans dance!” for peace, freedom, and the end of Putin’s Fox News–style dictatorship. Gaslit Nation is here to remind you that Putin’s days are numbered.
This week’s show also celebrates the heroes of the No Kings protests, the Gen Z meme pirates toppling corruption crime sprees pretending to be governments, how Trump and Putin might try to save Orban’s doomed April 2026 election, and more.
So keep marching. Keep creating.That’s how we win.
The song featured in this week’s episode is “Election Day” by The Spiders. Check out their music at thespidersband.com
If you have a song to share on Gaslit Nation, submit it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-d_DWNnDQFYUMXueYcX5ZVsA5t2RN09N8PYUQQ8koq0/edit?ts=5fee07f6&gxids=7628
Join the Gaslit Nation + Sister District Halloween Phonebank this Wednesday at 6pm ET – every phone call to Virginia plants seeds of hope! RSVP here: https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrict/event/847185/
Andrea’s graphic novel In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones won the Ringo Award! Get your signed copy by subscribing to the show at the Producer-level or higher on Patreon.com/Gaslit, starting this week. All active donors at the Producer-level and higher, who help make Gaslit Nation possible, will receive a special thank you gift in early 2026: a signed copy of Andrea’s soon-to-be-released graphic novel Mrs. Orwell.
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Show Notes:
How to Overthrow a Dictator (Featuring the history of Andrea’s father-in-law Mihai Sedaru Barbul) https://sites.libsyn.com/124622/how-to-overthrow-a-dictator
From Epstein’s Chief Accuser, a Memoir Both Sad and Devastating: Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumous “Nobody’s Girl” doesn’t break political news, but might break your heart. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/books/review/virginia-roberts-giuffre-nobodys-girl-memoir.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uk8.Fe6u.LwC3e8hbHgjq&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Videos Show Russian Youths Chant Anti-War Song in St. Petersburg https://www.newsweek.com/videos-russian-youths-chant-anti-war-song-st-petersburg-10883035
Trump says he did not want 'wasted meeting' after plan for Putin talks shelved https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gjp73gp41o
Hungary PM Orbán's advisor in hot water for saying resisting Russia is irresponsible https://www.euronews.com/2024/09/26/hungary-pm-orbans-advisor-in-hot-water-for-saying-resisting-russia-is-irresponsible
What to know about the Trump administration's $20B bailout for Argentina https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administrations-20b-bailout-argentina/story?id=126513232
The Rise of the Inflatable Chicken Resistance https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/opinion/no-kings-protest-chicago-tactical-frivolity.html
Smearing Virginia Giuffre: What New Allegations Against Prince Andrew Reveal About Power and Silence https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/opinion/prince-andrew-virginia-giuffre-smear-campaign-sex-abuse-survivor-social-security-met-police
The Tech Right Gets Its Own Phyllis Schlafly: Katherine Boyle, an influential venture capitalist who is a friend of the vice president, thinks the country’s path forward involves cultural conservatism and more weapons production. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/business/katherine-boyle-andreesen-horowitz-american-dynamism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vE8.7WA9.glWQrABz11-S&smid=url-share
The Contagious Gen Z Uprisings: It’s a good time to start paying attention to the youth-led protests that are spreading around the world and that have toppled governments. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/world/gen-z-revolutions-protests-louvre-heist-gaza.html?unlocked_article_code=1.u08.Yg4j.Swx4JtTHBLbC&smid=url-share
Yekaterinburg Street Musician Detained After Performing in Support of Arrested Band https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/21/yekaterinburg-street-musician-detained-after-performing-in-support-of-arrested-band-a90887
Democratic win in Iowa special election breaks GOP supermajority https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democratic-win-in-iowa-special-election-breaks-gop-supermajority
Trump and Putin's planned summit in Hungary boosts an authoritarian ally https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna238138
Europe Is Answering Putin’s Challenge: Members of the NATO alliance are showing real grit—and, for now, the U.S. is with them. https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/archive/2025/10/nato-putin-trump-europe-ukraine/684592/
CLIP 1: https://bsky.app/profile/courtwing.bsky.social/post/3m3ij7nu23c2f
CLIP 2: https://bsky.app/profile/us-political-news.bsky.social/post/3m3i5tuagec2l
CLIP 3: Springtime for Hitler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovCf9VRLnDY
CLIP 4: https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1978242426461368656
Advertisement (00:00:00):
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Rock Band (00:01:38):
[Singing]
Andrea Chalupa (00:02:22):
Welcome to Gaslit Nation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, the film The Kremlin doesn't want you to see. So be sure to watch it. And I have the exciting news that the Mr. Jones graphic novel In the Shadow of Stalin, The Story of Mr. Jones, a comic book that I produced, scraping together grassroots donations among the Ukrainian community in the US and Canada. We made this book possible in our community. It is the shooting script of Mr. Jones illustrated like a comic, and it includes exclusive essays that captured the spirit that went into making this extremely important film about the Holodomor, Stalin's genocide, famine Ukraine in 1933 that starved to deatht millions of people, the vast majority in Ukraine. Conservative estimates, put the total amount of murdered mass murdered at 4 million. Again, that's conservative estimates and this was a labor of love.
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I cannot even tell you the fire I walk through, not just to get the film made, but also the comic. And I am stunned to say that it won an award. It won an award. I don't really win things, but everyone that participated with this book won an award and I'm so grateful. So grateful to everyone at the Ringo Awards, at the Baltimore comic awarded Mr. Jones best nonfiction comic. This was voted on by peers across the industry and fans, and I'm just so extraordinarily honored and thank you honored to everyone who voted for the Mr. Jones graphic novel in the shadow of Stalin. You have no idea. You have no idea the years, years, years of work that went into this. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, and if you want your signed copy of the award-winning Mr. Jones graphic novel, I'm going to update the producer tier on Patreon.
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If you donate at the producer level or higher, I will mail you a signed copy of the graphic novel for supporting the independent journalism of Gaslit Nation. We were your early warning system. Very early on we stuck our necks out and said, Hey, Trump is a wannabe dictator backed by Russia. He is hijacking, with Russia's very illegal help, our democracy in 2016, like everyone needs to wake up. I've got the hit pieces and the death threats to prove it. I was early and now everybody sounds like me as they should, but stick with us your early warning system because we're not only going to tell you what's going on but how to get out of it. So thank you to everyone who supports our show, our journalism, our independent voice, and keeping us independent all through patreon.com/and you can sign up there to keep our show going.
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It is because of listeners like you that we exist and we can say what needs to be said and fight the fight that is ultimately going to liberate us all. So thank you, thank you, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, the opening song you heard is Election Day by the Spiders just in Time for the creepy crawlies of Halloween. The spiders are led by lead guitarist and Nick DiStefano. Nick has performed all over North America from the Stone Pony in New Jersey to the Troubadour in Los Angeles. He has appeared on MTV in two award-winning videos from his previous bands, faces in The Crowd, and Why Fly To London. He also appeared on two New Jersey WDHA FM compilation CDs that featured groups such as The Smithereens, Glenn Burtnick and Joe Lynn Turner. Nick's Why Fly to London's Just say No EP is still considered a classic.
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The record featured the late great producer and ex-scandal, keyboardist, Benji King, Donnie Beck from the Alice Cooper Band, James Lewis from the Trans Siberian Orchestra and the great Miami Horn section featuring Mark Pender, Stan Harrison, Ed Manion and Mike Spangler. Nick also signed a publishing deal with Grammy Award-winning Valentino music for several of his instrumental recordings. Nick has teamed up with John Henderson on bass and Chris hop on drums and Paula must on vocals all longtime veterans of the New Jersey Club circuit. Check out their website the spiders band.com for the many shows in New Jersey to hear the spiders play near you, Nick is a gaslit nation listener who submitted his song Election Day. If you are a gaslit nation listener with music to share with the world, go to the show notes and submit your music there for a chance to have it played on the show and inspire other listeners in our collective power.
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Thank you. Thank you all who make beautiful music in this time. We need your voices now more than ever. Election day in America is Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, and you may be thinking, do we even have elections? And I promise you we do. Why? Because I've studied dictators for decades. They always cast a larger shadow than they actually have. Dictators thrive on fear and terror to demoralize us. They want you to succumb to that fear that everything is lost, but it's not lost. It's actually a lot of work for them to stay in power to steal elections. Election cycle after election cycle, our vote and voices still matter and the people, as we saw at the overwhelming No Kings protests are defiant. We're building a new American revolution. Once we're done with Trump, our country will look a lot safer, stronger because our collective power and rage is being unleashed.
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Republicans see the signs in every special election since Trump, including the big victory in Iowa that flipped a Trump district and broke the Republican's supermajority. It's our time America at the 250th anniversary coming up next year of the founding of our country, we are exercising the demons of the slave owners who gaslit our country into thinking it was a democracy with equal representation. So say goodbye to the Senate. Say goodbye to Republican gerrymandering of the house. All of that corruption built into the system deliberately by the slave owners was designed to protect the elite and it continues to protect the elite and their corporate masters. We're going to achieve this liberation with every election victory, bringing new talent into the system until everyone is free election after election, like our heroes before us, we may not be alive to see our ultimate victory, but it is there for future generations to go even further than we even dreamed possible.
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So dream big today, fight hard and unleash your defiant light. Join us for the Gaslit Nation Sister District phone bank this Wednesday at 6:00 PM Eastern RSVP in the show notes. It is a Halloween spectacular exercising the demons of this country. One phone call to Virginia at a time. Thank you to all the gas nation listeners who dressed up as unicorns, inflatable chickens, furry, cuddly monsters. Do dancing and yell at the No Kings protest, one of the largest in American history with an estimated 5 to 6 million people. Here's a look at the mood in America today.
Crowd (00:10:47):
[chanting and singing]
Andrea Chalupa (00:11:10):
The protests were global because our resistance to Russian backed fascism and oligarchy is global. Three of some of the largest protests in our nation's history all happened under Donald Trump, the Russian asset in the White House, Volodymyr Zelensky recently had a big White House meeting on Friday to ensure that Trump fulfilled his promises to Ukraine, made before the world at the United Nations General Assembly in September, where Trump said in his speech that Ukraine can win the war. Ukraine can get land back and even get some of Russia's land in the process.
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I mean, what was he referring to? Reparations? Because I would be fine with that. Instead, Putin made one phone call to Trump last week ahead of Trump's meeting with Zelensky and probably threatened Trump with a good time by hinting he could release the Kremlin's own version of the Epstein Files, the Steele Dossier, which has been politicized, but independent analysts who are experts on Russia have scrutinized it as well and said that it holds up.
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The Steele Dossier, of course, was produced by Christopher Steele who used to run the Russia desk for Britain's intelligence. In this document steel and uncovered through his own investigation that the Russians had kompromat on Trump of a sexual nature. We obviously know this is true or else why would Trump through Mike Johnson work so hard to keep the government shut down to block the release of the Epstein files? There is that new member of Congress out of Arizona who needs to be sworn in and Mike Johnson is blocking her and she ran on being the final vote to force a vote in Congress on releasing the Epstein files, which we know names Trump. And obviously that's just what our own American intelligence felt comfortable putting in a report. Whatever's in the Epstein files pales in comparison to the actual crimes carried out by Jeffrey Epstein. The closest thing Trump has to a friend. Pedophiles stick together.
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That's why we don't have these Epstein files yet. And again, it is just the watered down cliff notes of the actual crimes carried out by Epstein's pedophile network that Trump was involved in for several years and there's a lot of photographs and birthday cards and so many things to confirm this as we know, there is a heartbreaking writeup that I'll link to in the show notes on Virginia Giuffre's memoir published after her death by suicide that looks at the powerful men, including a former prime minister. She didn't dare name who repeatedly raped her along with Prince Andrew, who just lost most of his royal titles saved for the one prince. The prince title needs to go as well, and I'll link to that. It is a stunning piece to remind us why we need to keep saying, release the Epstein files, release the Epstein files, and plus this very clearly gets under Trump's skin because he knows that it is just the first shoe to drop.
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It's the gateway to understanding the full scope of the crimes he committed against children. Again, ask yourself this, Trump has gotten away with so many crimes. He's a career criminal. He's a convicted felon. He literally had Rico hit against him in his crime cabal. Rico was invented to take down the mob, the Cosa Nostra, okay? And even Andrew McCabe, who was number two at the FBI under Trump's first term said that when he met with Trump it was like meeting with a mob boss. So Trump has gotten away with organized crime. Our White House has been taken over by organized crime. Why would he be so terrified of releasing the Epstein files? Ask yourself that there is something that Trump did that he knows would be a deal breaker, that would wake up his own zombie base. There's something that deeply that he fears, and so that's why we need to keep hammering on about this.
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Gaslit Nation is running an Epstein Trump super special soon. It is a damning investigation bringing together all the threads of Trump and Epstein. It's already in the works and we're just putting the finishing touches on it now, and so we're going to be releasing it in the coming weeks. I will let you know when that is out. I'm very excited for that. And thank you to the Gaslit Nation team who has helped put that together.
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Alright, so guess who else needs to worry about elections? Fox News hero Victor Orban, who has destroyed quality of life in Hungary, leading to a spike in poverty and an escalating brain drain, all while enriching himself and his family and their cronies by pillaging state resources for themselves. He faces his most serious threat yet by a united opposition in Hungary. Parliamentary elections will be held in Hungary this coming April, 2026 to determine a new prime minister so it will be springtime for Orban.
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Trump's super shady phone call with Putin. Trump then offered Zelensky a meeting with Trump and Putin in Hungary, which is basically Russian soil. Hungary abuses its power in the EU by regularly blocking aid for Ukraine and EU membership to the point of the EU threatening to withhold funding that Hungary relies on. Zelensky, who has been the target of several assassination attempts, including against his own family, agreed to go to Hungary for this meeting, which seems extremely dangerous given how much Putin hates him and sees his removal from power as essential to stealing Ukraine. Why would they offer up Hungary? This is a powerflex by Putin to appear again with his bear on a chain. The Kremlin's longtime asset Trump, whose family even said depended on years on dirty Russian money including being laundered through their many properties. Several people close to Trump over the years from Felix Sader to Paul Manafort of course Epstein also depended on dirty Russian money.
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There's a reason why Paul Manafort managed Trump's campaign for free to fulfill a debt he owed to a major Russian oligarch, close to Putin Oleg Deripaska. And if Deripaska didn't kill Manafort for essentially stealing millions from him and a shady investment deal gone wrong, it's because they both knew Manafort was more valuable to the Kremlin alive as a Kremlin cutout in the West, further pollinating Russian corruption by buying off Republicans across industries, including the NRA. So why Hungary, Putin and Trump showing up in Hungary? That's a desperate attempt obviously as well to help Orban in his own upcoming election by showing strength. And there's also a risk that Trump and Putin might try to buy the election by announcing a bailout for Hungary like the one Trump just gave Latino MAGA Javier Milei in Argentina. Elon Musk based his disastrous DOGE mass purge on Milei's own disastrous mass purge, even appearing on stage with him with a chainsaw.
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Those DOGE-like purges contributed to Argentina's economic crisis, which the US is now bailing out. So who's going to bail out the US when DOGE's mass purging shows up in our own country as rampant unemployment and economic disaster? Russia, Saudi Arabia. So that's the end game. Look at what Milei did to Argentina. Look at what Orban did to Hungary. It's massive, massive theft and the people rising up in fury. That is where things are headed here America. And that's why Trump and his family should get ready to make an escape plan to Russia when the people have had enough here at home and they're having enough already. And we're barely in the first year.
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On this week's gas lineation. We have a special guest to inspire us by bringing history to life. It's also a reminder that young people have power to shape the world, as we're seeing in the Gen Z protests all over the world right now, toppling governments. Obviously it's not the job of young people to save us. It's everyone's job to show up and fight for each other to flex our collective power.
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But young people carry the superpower of seeing the world with fresh eyes and demanding there must be a better way. That's the story of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, which was just one of several revolts behind the Iron Curtain. So while Martin Luther King Jr. was making global headlines by coming on the scene with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, 1956 on the other side of the planet, all across the Iron Curtain, you had revolt after revolt. So the world was rising up, the youth were rising up in 1955, 1956 Europe who's now the leading defender against Russia. While the White House is under Russian occupation. Nearly half of Europe was once under Russian occupation itself. Churchill and Stalin made a devil's bargain over a drunken lunch in Moscow at the end of World War II, where Churchill agreed to let Stalin have half of Europe, which only prolonged suffering and genocide where occupied countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia and what was then East Germany and had their leading thinkers, their artists, their teachers, their professors, tightly controlled, arrested, disappeared, driven to suicide. Russian language which pushed on people coerced as the patriotic language to show loyalty to the regime in Moscow.
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The Soviet Union was just a gaslighting term for the Russian Empire. Anyone who tells you otherwise is whitewashing generations of Russian genocide against captive nations. And it's a reminder of what will happen to the Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation and why we have to commit to leaving no one behind. Now, 1956, brave students and workers rose up most aggressively in Hungary starting on October 23rd, 1956 with a poem. When those students started marching, what began as just a peaceful protest led to students taking over radio stations and hanging Soviet soldiers and secret police collaborators in the streets after weeks of bloody battles. Kruschev ,who had promised to end the totalitarian cult of Stalin and do things differently, instead pulled a Stalin by sending a thousand tanks to Hungary to crush the uprising. I recently met a Polish woman who remembered seeing the tanks roll through Poland when she was a little girl.
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I asked her where the tanks came from. She said, where do you think from Russia? They came from Russia crossing the Polish border from Ukraine. And that's exactly what Putin, who admires Stalin, who brought back the cult of Stalin, will do if we the anti-fascists, lovingly known as Antifa, don't stop him. That same youth-versus-empire energy is happening today. Protests by Gen Z are growing in Morocco, in Indonesia, the Philippines, Kenya, Peru, toppling governments in Nepal and Madagascar. They're flying a pirate flag known as the straw hat Jolly Roger from the popular Japanese manga and anime series One Piece. Just to capture the spirit of Gen Z today, protest sign in Nepal said, corruption is suss stop ghosting democracy. The young people and the workers who shook the Iron Curtain in 1956 laid the groundwork for bringing down the Soviet Empire three decades later.
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It's proof that even so-called failed resistance movements plant the ground for successful ones. We will win. It is just a matter of time. Revolts are contagious. That's also the lesson of 1956. The Hungarian uprising was just one of several revolts that shook the iron curtain. As one revolt led to another, there were student and worker led uprisings in Poland, Czechoslovakia, my father-in-law, as I talked about on a recent episode out that I'll link to in the show notes, my father-in-law is on Wikipedia for trying to get one started in Romania, the most Stalinist of the regimes. In this special interview, you're going to hear from Peter Hidas, a Hungarian man now in his nineties in Canada, who was there in Hungary 69 years ago as a Hungarian law student in Budapest. He shares his eyewitness account. The Hungarian uprising is considered sacred in Hungary today where last year Oran's political director caused an uproar by claiming Zelensky should never have resisted Russia, just like Hungarian should never have resisted Soviet rule.
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Last week in Russia, an 18-year-old singer by the name of Diana Loganova was arrested along with her band mates in Stoptime for months of singing protest songs on the streets of St. Petersburg, earning the attention of the Tucker Carlson's and Sean Hannity's on Russian State TV. One of their most popular songs was the Resistance Anthem Swan Lake Cooperative by exiled Russian rapper, Noize MC, whose lyrics call out Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the complicit silence of the Russian people. He released the song in 2022 in reaction to Russia's full scale invasion. The lyrics go like this: I want to talk to you, but the TV is blaring. It's pretending to be your head. Its speaker is like your mouth. I want to watch the ballet. Let the swans dance.
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That last line is an obvious reference for Russians especially to Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake, which was broadcast on Russian State TV repeatedly during the successive deaths of their geriatric leaders in the 1980s.
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And again in 1991 during the fall of the Soviet Union. I want to just underline that point. Kremlin TV just shoved Swan Lake on a repeat loop, okay? Just played Swan Lake on repeat every time there was a succession crisis. And when there was the final breakdown of the system itself, they're like put on Swan Lake that will reassure everyone, just play it nonstop to soothe the nerves. And now Swan Lake is a siren call an anthem for bringing down the regime itself. Let the swans dance is a rallying cry among morally driven Russians calling for the death of Putin in the fall of his regime. So if you look at these songs, these viral clips of these Russians, brave Russians sinking, you'll see floods of comments saying in Russian, let the swans dance. Let the swans dance. So at the next No Kings protest, consider dressing up as a giant inflatable swan. What happened following the arrests of the band Stoptime. The same thing that happens throughout the history of resistance. More Russian artists took to the streets across the country to keep singing resistance songs. That's why tyrants fear artists. And that's why our Antifa uprising against Trump and Putin, as we saw in No Kings Day, will continue to be an art festival. Our creativity, our inner light power, unleashing our special brand of weird. That is how we win. And now here's Stoptime playing Swan Lake Cooperative. Let the Swans Dance.
Stoptime (00:28:55):
[singing]
(00:29:14):
What inspired you to join the Hungarian Revolution? What was that like in October, 1956?
Peter Hidas (00:29:23):
To begin with, I didn't know there is going to be a revolution. It was talk for three years from 1963, 1953-56. For three years we were talking, talking at the university at the Petőfi Circle, which was a discussion group for graduates of universities. And we tried to change the world around us. We didn't want to eliminate the regime, but we wanted to eliminate Stalinism, the dictatorship, the very crude dictatorship that was run by the Hungarian government from 1948 to 1953. And the spring came in 1953, Stalin died and there was hope that this will be a humane socialist country. And we worked on that for three years. Every week the paper, the Literary Gazette, came out, which was full of enlightened ideas of humanistic behavior of the police. And the young people waited on the street for the appearance of the paper and we are reading it on.
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And so there was a new prime minister, Imre Nagy, and we were very enthusiastic about his ideas. He was advocating the proper treatment of the farmers and many other reforms. But the problem was that the party, the Hungarian Communist Party, remained in the hand of the old dictator, Mátyás Rákosi. We were working in one direction, the government was working in another direction, there was a meeting for law students. We had a discussion about the law, how good the law should be. And then somebody brought up the question of Rákosi, the Hungarian dictator, what should be done? What should be done? And I stood up at the back and I said, nothing should be done. Let the courts decide. He should stand in front of the court. And then I stayed quiet. Nothing happened, but things did not change that much. There were two boys at the residence of students who came from the countryside.
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They were farmer boys, the children of Hungarian farmer. One of them said this Rákosi is a real jerk. He's a terrible character, very conservative communist student. Reported these two boys, he were arrested and we were commanded to go to the trial of these two boys and they were sentenced to three years prison. And then the Soviet leadership decided to ease up the situation. They got rid of Rákosi, the old dictator and put somebody else in charge. And as a matter of fact, there was a big funeral in the summer of 1956, the re burial of the communist who were accused way, way back of being Titoists and executed by the communist government. And now they were mea culpa. We were sorry that happened. And we were reburied and they were old heroes again. One of them was Laslow Wright. And so at the funeral, I was at the funeral and we were watching the communist leaders making speeches and some of us were yelling, not them, not them, we don't want to hear them. But nothing happened. We were not touched. Then came October, there were news from things were happening in Poland and we were excited about it. Maybe changes is going to come.
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The workers were rebelling. And we also heard news from the communist leaders of Italy who were talking about reform, communists changes, humane treatment of everybody. And we love to hear that. On the 22nd of October at my university, the law faculty, there was a meeting that we should go and have a demonstration the next day. And most people were in favor of it. One of my colleagues stood up and says, you guys are crazy. Blood is going to flow on the street if we do that. And everybody said, you are stupid. What are you talking about? Blood on the street. We just want to demonstrate. We just want to tell the world that we want a wonderful Hungary, a wonderful socialist Hungary, a Hungarian Hungary. In any case, it was voted that we are going to demonstrate.
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I was 22 years old and I was in my last year of law faculty. I was supposed to become a lawyer. So we went on the street and we started to march and we marched at first to the statue of Petofi, the hero of Hungarians from 1848. And at his statue, an actor stood up and started to recall his famous poem, which starts like on your feet Hungarians, the time is now or never. And we were very excited about it. Then we just moved on to the main street of Budapest in the direction of Margaret Bridge. And as we were marching, people were singing and there were police on the sidewalks. But the girls from the group sometimes jumped out, went to them and stuck on the policemen, the kokarda, the Hungarian symbol, the red, white, and green, and smiled at them and kissed them. And then came back to the line. And we marched on. We marched on and we crossed the Margaret Bridge and we stood in front of a Polish hero statue General Bem. We were standing there, there was a place, a building where Hungarian soldiers were staying. And at one point the window opened on the top of that building, the flag came out, a soldier pushed out the flag. And what was strange about the Hungarian track that the center of it was empty because in the center was the symbol of the Hungarian state, but that symbol was exactly the same as the symbol on the Soviet flag. And that was the message. We want Hungary, we want socialist Hungary, but not Soviet Hungary.
Andrea Chalupa (00:37:24):
Did you see Soviet Hungary as a Russian occupation?
Peter Hidas (00:37:29):
It was the occupation by the red Army since 1945, and we considered it the occupation of a foreign power. Soviet Union is not bringing us a good life. They are turning us into a colony where we are to imitate everything they do, whether it's good or bad or whether we like it or not. It was my feeling that if that wouldn't have happened, if they would have treated us with respect and not as a colony, then there would have been a much more sympathetic people for the new ideas that the Soviet regime brought to us. So I felt that from their point of view, they made a mess and we stood in front of the Parliament, waiting, waiting, and everybody was yelling, where is Imre Nagy? Where is Imre Nagy? We want to hear him. Imre Nagy was the prime minister of Hungary at the time of following the death of Stalin, and he was supposed to be a reformed socialist minister.
(00:38:45):
We were waiting and then it was dark, nothing happened, and suddenly some trucks arrived and we were boys on and they said, we are going to the radio. We are going to the radio. We hopped on the truck and it was driving in the direction of Brody Sandor Street where the radio was located, but before we got there, we drove in front of a large building on top of it, there was a red star and some of the young boys, teenagers started to yell down with the red star down with the red star. Bring it down, bring it down. We stopped in front, very close to the radio station, and I got off and walked into the street and it was crowded and somebody was distributing the demands of the students, the 16 points, and we were demanding that it should be read in the radio and the radio station should invite Imre Nagy and ask him to make a speech.
(00:40:01):
The problem was that the door to the radio station was closed and in front of it there was a sound truck. People said, let's go into the radio. So a whole bunch of boys surrounded the truck and pushed it against the door. And the door opened. The door opened, and we held the papers and climbed over the truck. And in front of me there were about 12-16 secret police soldiers with machine guns, machine pistols. I was really scared, I have to tell you. I was very, very scared. And so what I did, well, I'm not going to get shot here. So I moved to the side. There was a corridor there. We started in the corridor and ran there and we looked out on the window and there were soldiers. Officers were standing around and they said, what do you want? What do you want?
(00:41:02):
We are very peaceful people. We just want this piece of paper. We want to give it to the director of the radio. Would you let us do that? No, no, no. Okay, okay, come. Then the officer marches upstairs, closed the door on us in the room, said, wait a minute. I was worried of being a good boy and a young boy. There was a phone in the room. What did I do? I called mother, don't worry mother, I'm here. Everything is okay. Soon after that, we were told that there is trouble on the street and they demand that they let us go. And so the radio sports sportscaster was there and they asked is anybody would join this gentleman and tell the crown downstairs that we are okay? I said, okay, I'm coming. And I joined the gentleman. We went to the balcony and looked down and there was nobody there. There was just gas. And the crowd was far away to the left, and in front of them were the policemen. A few hours later, an army tank came and joined the uprising who were now armed, the students and the workers.
(00:42:33):
The army was told soldiers were told to come and help the people at the radio. Now the soldiers came and they stood in front of the National Museum and they were just standing there doing nothing. And the boys from the factories and whoever joined them went up to the soldiers and said, what are you doing here? Why don't you just give us your guns and go home? They did it. They gave the guns to the boys. And this was the beginning of the big shooting on the part of the revolutionaries of, I went to the main street and I saw the streetcar on fire. Suddenly a Hungarian tank arrived and people said, traitors, traitors. And they were throwing things in front of the tank and the driver of the tank stood up. He says, you stupid bastards, what are you doing? We are coming to help the siege of the radio.
(00:43:36):
Very good. Glory. Glory. And they went and they continued and eventually the radio was taken. Suddenly armed vehicles arrived. But the armed vehicles were Soviet armored armored vehicles, but they were open on the top. Some of the boys went up to the top of the skyscraper, about eight level roof. They went up and from above, they were shooting into the armored vehicles. The Red Army was not at all prepared for what was happening at this point. So I was there. They were shooting up and I was hiding under the table because some of the bullets came into the apartment where I was staying. And that was the beginning. And then we saw people marching to the parliament. I went to the university, to the law school, and there was a meeting, what to do now. And there were different parties already. There was the Farmer's Party, the Social Democratic Party, and people were talking joining to this and that.
(00:45:01):
So then we were invited to go to the police headquarters, the police switched side. We were given big containers and what was in the containers? Guns, guns, submachine guns, Tommy guns. We opened them. It's just terrible. It was all grease. We spent a half a day cleaning them. But now at the end of the day, we were armed, we were armed, and we went back to my school. I had a Tommy gun on me. We were banging our guns. We heard that in the center of the city, they are hanging people. There was a rebellion going. And we said, we can't allow that. We should go and restore order. But they said, well, maybe it's okay. We don't know exactly what is happening. And so we stayed put, we were armed, and then people came in and telling us that the secret police is hiding next door.
(00:46:13):
We should go and arrest them. And I said, well, let's take a look. What's going on? We went upstairs, knocked on the door. The little boy came that he wouldn't let us in. I said, look boy, you have to cut it in. No, I said, so, okay. I had to break the window. I reached in, I went inside. And there we did find a guy. He was a secret policeman, a radio guy. He said, oh, okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'm just a radio guy. I didn't do anything. I said, well, you better come with us otherwise you're going to hang you downstairs. Downstairs. People started, no, no, no, no, no. We are going to hang him. We are going to hang him. This is a bad, bad man. I said, no, you're not. We are going to take him to the police and they will decide what to do.
(00:47:02):
So we protected the man and escorted him across on the bridge and took him to the police station, dumped him and left. Went back to the university. The days were going by, we heard news here. The revolution was going on and on and came the last days of the revolution. There was a new government. There is going to be a new world, a new government, everybody free. I decided to go home. So I was going home. And on the way a group of people stopped me, you are having a yellow pair of shoes on. I said, so what? And you have a jacket, you must be a communist. I said, no, I'm no communist. And they started to hit me. I was very upset. He said, where is your proof? I said, I don't have any papers on me. I forgot. They started to hit me.
(00:48:16):
They were getting ready to lynch me. And by that time, a patrol came and the one who was leading the patrol was a classmate. I said, for God sake, get me out of here. Meanwhile, the crowd was getting bigger and bigger and we were marching towards the Margaret Bridge on the Danube. I said, okay boys, that's enough for me. It's time for me to go home. And that was just a day before the Russians came in and defeated the revolution on the of November, 1956. And at this point, I decided I going to get into trouble for arresting people carrying gun. The Russians are coming back, the communist party is coming back. I'll be in big trouble. I better move on. And I decided to leave the country. One morning I said goodbye to my parents and my sister took me to the railway station. I got on the train and took the train in the direction of Austria.
(00:49:34):
We came to a station. Police was lining up, raiding and arresting people. I didn't want to be arrested. I got off on the backside of the train. I ran forward and I got on the front of the train, the engine. I climbed up on the engine. I was ducking there. The train went on. We did arrive in the border. I managed to get off, except we didn't quite know where we were. I was alone. And some of the people were some friends. And then suddenly the police arrived, the soldiers arrived, the secret police. And we were arrested and taken to a camp near the border. There was a Russian tank in the middle of it, and soldiers were there. And I went to the soldiers, Hey boys, what are you doing here? Well, we are the border guard. How about helping me to get out of this place?
(00:50:40):
Are you crazy? You get us into trouble? I said, no, nobody's going to get into trouble. Just help me to get out of this place. Okay, come to the border. Get the border tonight and we'll help you. And I did climbed out and outside. I was waiting for these boys to help me, but none of them showed up. I was afraid there was wind blowing. I thought the tanks are coming. It's just the wind was nothing else. And I had started in one direction and I ended up on a farm. The farmer helped me, says this way to Austria, my daughter is going there, she'll help you. And I walked towards the border and suddenly I saw a guy on a hill walking up and down. He's yelling at me. It's okay. Okay. Austria. Austria. I knew I was in Austria. That was the beginning of a new life. And I haven't seen Hungary after that for many, many years until the new communist government issued an amnesty and allowed the fears to visit Hungary. By that time, they hanged many of the boys who participated in the revolution for a visit.
Andrea Chalupa (00:52:12):
What was the role of women in the Revolution where there's a famous photo of a young woman holding a rifle in the Hungarian uprising?
Peter Hidas (00:52:22):
Women participated. They carried guns. They were equal. The communist taught us that men and women are the same. They didn't practice it because the Parliament had very few women.
Andrea Chalupa (00:52:42):
What do you think is the legacy of the Hungarian uprising today?
Peter Hidas (00:52:46):
The legacy is that if you want to obtain the sympathy of people, you want to vote for them. You want to adopt their ideas. You have to treat them well. You have to treat them with respect. And you have to remember their tradition. You have to learn their history and don't offend their pride and their family and their tradition. Whether it is life in the temple, in a church, in a synagogue, whatever it is, you have to respect people. If you respect people and you treat them properly, they will listen to you. This is a lesson I think if they want to be in the arms of the people, if they want to be loved by the people, they have to love the people. You have to do that to all people because there's only one race in this world, and there's the human race. And if we remember that, we will also succeed in being happy in our lives.
Andrea Chalupa (00:54:01):
What do you think of Victor Orban and how pro Moscow Victor Orban is? Doesn't that seem like a betrayal of the Hungarian uprising?
Peter Hidas (00:54:09):
He is an illegitimate dictator of Hungary. He's determined to keep power for himself, his relatives, and his friends. He has only one love, and that's himself.
Rock Band (00:55:05):
[singing]
Andrea Chalupa (00:57:57):
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(00:58:20):
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