Most of us in the United States 65 years old or older watched the Soviet Union invade Hungary in 1956. The fifteen year old above was barely older than we were. The scenes from this invasion became the first and still very rare live television coverage of war in history. From this invasion came our understanding of public demonstrations, and from them came many of our future demonstrations.
Would we have had public demonstrations in the 1960s without the example of the Hungarians, many young students, fighting against tanks with their hands, small arms, and Molotov cocktails? In scenes repeated for the next four decades, we have seen demonstrations and far worse in Indonesia, China, and many other countries which had a strong base from students.
Yet, the reality is that our own demonstrations and the many others did not have the impact of that first daily black and white series of transmissions from Hungary. Without this, the Soviet Union would have saved the world untold trillions of dollars and millions of lives lost in a Cold War no one could ever win.
Putin never saw the brilliant flash of freedom in Hungary. Soviet television may have showed snippets. But the propaganda certainly told a different story. Besides, he was about four years old at the time.
But the hard-liners who still populate the former Soviet Union have not forgotten. To them, the Russian empire was saved by Soviet might. That first glimmer of freedom let to thirty years of extreme repression by Russia and its sick form of communism that inspired the first "people led" government in history.
Those of us who watched those brave demonstrators, children ourselves, who had enured war as an end and objective for our entire lives, realized that the breaking point was Hungary. It proved to us in vivid images of bravery and thuggery that the evil empire existed in the Soviet Union.
Putin seeks a return to the glory days of military occupation and hard-line repression. The Russian "parliament,"as most news agencies call it, the ex-KGB and other Soviet puppets who put Putin into power told him to use force in Ukraine. They are from the same group that ordered Hungary invaded in 1956, ushering in decades of repression.
Make no mistake. There is no difference between the Russia of the late 1800's, under Stalin and today. They reign by terror, although it is more repressed today. And, perhaps worse, the former employees of the apparatus that kept the Soviet Union in line are now in control. The KGB, from which Putin and many others come, was a terrorist organization from the time of its founding, seeking to broaden fear and terror to such an extent that people spoke against their brother and sisters rather than face the basements of torture or the cold of Siberia. Putin and his fraternity, for there were few if any women, ran the occupied countries through terror and torture. He is a thug, as are his fellow Russians.
We have a perfect storm with Ukraine. A chance to remind everyone of Hungary, which Russia still considers its Soviet zenith. And an opportunity to stop the continuing erosion of the Soviet empire and its "sphere of influence."
Our president is a man who finds political expediency outweighs judgment, and that his intellect allows him to achieve great ends without experience or much thought. He is currently having his heavy lifting done by his National Security Adviser Susan Rice, a woman who can lie repeatedly to the American public about what did not occur in Benghazi, and a woman who is so undiplomatic she says "F--- the EU." Our team surely will do the right thing!
As far as Putin is concerned, it is a given that at least Crimea is gone. Will he cross the isthmus, and invade Ukraine? Perhaps.
If that does not make you scared, what will?
The key to Hungary was that Eisenhower was in charge. He had no trust at all in the military industrial complex, and no appetite for war.
Can we say the same about Obama, with his acts of war in several countries, escalation of the Afghanistan war, and many bellicose Republicans?
Let's hope so.
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