Why Soviet Tanks Rolled into Budapest

Khrushchev's Secret Speech to the Twentieth Party Congress initiated a drastic campaign of destalinization throughout the Soviet bloc. With respect to foreign relations, destalinization led to a policy of detente and peaceful coexistence both with the West and the satellite states. According to Khrushchev, no longer would the Soviet Union be the violent puppeteer of Eastern Europe. This new policy was exemplified in Poland in the summer and autumn of 1956. There, in the face of anti-Soviet rebellions and reform minded government, Khrushchev chose to negotiate and compromise rather than to send troops. Throughout Eastern Europe and the world, the peaceful conclusion to the Polish crisis of 1956 spread hope that a new era in Soviet foreign policy had dawned.