Almost each social group has its own myth about 1956. By using archive sources, the author attempts revealing social roots of the revolution and showing reasons why working masses turned against the policy of the regime. The merit of the study is analysing the internal structure of the working class and showing that different reasons motivated commuters and city workers, older skilled workers and the young ones on the periphery. The broad dissatisfaction of people in the Rákosi regime (also) stemmed from the misery of the working class. Thus satisfying their material needs substantially contributed to the relatively rapid consolidation of the following Kádár regime.

The author summarises and analyses historical lessons from the 1956 workers councils. He shows that present-day falsifications and silence about the history of workers councils is related to the fact that the councils set up in factories and on the shop-floor aimed transforming state ownership to social ownership also rejecting the restoration of capitalism and fought against attempts bringing back private ownership.

Historians still debate why and how the soviet military intervention happened in Hungary in 1956, which suppressed the uprising. Based on records of the meetings of CPSU Central Committee in the autumn of 1956, the author reconstructs top-level party decisions made concerning the soviet military intervention.

In 1956, Fulgencio Batista, who enjoyed the backing of the US, has condemned the soviet intervention in Hungary. Dictator of Venezuela Pérez Jimenez and his counterpart in Dominica Rafael Leonidas Trujillo have offered generous help to emigrants regarded by them as freedom fighters and revolutionists. Even Anna Kéthly objected that the Hungarian emigration maintains links with the Franco regime.

Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt by Charles Gati