16 pont · 1956

Sixteen Points (1956)

16개조

A sixteen-point list of demands drafted on October 22, 1956 by students of the Budapest University of Technology and adopted the next day as the programme of the demonstration that launched the Hungarian Revolution. The points demanded withdrawal of Soviet troops, a new government under Imre Nagy, the purging of the Rákosi-era leadership, secret-ballot multi-party elections, freedom of the press and radio, removal of the Stalin statue, recognition of March 15 as a national holiday, and solidarity with Poland's democratisation movement. The demands did not call for banning the Communist Party or abolishing socialism, but the demand for free elections presupposed an end to one-party rule.

Related people

Imre Nagy Mátyás Rákosi

Related historical events

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (EN) full text of the sixteen points and account of their drafting on October 22, 1956
  2. Wikipedia (RU) Russian-language article noting Király Béla called it the actual programme of the revolution, spread 'like wildfire'
  3. hu.wikipedia.org Hungarian article tracing the first draft to the Szeged MEFESZ on October 20 and confirming multiple variant versions (10, 11, 14, 16, 17 points)
  4. americanhungarianfederation.org full sixteen-point text in English with context on the Bem statue reading and the Radio Budapest confrontation
  5. docs.historyrussia.org Russian academic collection (ROSSPEN, 1998) cataloguing '16 пунктов' as a document of the 1956 Hungarian crisis
  6. origins.osu.edu Ohio State University historical overview contextualizing the Sixteen Points within the revolution
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