love your nieghbor is one teaching the christians always teaches to many people. I agree with this. I dont believe the ends justifies the means. As the world progress even though each and every civilize people and others are different,many believes a relationship or agreement is always done with conversation like diplomatic relationship with other countries. I am not an expert in world affairs nor I am an expert in military strategy.I always believe if we (all countries) communicate, understand and agree with each other, then every nation may be, by god willing be at peace.

Masha Lipman's comment would have been best left at the title she chose : Pragmatism Trumps Idealism.

The premise that the Hungarian Revolution of October 1956 was in large part provoked by Khrushchev's anti-Stalin speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, in the spring of 1956,when he went as far as to denounce some of Stalin's "mistakes", is wrong on at least two counts :

First, the Hungarians had many reasons closer to their hearts, indeed their welfare and existence, to revolt against the Soviet-installed Communist regime and the Soviet Army occupation, than Khrushchev's lamentable speech.
No surprises in that speech for Hungarians; they had known the Soviet scourge, as all other people of the "Socialist" family did.

Second, Khrushchev's speech was simply a political ploy to ensure his supremacy in the blody machinery of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, by starting yet another of their famous purges. I think the Hungarians did not much care one way or another who the Soviet dictator was. They abhorred Communism and the Soviet atrocities of the occupation, as did all the other populations of the so called "liberated" countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

And that brings me to this outrageous statement in Ms Lipman's commentary :
""It should also be remembered that as the liberator from Nazism, the Soviet Union had a lot of sympathizers in the countries of Europe.""

Nothing could be further from the truth as far as countries of Eastern and Central Europe is concerned. These countries had been trampled over, pilaged and raped by the Soviet Army on their way to Berlin, yet again robbed when the Soviet Army returned en masse from Berlin and stripped the "liberated" countries of factories, any little food left from the first "liberation", and took many innocent men and women away to Soviet labor camps.

These countries, next, were enslaved by the occupying forces left behind, and "the Iron Curtain descended over Europe", thanks to the Yalta Agreement, and to the great astonishment of American and British meddlers who trusted uncle Joe in dividing European spheres of influence.

Perhaps Ms Lipman was thinking of European countries who were not on the glorious Soviet Army's path in their fight agains the other plague, Nazism, soon to be replaced in the occupied countries by Communism.
Yes, some fools in France, Italy and elsewhere were sympathizers. How all of the "liberated" populations of the satellite
countries would have loved to see them live under the Soviet heel for a change!
Hungarians were just one of those populations. They had had enough by 1956!

Tired of waiting for the Anglo-Americans to reverse the errors of the Yalta Agreement, they took what matters they could into their own hands, revolted, hoped for help from the free world as they heard the big talk on Radio Free Europe, had a free government for a short time and paid the price for their thirst for freedom in blood, more prison for those captured and
the humiliation of the emigration camps for those who escaped.

But they tried to do something about their freedom before any help from outside. Never expected the gift of it, only perhaps a little support from the community of nations to which they appealed.

To their credit, I think they did not actually expect America to send in troops. Not after eleven years from the betrayal of Yalta!

Nor did they go to pieces after the revolution was crushed. They adjusted to the new Communist government, made veiled, later open fun at it, chipped away at the
Iron Curtain from within until the time was right for ALL peoples of the Eastern and Central Europe to shed the Communist oppressors.

And, by God, that's what they have done for themselves: Freedom and Democracy the way it should be gained. Not given, bestowed or imposed, but earned!

Above all, not propped up by any foreign army, nor fought against by any fanatical insurgency.

Proud of what they have done, yet not showing off the purple fingers after casting their first free votes in many years, sometimes still voting for some old guard Communists hiding under a less conspicuous political umbrella, but doing that of their OWN FREE WILL in a DEMOCRACY that is of THEIR MAKING!

This year the Hungarians will commemorate their failed revolution of fifty years ago.
Let us resolve to honor those who died, went to prison or into exile during the October 1956 Revolution in Hungary.
Let us also remember the truth of their
success in finding Freedom and Democracy, as did all the other peoples previously under the Communist regimes, thirty some years after that!

So why then, I ask, belittle that truth by drawing a parallel with Iraq's case?
The only reasonable parallel is that in
Hungary's case there was absolutely no liberation as a result of the Soviet and
Anglo-American victory in WW2, while in Iraq's case there is hardly any liberation as a result of American and British invasion and occupation.
In either case there was not and there is not a political result that could reasonably be called DEMOCRACY, and most certainly not FREEDOM, with occupiers forcing their version of democracy and freedom down peoples' throats.

As for the capital difference I will try to repeat what I said in my response to the original question a few days ago:
-That an intervention in the Hungarian revolt would have been senseless, since the Yalta Agreement lost Hungary to the USSR.
-That the Hungarian people would have well deserved it to get help.
-That the Hungarian people did something by and for themselves, inspite of their predicament with an occupying Soviet army and their own KGB-style police on their backs.
-That freedom and democracy are best left up to those who may desire them, to gain by their own effort, as the history of the fall of Communism has recently enough proven.

I should think this will suffice to address the new context of the old question.

Any other comparison between the American ill-advised intervention in the tribal affairs of Iraq to "spread democracy", on one hand, and the Hungarian Revolution --when intervention would have been welcomed indeed, although not practical--
as well as the subsequent long lasting effort of all peoples from the satellite countries to free themselves, any such even attempt to a comparison, is a disgrace.

Excellent! Glad to hear the view of a Russian.

One must also consider that conventional warfare for the US against the USSR was equally adhorant to Nuclear war. The USSR was a land based nation, America is a sea based nation. The USSR had an army with tanks the likes of which the United States had no way to counter.

Nobody knows what if. However, any wider war in Hungry would have destroyed lots of Hungry, and possibly have lead to a full scale, an unwanted, direct confrontation between the two superpowers.

Ike had just been through one world war, and had just stopped Korea. In addition, there was trouble at the time in the Suez, with both superpowers making their weight felt. Ike probably did the right thing.