Speech After the Signing of the Soviet-Hungarian Treaty at a Reception in the Kremlin, February 20, 1948

Source: Tom 18

We have always striven to create good-neighborly relations with Hungary, regardless of what system prevailed there. You probably remember that several months before the war, the Soviet and Hungarian governments exchanged greetings. At the same time, we returned to Hungary those banners that had been seized as trophies by tsarist troops in 1848. But the Hungarian government declared war on the Soviet Union not long afterward. We were attacked, and we could not do anything other than defend ourselves. Near Voronezh we came face to face with Hungarian army corps.

Our policy toward Hungary was not guided by feelings of vengeance and hostility. Feelings of vengeance and hostility are generally not a basis for politics. Foreign policy must be built on reality. When the turning point came during the war, when the star of the Germans began to fade, the then head of Hungary, Horthy, requested an armistice from us. We granted this request. If we had been guided by feelings of vengeance and hostility toward Hungary, we would not have accommodated this request.

We are not guilty before Hungary. Tsarist Russia was guilty. The Russian tsar in 1848 helped the Habsburg monarchy suppress the Hungarian revolution. We remember this. But we bear no responsibility, for we shot the last tsar in 1918 in the Urals, and thereby put an end to the old system.

Now we speak of friendship between the Soviet Union and Hungary. And this word "friendship" is not an empty phrase, not propaganda!

What is the reason that small peoples treat the Soviet Union and its policy with trust?

The reason lies, above all, in the ideology of our state, the foundations of which were laid by Lenin. Every nation, large and small, has certain qualities peculiar to it alone; every nation makes its own contribution to the enrichment of humanity's common wealth. In every nation there is something that neither the Russians, nor the Ukrainians, nor any other people possess. In the Soviet Union there are nations that had already begun to die out but have now been revived and have received from us, for example, even an alphabet.

If we did not treat small peoples with respect, if we did not honor their rights and national independence, if we interfered in the internal affairs of small states, we would be contradicting our own ideology. Can we do this? No! If we did this, we would be sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

Long live the friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union and the people of the democratic Hungarian Republic!