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"Tell the Youths." In the next three days a battle of position was fought. Travelers racing out of Hungary (passport control had lapsed, and some border crossings were wide open for the first time in nine years) reported "the people taking more control." Radio Budapest talked of "a state of siege" and appealed for "protection from hunger." While shooting was going on in one street, people queued for bread in another. Leaflets appeared. They reiterated the 16 demands, signed by "the new Provisional Revolutionary Hungarian Government and National Committee of Defense." Rebel troops now wore red, white and green armbands. Teen-age girl revolutionaries joined in skirmishes.
In a radio speech Nagy promised talks with the Soviet Union "on a basis of complete equality," and promised a reform government with "widest possible national and democratic" elements. Kadar said there would be a "deepening of democratization." Pleaded Radio Budapest: "Tell the youth we have a new leadership. All the new party secretaries are in prison under Rakosi. Tell the youths there is no danger." Rumors flashed through Hungary that the Russians were forcing Nagy at pistol point to make his announcements, that he had been arrested and the Russian army command (set up at the battered Astoria Hotel) was in sole charge of Budapest.
True or not, the Russians were getting tough. Soviet tanks fired on all moving objects, and Soviet soldiers were executing Hungarian soldiers and civilian rebels in the streets. Reported a Swiss businessman: "Today, as I left Budapest, I saw people hanging in rows along the Danube pier. I counted 20 executed people hanging from flagpoles and street lights. It was terrible. The Russians have started a horror regime."
The rebels retaliated by hanging Soviet soldiers. Roaming bands of rebels outside Budapest drove back Soviet units, set up roadblocks and cleared a corridor toward Vienna. The tide of battle was turning towards the provinces, and the faint voice of "freedom stations" was heard calling for a general strike throughout the country. An independent Hungarian government was reported to have been set up at Gyor (pop. 66,000), an industrial town 66 miles west of Budapest. At Pecs (pop. 87,000) in the south one rebel radio station was heard broadcasting military orders, indicating that a sizable part of the Hungarian army had gone over to the rebels. Miskolc (pop. 136,000), near the Czech border, Hungary's second most important industrial center, fell to the rebels at week's end. At the village of Magyarovar, 15 miles from the Austrian border, security police shot 75 people, wounded 200 others, when local farmers showed resistance. The village was relieved by rebel forces led by a rebel commander who described himself as "the colonel." The rebel commander told foreign correspondents that "national councils" were in control of large areas of western, southern and northern Hungary and were planning a march on Budapest, where they would fight "only the Russians."