The overlapping crises in Hungary and Poland in the autumn of
             1956 posed a severe challenge for the leaders of the Soviet
             Communist Party (CPSU). After a tense standoff with Poland, the
             CPSU Presidium (as the Politburo was then called) decided to
             refrain from military intervention and to seek a political
             compromise. The crisis in Hungary was far less easily defused. For
             a brief moment it appeared that Hungary might be able to break
             away from the Communist bloc, but the Soviet Army put an end to
             all such hopes. Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian revolution, and
             a degree of order returned to the Soviet camp.
             Newly released documents from Russia and Eastern Europe shed
             valuable light on the events of 1956, permitting a much clearer and
             more nuanced understanding of Soviet reactions. This article will
             begin by discussing the way official versions of the 1956 invasion
             changed—and formerly secret documents became available—during
             the late Soviet period and after the Soviet Union disintegrated. It
             will then highlight some of the most important findings from new
             archival sources and memoirs. The article relies especially heavily
             on the so-called Malin notes, which are provided in annotated
             translation below, and on new materials from Eastern Europe. Both
             the article and the documents will show that far-reaching
             modifications are needed in existing Western accounts of the 1956
             OFFICIAL REASSESSMENTS BEFORE AND AFTER 1991
             The advent of glasnost and “new political thinking” in the Soviet
             Union under Mikhail Gorbachev led to sweeping reassessments of
             postwar Soviet ties with Eastern Europe. As early as 1987, an
             unofficial reappraisal began in Moscow of the Soviet-led invasion of
             Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Initially, these reassessments of
             the 1968 crisis did not have Gorbachev’s overt endorsement, but the
             process gained a...