<P> The revolt began as a student demonstration, which attracted thousands as they marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building, calling out on the streets using a van with loudspeakers . A student delegation, entering the radio building to try to broadcast the students' demands, was detained . When the delegation's release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police (ÁVH) from within the building . One student died and was wrapped in a flag and held above the crowd . This was the start of the revolution . As the news spread, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital . </P> <P> The revolt spread quickly across Hungary and the government collapsed . Thousands organised into militias, battling the ÁVH and Soviet troops . Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were often executed or imprisoned and former political prisoners were released and armed . Radical impromptu workers' councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and demanded political changes . A new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, and pledged to re-establish free elections . By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return . </P> <P> After announcing a willingness to negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Politburo changed its mind and moved to crush the revolution . On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country . The Hungarian resistance continued until 10 November . Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees . Mass arrests and denunciations continued for months thereafter . By January 1957, the new Soviet - installed government had suppressed all public opposition . These Soviet actions, while strengthening control over the Eastern Bloc, alienated many Western Marxists, leading to splits and / or considerable losses of membership for communist parties in capitalist states . </P> <P> Public discussion about this revolution was suppressed in Hungary for more than 30 years . Since the thaw of the 1980s, it has been a subject of intense study and debate . At the inauguration of the Third Hungarian Republic in 1989, 23 October was declared a national holiday . </P>

How many hungarians were killed in 1956 by soviet forces