1956 was one of the most turbulent years in the post-war era. Over a period of 12 months, the world witnessed the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Budapest uprising, the Poznan revolt, the Suez affair and the Algerian war among other events. The Melbourne Olympics between 22 November and 8 December were not left unscathed.
It was the first Olympiad to be staged in the southern hemisphere. The Melbourne Games also marked the moment when the 'Third World' emerged onto the international stage.
With decolonisation of many countries, the number of National Olympic Committees increased rapidly.
Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the Melbourne Games offered a glimpse of the new world order and the ideal stage to highlight the confrontation between the two superpowers, with the "neutral" Third World countries on the sidelines, attempting to put on a show of independence from the two blocs.
For the Soviet Union, taking part in the Olympic Games for the second time, Melbourne was the perfect opportunity to show the world the omnipotence of the socialist bloc.
Something new
Although Melbourne is often cited as the first Olympiad to be marked by a boycott, non-participation in the Games as a means of sending a political message is as old as the modern Olympics movement.
Pierre, baron de Coubertin, who was born in Paris on 1 January 1863 as Pierre de Frédy, was a French educator who played a central role in the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, after nearly 1,500 years.
But even at its rebirth back in 1896, Turkey and the Ottoman Empire boycotted the Athens Games in response to hostilities with Greece.
However, in 1956, the number and range of the political boycotts were unprecedented. A revealing fact in this respect is that it was the developing countries that took the initiative and organised the first boycotts.
Another major characteristic of the period was the rapid introduction of televised coverage of the games. The Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy in January 1956 are often regarded as the beginning of the era of televised Olympics.
But in October 1956, two hotspots on the other side of the globe were attracting the particular attention of the international community. The first was Egypt and the nationalisation of the Suez Canal which had been the brainchild of the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps a century earlier.
The second was Hungary and the student revolt against the country's control by the Soviet Union.
The Suez affair
On 27 July, 1956 the then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Egyptian government had decided to nationalise the Suez Canal company and to use the income from the canal of an estimated $100m a year to build the Aswan dam.
France, the largest shareholder in the Suez Canal after the United Kingdom, was outraged by the decision. It entered a secret deal - known as the Sèvres agreements - between France, the United Kingdom and Israel that anticipated an intervention in Egypt.
Paris also suspected Nasser of adding fuel to the flames of the war of independence in Algeria after it captured a ship full of arms - the Athos – just off the Algerian coast, which it believed had come from Alexandria and was destined for the FLN.
With this irrefutable proof of Egyptian intervention in Algeria, the French government felt it could convince the whole world of Egypt's nefarious intentions in both the Canal affair and in the Algerian war.
The historian Georgette Elgey summed up the majority view of French public opinion at the time as follows: "We dream of taking on Nasser to put an end to the Algerian war and at the same time save the work of Lesseps."
As early as August of that year, Christian Pineau, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, issued a thinly veiled warning to Egypt: "Either Colonel Nasser bows down and reverses the measures he has taken in their entirety and thereby acknowledging his error, or he will not bow down. In that case, all measures should, in our opinion, be taken to force him to submit."
These "measures" were outlined in Sèvres agreement. They envisaged an action by the Israeli army in which the Suez Canal would be taken, after which the French and British forces would intervene to calm things down. In truth, though, the idea was to take possession of Suez and, ideally, topple Nasser.
The Hungarian uprising
The other major event was taking place in Hungary. Once the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR had formalised the wave of de-Stalinisation in February 1956, 'freedom' movements started to emerge across the entire Eastern bloc. In June, the Poles precipitated their first revolt against the Moscow-controlled regime with the violent uprising in Poznań.
In turn, in October, the Hungarians demanded the return to power of Imre Nagy, a moderate and reformist communist who had been expelled from power the previous year.
But Nagy, once returned to power on 23 October and supported by the students and workers went too far in Moscow's eyes and announced Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact thus beginning what is commonly known as the Hungarian Uprising.
It lasted 12 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on 4 November, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded, and a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country.
The UN intervenes
The UN Security Council, taken by surprise by both events, adopted two consecutive resolutions in four days.
Resolution 119 called for an emergency special session of the General Assembly to react to the "grave situation created by the action taken against Egypt".
Resolution 120 agreed to examine "the serious situation created by the use of Soviet armed forces to suppress the efforts of the Hungarian people to reassert their rights".
While the international community could do nothing about Hungary, the ill-fated actions that followed the signing of the Sèvres agreements over Suez, was strongly reprimanded by Russia and the US, who did not want an explosive situation in the Middle East on their hands.
The USSR openly threatened France, Great Britain and Israel with nuclear retaliation. In response, Nato warned of a nuclear response against the USSR if it used atomic weapons.
It was at this point that the United States intervened, demanding the withdrawal of Israeli, French and British forces to end the crisis.
Finally, on 6 November, under pressure from Moscow and Washington, the armed intervention in Egypt was brought to a halt. Nothing had been achieved except the escalation of geopolitical tensions.
Games and boycotts
On 22 November, while the international communication was watching for the fall-out from these crises,
Ron Clarke, a young Australian athlete, lit the Olympic flame for the games at Melbourne's Cricket Ground.
It took almost three weeks between the political crises and the start of the Games for several countries to act in response to the crises in Egypt and Hungary. They even went as far as to protest the presence of Israel at the games.
Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted the games to protest the "Franco-British occupation of the Suez Canal".
For their part, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland boycotted the games to express their discontent with the Soviet intervention in Hungary.
Political confrontations between the athletes
A month after the failure of the Budapest uprising, the Hungarian and USSR water polo teams met in Melbourne.
During the semi-final match, Soviet player Valentin Prokopov headbutted Hungarian Ervin Zádor, who had already scored two goals. The two teams came to blows and several players were injured. Witnesses reported that the water in the pool turned red.
The Australian police had to intervene to protect the Soviet team from the wrath of the spectators.
In the end, Hungary won the water polo gold medal and the Soviets the bronze. At the end of the games In the Olympic village in Melbourne, some members of the Hungarian delegation attacked the official Hungarian flag and cut out the Communist symbols.
They then replaced the flag with one bearing the "Kossuth coat of arms", the symbol of the Hungarian revolution of 1848.
When it came time to pack their bags, several Hungarian athletes were missing. They had requested political asylum in Australia and refused to return home. A long way from Australia, another Hungarian athlete, football legend Ferenc Puskás, also sought political asylum in Austria.
In the final rankings, the Soviet Union won the most medals – 98. The United States collected 74 and the hosts were third with 35. Hungary claimed fourth place with 26 medals, nine of them gold.
