So I'm reading up on Hungary, and according to Bryan Cartledge in The Will to Survive, Krushchev was on the fence for a while about how to deal with the Hungarian revolution of 1956. He is quoted as saying:
[By withdrawing from Hungary] we would demonstrate the weakness of our position. In this case our party would not understand us. Besides Egypt we would be giving away Hungary too. We have no other choice.
So, my questions are:
How much did the Suez crisis affect Krushchev's decision-making about the Hungarian uprising?
What did Krushchev mean with that quote?
How much, if any, influence did the USSR have in Egypt, and how did Suez affect that?
Bonus points to anyone who can recommend me some good histories of post-1867 Hungary!
The Soviets certainly believed they had more influence in Egypt than they did. When the US/UK backed out of funding the Aswan High Dam--one of Nasser's great modernization projects for Egypt--it was supposed to bring him to heel and back into line, but in fact he went with Soviet aid. The Sevres collusion over Suez was supposed to stop this supposed march of Nasser and Khrushchev towards one another. Of course, in the end, Nasser went firmly with non-alignment, which didn't quite please the Soviets either--but that hadn't happened yet.
In terms of Hungary, I can't tell you about internal Soviet thinking, but I can tell you how the relationship read in Egypt and London/Washington, which may tell you what Khrushchev meant in the quote. Basically, the Anglo-Franco-Israeli action over Suez freed the Soviet hand to act in Hungary with force--because the hypocrisy of damning one and not the other would be too great. They couldn't engage more actively in Egypt, but they could and would in Hungary. By linking the two, they made it harder to damn either separately, and both Eden and Eisenhower were very painfully aware of the fact.