October 23. In Heroes square a crowd formed by a hundred thousand people pulls down Stalin’s 25-metre tall statue from the pedestal and crushes it into pieces.

Geza Bankuty (sportsman):

   We were riding towards the monument to Stalin. When we got to the place there was nobody there beside us yet. Presently, people began to trickle in. In the gathering crowd one could see a militiaman and an “avosz”, a border guard and many, many others. The crowd became united and started calling in one voice: topple the statue! Russians go home, Russians go home!

Sandor Kopacsi (head of Budapest’s police):

   [The demonstrators] placed [...] a thick steel rope around the neck of the 25-metre tall Stalin’s statue while other people, arriving in trucks with oxygen cylinders and metal cutting blowpipes, were setting to work on the statue’s bronze shoes. [...]

   An hour later the statue fell down from its pedestal. Thanks to prudence shown by the crowd there were no casualties - nobody present in Heroes square suffered even the slightest injury.