That Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces were led by MSU Ivan Konev
Future Premier Yuri Andropov was the Soviet ambassador to Hungary at that time. The sight of Hungarian secret policemen and other Party officials hanged from lampposts by angry mobs chilled him to the bone, and convinced him that any advances of Soviet influence were to be defended at any cost. As demonstrated by his advocacy of the invasions of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and of Afghanistan in 1979 (as KGB chief under Brezhnev), that defense included open military force.