This paper will analyze Hungary's political, military and economic role in the Soviet Empire and the implications of this for the Soviet Union's response to the 1956 revolution and war of independence. The paper will review Soviet politics within the imperial-ideological paradigm and will argue that Hungary served as a Marxist-Leninist client state that fits the description given by Edward Luttwak with the exception that economics played a hitherto unappreciated, crucial role in Soviet expansion. Ideology shaped in the Kremlin's perception of the Hungarian scene as well as world politics.