When did communism end in Hungary?
Hungarian People's Republic
The People's Republic of Hungary remained in existence until 1989, when opposition forces brought the end of communism in Hungary. The state considered itself the heir to the Republic of Councils in Hungary, which was formed in 1919 as the first communist state created after the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR). It was designated a people's democratic republic by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Geographically, it bordered Romania and the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian SSR) to the east; Yugoslavia to the southwest; Czechoslovakia to the north and Austria to the west.
Hungarian nobility
The Allied Powers authorized Romania to occupy new territories and ordered the withdrawal of Hungarian troops almost as far as the Tisza on 26 February 1919. Károlyi resigned and the Bolshevik Béla Kun announced the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on 21 March. All estates of over and all private companies employing more than 20 workers were nationalized. The Bolsheviks could not stop the Romanian invasion and their leaders fled from Hungary on 1 August. After Gyula Peidl's temporary government, the industrialist István Friedrich formed a coalition government with the support of the Allied Powers on 6 August. The Bolsheviks' nationalization program was abolished.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Hungary became a communist state under the authoritarian leadership of Mátyás Rákosi. Under Rákosi's reign, the Security Police (ÁVH) began a series of purges, first within the Communist Party to end opposition to Rákosi's reign. The victims were labeled as "Titoists", "western agents", or "Trotskyists" for as insignificant a crime as spending time in the West to participate in the Spanish Civil War. In total, about half of all the middle and lower level party officials—at least 7,000 people—were purged.
History of Christianity in Hungary
Mihály Károlyi decided to hand over power "to the proletariat" when the Entente Powers issued an ultimatum, demanding the evacuation of a large zone east of the Tisza. The new government led by the Communist Béla Kun declared Hungary a soviet republic on March 21, 1919. The counter-revolutionary propaganda did not fail to emphasize that over half of the commissars were of Jewish origin. Under the new regime Church property, along with schools so far run by the Churches, was nationalized. After 133 days of rule, the Communist regime collapsed when its offensive against the advancing Romanian troops proved abortive. After general elections, a new Parliament was convoked and Hungary was again proclaimed a kingdom. A "numerus clausus law" was soon adopted to reduce the ratio of Jewish students in universities. However, following the punitive Treaty of Trianon of June 4, 1920, that stripped Hungary of two-third of its territory, irredentism became the dominant political ideology.
History of the Jews in Hungary
At the end of World War II, only 140,000 Jews remained in Hungary, down from 750,000 in 1941. The difficult economic situation coupled with the lingering anti-Semitic attitude of the population prompted a wave of migration. Between 1945 and 1949, 40,000–50,000 Jews left Hungary for Israel (30,000–35,000) and Western countries (15,000–20,000). People of Jewish origin dominated the post-war Communist regime until 1952–53 when many were removed in a series of purges. During its first years, the regime's top membership and secret police were almost entirely Jewish, albeit naturally anti-religious. Leaders like Mátyás Rákosi, Ernő Gerő and Peter Gabor repudiated Judaism and were strict atheists per Communist doctrine. They even sometimes expressed anti-Semitic attitudes themselves. Indeed, under Communist rule from 1948 to 1988, Zionism was outlawed and Jewish observance was curtailed. Moreover, members of the upper class, Jews and Christians alike, were expelled from the cities to the provinces for 6–12 months in the early 1950s.
Ferenc Szálasi
Upon the dissolution and break-up of Austria-Hungary after the war, the Hungarian Democratic Republic and then the Hungarian Soviet Republic were briefly proclaimed in 1918 and 1919 respectively. The short-lived communist government of Béla Kun launched what was known as the "Red Terror" and ultimately involved Hungary in an ill-fated war with Romania. In 1920, the country went into a period of civil conflict with Hungarian anti-communists and monarchists violently purging the nation of communists, leftist intellectuals, and others they felt threatened by, especially Jews. This period was known as the "White Terror" and, in 1920, after the pullout of the last of the Romanian occupation forces, it led to the restoration of the Kingdom of Hungary ("Magyar Királyság") under Regent Miklós Horthy. During that time, Szálasi was still an apolitical person, and he did not involve himself in events beyond the general interest.
History of Budapest
The revolutions of 1989 brought with them the end of Soviet occupation of Hungary, which meant the end of Communism in Hungary. Budapest succeeded in taking advantage of new economic possibilities and pursuing development more efficiently than the other parts of the country. Upon the shutdown of Socialist industrial plants, plenty of new workplaces were generated, especially on the fields of service and trade industries. In the Budapest area, unemployment is the lowest, and average income per capita is the highest.
Diet of Hungary
The democratic character of the Hungarian parliament was reestablished with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist dictatorship. Today's parliament is still called "Országgyűlés" just like in royal times, but in order to differentiate between the two phases is referred to as National Assembly of Hungary now, as opposed to the historical royal diet.Free English language book about the history of parliamentarism in Hungary (Content: 22 pages, PDF format, link to the book:  )
Hungarian Communist Party
Further throwing the Hungarian Communists into disarray were the inconsistent policies of the Comintern throughout the 1930s, culminating in the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and the abandonment of the Popular Front tactic that had marked Communist ideology for the last decade. On top of all of that, Stalin's purges in the late 1930s took a heavy toll on the Hungarian émigrés in Moscow.
Social Democratic Party of Hungary
The Social Democratic Party of Hungary (, MSZDP) is a social democratic political party in Hungary. Historically, the party was dissolved during the occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany (1944-1945) and the communist period of Hungary from 1948 to 1989, after being forced into a merger with the Communist Party. It worked legally for a short time during the Revolution of 1956.
MA (journal)
Following the Aster Revolution, the MA activists were critical of Mihály Károlyi’s government. They agitated for a communist revolution publishing special issues in support of revolutionary change. When the Hungarian Soviet Republic was established on 21 March 1919, at first it seemed that the MA group would play an important role in the new regime as Kassak and Uitz had positions in the directorates of literature and art. However, when they refused to subordinate their work to the control of the Party of Communists in Hungary, they were the attacked by the Hungarian Social Democrats, who accused György Lukács, the Deputy Commissar for Public Education, of wasting money on their “incomprehensible” and “formalist” avant-garde art. However, Bela Kun denounced the MA group as a product of “bourgeois decadence”. Therefore, from a political point of view, the art of MA ended up in an interpretative vacuum. In July 1919, the regime faced a chronic shortage in paper, and the "MA" (as well as other periodicals) was discontinued. were also discontinued in those days. Kassák was left for Lake Balaton when "MA" was suspended. In August, following the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic he was imprisoned only being released released only in the winter thanks to the intervention of his partner, Jolán Simon. He then escaped to Vienna.
Hungarian Freedom Party
The Hungarian Freedom Party (; or simply Freedom Party), was a short-lived right-wing political party in Hungary between 1946 and 1947, it strongly opposed the Communist takeover. The party was revived for a short time during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and after the end of communism in 1989–90.
Hungarian Communist Party
Within two years, the MKP had broken the power base of the Independent Smallholders Party (FKGP), the majority party in the new government, and by 1948, every party but the Social Democrats had either vanished or taken over by fellow travelers willing to do the Communists' bidding. The Social Democrats were eliminated in 1948 by a forced merger with the Communists in June 1948 which formed the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP). However, the few independent-minded Social Democrats were quickly shunted aside, leaving the MDP as essentially the MKP under a new name. In 1949, elections were held in which voters were presented with a single list from the Communist-controlled Independent Democratic Front.
Hungary in World War II
On February 1, 1946, the Kingdom of Hungary was formally abolished and replaced by the Second Republic of Hungary. Post-war Hungary was eventually taken over by a Soviet-allied government and became part of the Eastern Bloc. The People's Republic of Hungary was declared in 1949 and lasted until the Revolutions of 1989 and the End of Communism in Hungary.
History of Hungary
On 28 December 1944, a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting Prime Minister Béla Miklós. Miklós and Szálasi's rival governments each claimed legitimacy: the Germans and pro-German Hungarians loyal to Szálasi fought on, as the territory effectively controlled by the Arrow Cross regime shrunk gradually. The Red Army completed the encirclement of Budapest on 29 December 1944 and the Battle of Budapest began; it continued into February 1945. Most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army was destroyed about north of Budapest between 1 January and 16 February 1945. Budapest unconditionally surrendered to the Soviet Red Army on 13 February 1945.
First Hungarian Republic
Károlyi informed the cabinet that only the Social Democrats could possibly form a new government. Unknown to Károlyi, however, the Social Democrats had merged with the Communists; the latter promised that Soviet Russia would help Hungary to restore its original borders. Although the Social Democrats held a majority in the newly merged Hungarian Socialist Party, the Communists led by Béla Kun immediately seized control and announced the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on 21 March 1919.
History of communism
That same year, political turmoil in Hungary following their defeat in the First World War led to a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party taking control. The communists, led by Bela Kun, soon became dominant and instituted various communist reforms in the country, but the country was subsequently invaded by its neighbouring Romania within a matter of months who overthrew the government, with the communist leaders either escaping abroad or being executed. In 1921, a communist revolt against the government occurred whilst supportive factory workers were on strike in Turin and Milan in northern Italy, but the government acted swiftly and put down the rebellion. That same year, a further communist rebellion took place in Germany only to be crushed, but another occurred in 1923 which once again was also defeated by the government. The communists of Bulgaria had also attempted an uprising in 1923, but like most of their counterparts across Europe they were defeated.
History of Hungary
The Communist Party of Hungary, led by Béla Kun, allied itself with the Hungarian Social Democratic Party, came to power and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Social Democrat Sándor Garbai was the official head of government, but the Soviet Republic was dominated de facto by Béla Kun, who was in charge of foreign affairs.
The Communists – "The Reds" – came to power largely thanks to its organized fighting force (no other major political entity had one of its own), and they promised that Hungary would defend its territory without conscription, possibly with the help of the Soviet Red Army.
Edward T. Wailes
Eisenhower then named Wailes United States Ambassador to Hungary, with Ambassador Wailes receiving his commission on July 26, 1956. At the time of this appointment, the People's Republic of Hungary was ruled by the Hungarian Communist Party, under Prime Minister of Hungary András Hegedüs. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began on October 23, 1956, with crowds demanding the return of former Prime Minister Imre Nagy, who had pledged to lead Hungary out of the Warsaw Pact and promised democratic reforms. The next day, Nagy took over as Prime Minister. On the advice of Soviet Ambassador to Hungary Yuri Andropov, Hegedüs fled to the Soviet Union and signed papers asking for Soviet intervention in Hungary to stop Nagy. Wailes arrived in Hungary on November 2, 1956. Soviet tanks entered Budapest on November 4, Nagy fled, and the pro-Soviet János Kádár became Prime Minister of Hungary. The Hungarian Revolution ended on November 10, with the Soviets having succeeded in blocking any movement towards democratic reforms in Hungary. Wailes refused to present his credentials to the new government, stating that the government "did not represent the people." Shortly thereafter he was "recalled for consultations" and left Hungary on February 27, 1957.
Hungary
In 1968, the New Economic Mechanism (NEM) introduced free-market elements into socialist command economy. From the 1960s through the late 1980s, Hungary was often referred to as "the happiest barrack" within the Eastern bloc. During the latter part of the Cold War Hungary's GDP per capita was fourth only to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union itself. As a result of this relatively high standard of living, a more liberalized economy, a less censored press, and less restricted travel rights, Hungary was generally considered one of the more liberal countries in which to live in Central Europe during communism. In the 1980s, however, living standards steeply declined again due to a worldwide recession to which communism was unable to respond. By the time Kádár died in 1989, the Soviet Union was in steep decline and a younger generation of reformists saw liberalization as the solution to economic and social issues.
History of Hungary
On 30 October, Imre Nagy announced that he was freeing Cardinal József Mindszenty and other political prisoners. He also informed the people that his government intended to abolish the one-party state. This was followed by statements of Zoltán Tildy, Anna Kéthly and Ferenc Farkas concerning the restitution of the Smallholders Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Petőfi (former Peasants) Party.
Removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria
The removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria occurred in 1989 during the collapse of communism in Hungary, which was part of a broad wave of revolutions in various communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The dismantling of the electric fence along Hungary's long border with Austria was the first fissure in the "Iron Curtain" that had divided Europe for more than 40 years, since the end of World War II, and caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Berlin Wall.
Cold War (1953–1962)
The new government that came to power during the revolution formally disbanded the Hungarian secret police, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. The Soviet Politburo thereafter moved to crush the revolution with a large Soviet force invading Budapest and other regions of the country. Approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled Hungary, some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the new Soviet-installed János Kádár government and, of those, 13,000 were imprisoned. Imre Nagy was executed, along with Pál Maléter and Miklós Gimes, after secret trials in June 1958. By January 1957, the Hungarian government had suppressed all public opposition. These Hungarian government's violent oppressive actions alienated many Western Marxists, yet strengthened communist control in all the European communist states, cultivating the perception that communism was both irreversible and monolithic.
Pornography in Hungary
The history of pornography in Hungary mainly dates from the period after the fall of communism in 1989. The production and distribution of pornography was illegal under their Socialist system, but the laws were liberalised with the fall of the Hungarian People's Republic. Permissive government policies soon propelled the country to the forefront of the European pornography industry. Several foreign directors were attracted to the country's liberal legislation. Eventually, domestic producers began to prosper as well, and several actresses made big names for themselves within the industry.
Hungarian Workers' Party
The Hungarian Workers' Party () is a communist party in Hungary led by Gyula Thürmer. Established after the fall of the communist Hungarian People's Republic, the party has yet to win a seat in the Hungarian parliament. Until May 2009 it was a member of the Party of the European Left.
Hungarian People's Republic
In October 1989, the Communist Party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), with Nyers as its first president. In a historic session on 16–20 October 1989, the Parliament adopted a package of constitutional amendments that almost completely rewrote the 1949 constitution. The amendments–the first comprehensive constitutional reform in the Soviet bloc–changed Hungary's official name to the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensured separation of powers among the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government. The revised constitution also championed the "values of bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism" and gave equal status to public and private property. On the 33rd anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, 23 October, the Presidential Council was dissolved. In accordance with the constitution, parliament Speaker Mátyás Szűrös was named provisional president, and Szűrös officially proclaimed the Republic of Hungary.
Mátyás Rákosi
By October 1947, Rákosi had dropped all pretense of democracy. He gave the non-Communist parties an ultimatum: cooperate with a new, Communist-dominated coalition government or go into exile. By the end of 1947, the opposition parties had largely shunted aside their more courageous members, leaving them in the hands of fellow travellers willing to do the Communists' bidding. In the summer of 1948, the Communists forced the Social Democrats to merge with them to form the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP). However, the few remaining independent-minded Social Democrats were quickly pushed out in short order, leaving the MDP as an enlarged MKP. He also pushed out the Smallholder president, Zoltán Tildy, in favour of Social Democrat-turned-Communist Árpád Szakasits, and forced Dinnyés to resign in favour of the openly pro-Communist István Dobi. A year later, elections took place with a single list of candidates. Although non-Communists nominally still figured, in reality they were fellow travellers. This marked the onset of undisguised Communist rule in Hungary.
János Kádár
After the Soviet liberation of Hungary, the Soviet-Hungarian Communist leadership sent Zoltán Vas and the new Soviet approved Central Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary; Kádár became a member of this so-called "new" committee. At first, Kádár would rise up the ranks, not because of ideology, or knowledge of economy and agriculture, but instead for his organisational skills. Kádár helped form the Communist Party's headquarters in Hungary, and later, designed the party's membership card. The Soviet troops stationed in Hungary committed mass rapes and pillaged Budapest and the countryside, Kádár, when writing a letter to the Ministry of the Interior, he wrote; "the Soviet command caused really big difficulties in our work, especially in the beginning, and they still do". Under these circumstances Kádár was appointed deputy chief of police. Nonetheless his rise in the communist hierarchy was not an easy one, Rákosi's party deputy Ernő Gerő felt his decision to dissolve the party during the war was a rash decision, and others, who worked alongside Kádár during the war felt he had been over-promoted and were keen to put an end to it. His political eclipse did not last long, and when Rákosi returned he became a member of the newly formed Politburo of the Communist Party of Hungary. Later on, in February 1945, Rákosi was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Hungary.
History of Hungary
On 20 January 1945, representatives of the Hungarian provisional government signed an armistice in Moscow. Szálasi's government fled the country by the end of March. Officially, Soviet operations in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945, when the last German troops were expelled. On 7 May 1945 General Alfred Jodl, the German Chief of Staff, signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces.
Hungary
The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed after World War I, and the subsequent Treaty of Trianon established Hungary's current borders, resulting in the loss of 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, and 32% of ethnic Hungarians. Following the tumultuous interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a socialist republic spanning four decades (1949–1989). The country gained widespread international attention as a result of its 1956 revolution and the seminal opening of its previously-restricted border with Austria in 1989, which accelerated the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became a democratic parliamentary republic.
Hungarian Soviet Republic
As the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed in 1918, an independent Hungarian People's Republic was formed after the Aster Revolution. The official proclamation of the republic was on 16 November 1918 and its president became Mihály Károlyi. Károlyi struggled to establish the government's authority and to control the country.An initial nucleus of a Hungarian communist party had been organized in a Moscow hotel on 4 November 1918, when a group of Hungarian prisoners of war and other communist proponents formed a Central Committee. Led by Béla Kun, the first members returned to Hungary, and on 24 November created the Party of Communists from Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja). The name was chosen instead of "The Hungarian Communist Party" because the vast majority of supporters were from the urban industrial working class in Hungary which at the time was largely made up of people from non-Hungarian ethnic backgrounds, with ethnic Hungarians only a minority in the new party itself. The party recruited members while propagating its ideas, radicalising many members of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in the process. By February 1919, the party numbered 30,000 to 40,000 members, including many unemployed ex-soldiers, young intellectuals and ethnic minorities.
Hungarian People's Republic
Repression was harsher in Hungary than in the other satellite states in the 1940s and 1950s due to a more vehement Hungarian resistance.
Approximately 350,000 Hungarian officials and intellectual party members were purged from the Hungarian Communist Party from 1948 to 1956. Any member with a western connection was immediately vulnerable, which included large numbers of people who had spent years in exile in the West during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Approximately 150,000 were also imprisoned, with 2,000 summarily executed.
History of the Jews in Hungary
In March 1919, Communist and Social Democrat members of a coalition government ousted Karolyi; soon after (21 March), the Communists were to take power as their Social Democrat colleagues were willing neither to accept nor to refuse the Vix Note to cede a significant part of the Great Plains to Romania and the communists took control of Hungary's governing institutions. While popular at first among Budapest's progressive elite and proletariat, the so-called Hungarian Soviet Republic fared poorly in almost all of its aims, particularly its efforts to regain territories occupied by Slovakia (although achieving some transitional success here) and Romania. All the less palatable excesses of Communist uprisings were in evidence during these months, particularly the formation of squads of brutal young men practicing what they called "revolutionary terror" to intimidate and suppress dissident views. All but the one Sándor Garbai, the revolution's leaders, including Béla Kun, Tibor Szamuely, and Jenő Landler – were of Jewish ancestry. As in other countries where Communism was viewed as an immediate threat, the presence of ethnic Jews in positions of revolutionary leadership helped foster the notion of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or literally Republic of Councils in Hungary ( or "Magyarországi Szocialista Szövetséges Tanácsköztársaság") was a short-lived (133 days) communist rump state. When the Republic of Councils in Hungary was established in 1919, it controlled only approximately 23% of the territory of Hungary's classic borders.
Miklós Horthy
For Horthy, returning to Hungary was impossible; it was now firmly in the hands of a Soviet-sponsored Communist government. In an extraordinary twist of fate, the chief of Hungary's post-war Communist apparatus was Mátyás Rákosi, one of Béla Kun's colleagues from the ill-fated Communist coup of 1919. Kun had been executed during Stalin's purges of the late 1930s, but Rákosi had survived in a Hungarian prison cell; in 1940 Horthy had permitted Rákosi to emigrate to the Soviet Union in exchange for a series of highly symbolic Hungarian battle-flags from the 19th century that were in Russian hands.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
On 5 March 1953, Joseph Stalin died, ushering in a period of moderate liberalization, when most European communist parties developed a reform wing. In Hungary, the reformist Imre Nagy replaced Rákosi, "Stalin's Best Hungarian Disciple", as Prime Minister. However, Rákosi remained General Secretary of the Party, and was able to undermine most of Nagy's reforms. By April 1955, he had Nagy discredited and removed from office. After Khrushchev's "secret speech" of February 1956, which denounced Stalin and his protégés, Rákosi was deposed as General Secretary of the Party and replaced by Ernő Gerő on 18 July 1956. Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast the "secret speech" to Eastern Europe on the advice of Ray S. Cline, who saw it as a way to, "as I think I told to say, 'indict the whole Soviet system'."
Cold War (1947–1953)
In Hungary, when the Soviets installed a communist government, Mátyás Rákosi was appointed General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, which began one of the harshest dictatorships in Europe under the People's Republic of Hungary. In Bulgaria, toward the end of World War II, the Soviet Union crossed the border and created the conditions for a communist coup d'état on the following night. The Soviet military commander in Sofia assumed supreme authority, and the communists whom he instructed, including Kimon Georgiev (who was not a communist himself, but a member of the elitarian political organization "Zveno", working together with the communists), took full control of domestic politics in the People's Republic of Bulgaria.
Budapest
Following the liberation of Hungary from Nazi Germany by the Red Army, Soviet military occupation ensued, which ended only in 1991. The Soviets exerted significant influence on Hungarian political affairs. In 1949, Hungary was declared a communist People's Republic (People's Republic of Hungary). The new Communist government considered the buildings like the Buda Castle symbols of the former regime, and during the 1950s the palace was gutted and all the interiors were destroyed (also see Stalin era).
On 23 October 1956 citizens held a large peaceful demonstration in Budapest demanding democratic reform. The demonstrators went to the Budapest radio station and demanded to publish their demands. The regime ordered troops to shoot into the crowd. Hungarian soldiers gave rifles to the demonstrators who were now able to capture the building. This initiated the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The demonstrators demanded to appoint Imre Nagy to be Prime Minister of Hungary. To their surprise, the central committee of the "Hungarian Working People's Party" did so that same evening. This uprising was an anti-Soviet revolt that lasted from 23 October until 11 November. After Nagy had declared that Hungary was to leave the Warsaw Pact and become neutral, Soviet tanks and troops entered the country to crush the revolt. Fighting continued until mid November, leaving more than 3000 dead. A monument was erected at the fiftieth anniversary of the revolt in 2006, at the edge of the City Park. Its shape is a wedge with a 56 angle degree made in rusted iron that gradually becomes shiny, ending in an intersection to symbolize Hungarian forces that temporarily eradicated the Communist leadership.
Socialism
The [[Eastern Bloc]] was the group of former [[Communist state]]s of [[Central and Eastern Europe]], generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the [[Warsaw Pact]] which included the [[People's Republic of Poland]], the [[German Democratic Republic]], the [[People's Republic of Hungary]], the [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]], the [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic]], the [[Socialist Republic of Romania]], the [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]] and the [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]]. The [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]] was a spontaneous nationwide [[revolt]] against the government of the [[People's Republic of Hungary]] and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Soviet leader [[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of the excesses of Stalin's regime]] during the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Twentieth Party Congress]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] on 1956 as well as the revolt in Hungary, produced ideological fractures and disagreements within the communist and socialist parties of Western Europe.
History of Hungary
National unity culminated in June 1989 as the country re-buried Imre Nagy, his associates, and, symbolically, all other victims of the 1956 revolution. A Hungarian National Round Table, comprising representatives of the new parties and some re-created old parties (such as the Smallholders and Social Democrats), the Communist Party, and different social groups, met in the late summer of 1989 to discuss major changes to the Hungarian constitution in preparation for free elections and the transition to a fully free and democratic political system.
Béla Kovács (politician, 1908)
Kovács was released from prison in 1956. The Hungarian Uprising began on 23 October by a peaceful demonstration of students in Budapest. The students demanded an end to Soviet occupation and the implementation of "true socialism". The following day commissioned officers and soldiers joined the students on the streets of Budapest. Stalin's statue was brought down and the protesters chanted "Russians go home", "Away with Gerő" and "Long Live Nagy".
Goulash Communism
In 1962, six years after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the 8th Congress of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party declared the period of "consolidation of socialism" after 1956 to be over and that the "foundations for the establishment of a socialist society" had been achieved, which enabled a general amnesty of most people sentenced in connection with 1956. Under János Kádár, the party gradually curbed some of the excesses of the secret police and repealed most of the restrictions on speech and movement enacted in the Mátyás Rákosi era. In their place, the party introduced a relatively liberal cultural and economic course aimed at overcoming the post-1956 hostility toward the Kádár government.
End of communism in Hungary (1989)
Imre Nagy, whom communists had executed decades ago, was politically rehabilitated and his remains reburied on the 31st anniversary of his execution in the same plot after a funeral organized by, among others, opponents of the country's communist regime. Over 100,000 people are estimated to have attended Nagy's reinterment.
Order of Merit of the Kingdom of Hungary
Following the collapse of the Communist regime in Hungary in 1989 a new order, known as "Order of Merit of Hungary"' (), was established. Though it has a similar appearance, this is a new order and not a re-establishment of the previous order.
Economy of Hungary
After the fall of communism, the former Eastern Bloc had to transition from a one-party, centrally planned economy to a market economy with a multi-party political system. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc countries suffered a significant loss in both markets for goods, and subsidizing from the Soviet Union. Hungary, for example, "lost nearly 70% of its export markets in Eastern and Central Europe." The loss of external markets in Hungary left "800,000 unemployed people because all the unprofitable and unsalvageable factories had been closed." Another form of Soviet subsidizing that greatly affected Hungary after the fall of communism was the loss of social welfare programs. Because of the lack of subsidies and a need to reduce expenditures, many social programs in Hungary had to be cut in an attempt to lower spending. As a result, many people in Hungary suffered incredible hardships during the transition to a market economy. Following privatization and tax reductions on Hungarian businesses, unemployment suddenly rose to 12% in 1991 (it was 1.7% in 1990 ), gradually decreasing until 2001. Economic growth, after a fall in 1991 to −11.9%, gradually grew until the end of the 1990s at an average annual rate of 4.2%. With the stabilization of the new market economy, Hungary has experienced growth in foreign investment with a "cumulative foreign direct investment totaling more than $60 billion since 1989."
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The situation of the Hungarian Communists began to deteriorate in the capital city Budapest after a failed coup by the Social Democrats on 24 June, the newly composed Communist government of Sándor Garbai resorted to large-scale reprisals. Revolutionary tribunals ordered executions of people who were suspected of having been involved in the attempted coup. This became known as the "Red Terror", and greatly reduced domestic support for the government even among the working classes of the highly industrialized suburb districts and metropolitan area of Budapest.
Turanism
After World War II, the Soviet Red Army occupied Hungary. The Hungarian government was placed under the direct control of the administration of the occupying forces. All Turanist organisations were disbanded by the government, and the majority of Turanist publications was banned and confiscated. In 1948, Hungary was converted into a communist one-party state. Turanism was portrayed and vilified as an exclusively fascist ideology although Turanism's role in the interwar development of far-right ideologies was negligible. The official prohibition lasted until the collapse of the socialist regime in 1989.
New Economic Mechanism
The New Economic Mechanism (NEM) was a major economic reform launched in the People's Republic of Hungary in 1968. Between 1972 and 1978, it was curtailed by the prevailing winds of Eastern Bloc politics. During the subsequent decade, until the revolutions of 1989 ended the era, the NEM's principles continued to affect the Hungarian economy, even in cases where the "NEM" name was not emphasized. Because of the NEM, Hungary in the 1980s had a higher ratio of market mechanisms to central planning than any other Eastern Bloc economy. The ratio was different to an extent that was politically challenging to bring about in the Soviet sphere because of the ideological mixture it required. The name Goulash Communism was jokingly (but tellingly) applied to this mixture. The Hungarian economy under the influence of NEM principles was widely viewed as outperforming other Soviet Bloc economies, making Hungary "the happiest barrack" in barracks communism. Many Soviet and Eastern European people enjoyed going to Hungary (for example, on work assignments or on vacations) because of the economic and cultural environment there.
Gyula Horn
In 1954 Horn joined the Hungarian communist party, then called the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP). In November 1956, he helped reorganize the MDP into the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP), which under the leadership of János Kádár crushed the 1956 Hungarian revolution against Soviet occupation and communist rule.
Hungarian Communist Party
The fall of the Soviet Republic was followed by a year-long anti-Communist purge, known as the White Terror, by the new nationalist government under István Bethlen, in which anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people were killed and thousands more were imprisoned and tortured. Much of the old KMP leadership was either executed or exiled, primarily to Vienna. There, remnants of the KMP Central Committee, once again led by Kun, reformed into a Provisional Central Committee, which attempted to keep the Party together despite its illegal status in Hungary.
Magyar Cserkészszövetség
In 1948, Scouting was officially abolished in Hungary by the Communist regime, but it remained nascent underground in a situation similar to that in neighboring Czechoslovakia. Former Scouts worked in secret to keep "the spirit of Scouting" alive during this time even at risk of imprisonment. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 there was a short time were Hungarian Scouts were active in public again. After the end of the Hungarian Revolution, Scout groups were founded in refugee camps and Austrian cities. In 1957 there were 11 groups with 450 Scouts registered within Pfadfinder Österreichs. Hungarian Scouts took part in the JIM 1957 as members of the Austrian contingent and in the sub camp of the Council of Scout associations in Exile.
History of Hungary
The first free parliamentary election, held in May 1990, was effectively a plebiscite on communism. The revitalized and reformed Communists performed poorly despite having more than the usual advantages of an "incumbent" party. Populist, center-right, and liberal parties fared best, with the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) winning 43% of the vote and the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) capturing 24%. Under Prime Minister József Antall, the MDF formed a center-right coalition government with the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP) and the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) to command a 60% majority in the parliament. Parliamentary opposition parties included SZDSZ, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), and the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz).
Hanging
The prime minister of Hungary, during the 1956 Revolution, Imre Nagy, was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the new Soviet-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publicly exonerated by Hungary. Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1990.
Hungarian Working People's Party
The Hungarian Working People's Party (, MDP) was the ruling communist party of Hungary from 1948 to 1956. It was formed by a merger of the Hungarian Communist Party (MKP) and the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. Ostensibly a union of equals, the merger had actually occurred as a result of massive pressure brought to bear on the Social Democrats by both the Hungarian Communists, as well as the Soviet Union. The few independent-minded Social Democrats who had not been sidelined by Communist salami tactics were pushed out in short order after the merger, leaving the party as essentially the MKP under a new name.
Hungarian Soviet Republic
Kun then unsuccessfully tried to turn the remaining units of the demoralized Hungarian Red Army on the Romanians. The Hungarian Soviet found it increasingly difficult to fight Romania with its small force of communist volunteers from Budapest, and support for both the war and the Communist Party was waning at home. After the demoralizing retreat from "Northern Hungary" (later part of Czechoslovakia), only the most dedicated Hungarian Communists volunteered for combat, and the Romanian army broke through the weak lines of the Hungarian Red Army on 30 July.Béla Kun, together with other high-ranking Communists, fled to Vienna on 1 August with only a minority, including György Lukács, the former Commissar for Culture and noted Marxist philosopher, remaining to organise an underground Communist Party. The Budapest Workers' Soviet elected a new government, headed by Gyula Peidl, which only lasted a few days before Romanian forces entered Budapest on 6 August.
History of Budapest
At the beginning of the 20th century the cultural efflorescence and sparkling energy of abundance and well-being of Budapest rivaled that of Vienna and its café society that of Paris, a belle époque extinguished by World War I.
In the aftermath of World War I which had led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, half of the Hungarian population was cut away from Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon and made part of surrounding nations. In 1918-19, Budapest was shaken by two revolutions: the Aster Revolution brought about the Hungarian Democratic Republic, which was followed by the Hungarian Soviet Republic, a short-lived Communist regime led by Béla Kun, followed by two years of White Terror. The Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919 ended with the Romanian occupation of parts of Hungary proper, including Budapest in August 1919, and the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary, led by Miklós Horthy, the self-appointed regent for the exiled King Karl IV (see the conflict of Charles IV with Miklós Horthy). His domain and regency was characterized by gala balls as well as hunger marches by the poor, of nationalism and anti-Semitism by inheritance, again inherited by joining the wrong side (the Nazis), who promised the sweet reward of re-joining of the Hungarian nation as a whole in the post-Trianon era. Yet Horthy was considered a moderate compared to the fascist Arrow Cross Party, whose power grew as World War II raged across Europe.
Liberalism and radicalism in Hungary
In the antebellum period, liberalism was very successful and led by the party of Károlyi, but after the communist revolution of 1919, and during the conservative regency, liberalism became limited to small city-based parties. After the 1988 end of communist rule, liberalism reconstituted itself in the Alliance of Free Democrats ("Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége", member LI), ELDR), a center market liberal party. Originally also the Young Democrats chose a liberal profile, but soon they developed into a national-conservative party.
Goulash Communism
Since 1989 and after the general disintegration of communist control in Central Europe, Hungary has adopted a Western-style multiparty political system and introduced thorough reforms aimed at establishing a capitalist market economy, enabling European Union membership and integration into a global market economy.
CPg
CPg were a Hungarian punk rock act known for controversial stage antics, anti-establishment songs and lyrics openly condemning the socialist state authority of then Soviet-occupied Hungary. By 1982 many establishments closed their doors to the act and the band was forced to relocate to Budapest. CPg gained considerable underground popularity among fans, however, by then the music industry and authorities were also on the lookout.
The final show was performed on March 5, 1983. Singer, Béla Haska presented a chicken on stage, and fans quickly ripped it to pieces. Members of CPg were arrested on charges of political agitation. An investigation concluded that the band did not represent fascist ideologies, but in fact were anti-communists. The subsequent trial lasted for six months, involving numerous witnesses, and additional inrciminating evidence in the form of confiscated audio tapes and journals to support the charge.
All four band members were convicted. Benkő, Haska and Nagy each received two-year jail sentences. Varga was placed on four year probation as a juvenile offender. Shortly after his release, Benkő fled to America in an act to avoid draft for compulsory military service. Having spent seven years in the States he finally returned to Hungary in 1993.
The late 1990s saw the reunion of Cpg with all four original band members.
During the communist era, the only documented source of CPg music was poor quality DAT bootleg recordings, however, in 1993 an official live CD was published by Trottel Records titled: Mindent Megeszünk. 
In 1999, producer Róbert Kövessy made a 63-minute documentary on the early days of Cpg, entitled "Pol Pot Megye Punkjai" (The Punks of Pol Pot County)
In 2003 Auróra Records released CPg's first studio recording called "Embör vigyázz!" containing mostly songs that were written and performed 20 years prior.
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
Kádár retired on 22 May 1988 and was succeeded by Prime Minister Károly Grósz. However, Grósz soon found himself eclipsed by a group of radical reformers who favored establishing a market economy. On 28 January 1989, young Politburo member and minister of state Imre Pozsgay announced during an interview with the radio program 168 Hours that the Poliburo's historical sub-committee regarded the events of 1956 as a 'people's uprising'. This announcement, not approved in advance by the Politburo, provoked and catalyzed various developments within the party, and brought about sudden and ever-escalating changes that, within nine months, resulted in the ending of Communism in Hungary and the dissolution of the MSzMP.
Hungarian Radical Party
The Hungarian Radical Party (, MRP) was a political party in Hungary in the period after World War II. The party was revived after the end of communism in 1989–90, but remained unsuccessful.
History of Budapest
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was suppressed, the Soviets, rather than appointing a Hungarian hardliner or a Soviet general, gave a chance to János Kádár, a former kidnapped minister of the revolution. He defeated the remaining rebel forces, then embarked on cautious reforms to create a "Goulash Communism" that differentiated Hungary from its Warsaw Pact neighbors. Due to the co-operative efforts of Kádár and huge loans taken from the West to offset the failing economy, Hungary became the favorite Communist state of the West by the late 1970s. A decade later, the city was the center of opposition activity, rallies, printing and selling of unauthorized material and secret-service surveillance. In addition the talks between opposition and government representatives (dubbed the "Round Table Consultations") were held there. Finally, the majority of the multi-sided regime decided to step over Gorbachev's line and open the borders (the first official break of the Iron Curtain), declared Hungary a Republic on October 23, 1989 then issued free elections. While communism was toppled in Berlin and Prague, the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party was simply voted out of power in Hungary, initiating a peaceful transition from one political system to another. Hungarians simply refer to all that has happened since then as "after the System-change".
Hungary–Soviet Union relations
In elections held in November 1945, the Independent Smallholders' Party won 57 percent of the vote. The Hungarian Communist Party, under the leadership of Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő, received support from only 17 percent of the population. The Soviet commander in Hungary, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, refused to allow the Smallholders Party to form a government. Instead, Voroshilov established a coalition government with the Communists holding some of the key posts. Later, Mátyás Rákosi boasted that he had dealt with his partners in the government one by one, "cutting them off like slices of salami." The Hungarian monarchy was formally abolished on February 1, 1946, and replaced by the Republic of Hungary. The gradual takeover by the Communists was completed on August 18, 1949, when Hungary became the People's Republic of Hungary.
Mátyás Rákosi
Following the Soviet Republic's fall, Rákosi fled Hungary on 2 August 1919 via the Austrian border, eventually to the Soviet Union where he worked as part of the Communist International, including representing it at the Livorno congress of the Italian Socialist Party. After returning to Hungary in 1924, he was imprisoned, but he was released to the Soviet Union in 1940, in exchange for the Hungarian revolutionary banners captured by Russian troops at Világos in 1849. In the Soviet Union, he became leader of the Comintern. In 1942, he married divorced lawyer Feodora (Fenia) Kornilova, a woman of Yakut origin. He returned to Debrecen, Hungary, on 30 January 1945, having been selected by the Soviet authorities to organise the Hungarian Communist Party.
Hungarian Communist Party
The KMP entered the 1940s a shell of what it once was. In late 1941, following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the Central Committee advised Party members to work with non-Communist resistance groups in order to present a united anti-German front. This prompted the KMP to attempt to reestablish itself as a legal entity in Hungary, despite the Horthy government's alliance with Nazi Germany. This movement was quickly put to an end, however, as mass arrests in 1942 effectively destroyed the leadership of the KMP. This, coupled with the dissolution of Comintern in 1943, spelled the end of the KMP as a functioning party for the time being.
István Dobi
After all non-Communist parties were formally disbanded in 1949, Dobi joined the Communist Party. In 1952, he gave up the prime ministership because Communist Party boss Mátyás Rákosi wanted that post for himself. Dobi was then promoted to Chairman of the Presidential Council ("de facto" president of Hungary) from 1952 until his retirement in April 1967. Through taking on numerous other high-profile roles, he eventually became the second or third most powerful man in Hungary. He supported the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He was a winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962. He died in Budapest in 1968.
Béla Kun
Kun's final undercover assignment ended in 1928 when he was arrested in Vienna by the local police for travelling on a forged passport. Back in Moscow, he spent much of his time feuding with other Hungarian Communist émigrés, several of whom he denounced to the Soviet secret police, the OGPU, which arrested and imprisoned them in the late 1920s and early 1930s. During the Comintern's "Third Period" from 1928 to 1935, Kun was a prominent supporter of the Social Fascism line that equated the moderate left as "social fascism", an animosity in large part owing to Kun's strained relations with the Hungarian Social Democrats. In 1934, Kun was charged with preparing the agenda for the 7th Congress of the Comintern, in which the Social Fascism line was to be abandoned and the Popular Front was to be the new line for Communists all over the world, a policy change that Kun was opposed to. Instead of submitting to party discipline, Kun did his best to sabotage the adoption of the Popular Front policy, which led to him being formally sanctioned for insubordination. In 1935-36, the leadership of the émigré Hungarian Communist Party was thrown into crisis as Kun sought to prevent the adoption of the Popular Front policy, which occasioned a vigorous round of party in-fighting. Beyond policy, there was also a clash of personalities as Kun's abrasive and autocratic leadership style had left him with many enemies, who saw the dispute over whether the Hungarian Communist Party was to adopt the Popular Front strategy as a chance to bring down Kun, who many Hungarian émigrés deeply hated. Reflecting his embattled position led Kun to denounce one of his leading enemies in the Comintern, Dmitry Manuilsky who was sympathetic to the anti-Kun faction to the NKVD as a Trotskyite, who in his turn had also denounced Kun to the NKVD as a Trotskyite.
Gyula Horn
He and his Austrian counterpart Alois Mock posed for cameras on 27 June 1989 to cut through a barbed wire frontier fence, in a largely symbolic act of rapprochement which had been planned months before. As foreign minister he ordered the border to be opened to allow East Germans gathered in Hungary by the thousands to cross into Austria, and from there to West Germany. With this act he greatly contributed to the later unification of Germany. Within weeks tens of thousands of East Germans, who travelled to Hungary with "tourist" visas, headed straight for the unfortified border and walked into the West. Horn outraged his East German counterparts when he told them that international treaties on refugees took precedence over a 1969 agreement between Budapest and East Berlin limiting freedom of movement. The fall of East German communism and the process of German unification had been launched. With dizzying speed, communist governments in the region succumbed to popular uprisings and sheer fatigue. Within a few years, the Soviet Union itself had evaporated.
Tour de Hongrie
After the end of the communism in Hungary, the Tour the Hongrie was organized again by the Hungarian Cycling Federation from 1993, and was held until 2008 with only shorter interruptions. In 2007 the field of the tour left the actual borders of the country for the first time, when the third stage of the race began in Sátoraljaújhely and ended in Košice, Slovakia. Up to the present, the 2008 edition was the last fixture of the event, after that the Hungarian stages have been integrated to another competition, the Central European Tour.
Capital punishment in Hungary
= Abolishing the Death Penalty =
Capital punishment was completely abolished in Hungary on 24 October 1990 by the Constitutional Court (Decision 23/1990). A month later on 1 December 1990 protocol No. 6 to the ECHR came into force. Hungary later adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR as well. The last condemned man to be executed was hanged for the crime of murder on the 31 May 1988.
Hungary in World War II
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On 15 October, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored the armistice, fighting desperately to keep the Soviets out. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and, by kidnapping his son Miklós Horthy, Jr., forced Horthy to abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi, as Prime Minister. Horthy resigned and Szálasi became Prime Minister of a new "Government of National Unity" ("Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya") controlled by the Germans. Horthy himself was taken to Germany as a prisoner. He ultimately survived the war and spent his last years exiled in Portugal, dying in 1957.
Goulash Communism
Goulash Communism (Hungarian: "gulyáskommunizmus") or Kadarism (after János Kádár) refers to the variety of communism as practised in the Hungarian People's Republic from the 1960s until the Central European collapse of communism in 1989. With elements of regulated market economics as well as an improved human rights record, it represented a quiet reform and deviation from the Soviet principles applied to Hungary in the previous decade.
József Mindszenty
József Cardinal Mindszenty [jo:ʒɛf mindsɛnti] (29 March 18926 May 1975) was the Prince Primate, Archbishop of Esztergom, cardinal, and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 2 October 1945 to 18 December 1973. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, for five decades "he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary". During World War II, he was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. After the war, he opposed communism and the communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nations resolution. After eight years in prison, he was freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest, where Mindszenty lived for the next fifteen years. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971. He died in exile in 1975 in Vienna, Austria.
History of Hungary
In 1988, Kádár was replaced as General Secretary of the Communist Party, and reform Communist leader Imre Pozsgay was admitted to the Politburo. In 1989, the Parliament adopted a "democracy package" that included trade-union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and in October 1989 a radical revision of the constitution, among others. Since then, Hungary has reformed its economy and increased its connections with western Europe. It became a member of the European Union in 2004.
End of communism in Hungary (1989)
Between 12 March 1990 and 19 June 1991 the Soviet troops ("Southern Group of Forces") left Hungary. The last units commanded by General Viktor Silov crossed the Hungarian-Ukrainian border at Záhony - Csap. The total number of Soviet military and civilian personnel stationed in Hungary was around 100,000. The withdrawal was performed with 35,000 railway cars. Since 2001, by a special bill passed in the Hungarian Parliament, 16 June was declared a national memorial day.
Hungarian People's Republic
During the Hungarian Uprising an estimated 20,000 people were killed, nearly all during the Soviet intervention. Imre Nagy was arrested and replaced by the Soviet loyalist, János Kádár, as head of the newly formed Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt). Nagy was imprisoned until being executed in 1958. Other government ministers or supporters who were either executed or died in captivity included Pál Maléter, Géza Losonczy, Attila Szigethy and Miklós Gimes.
Hungarian Turanism
After the Second World War the Soviet Red Army occupied Hungary. The Hungarian government was placed under the direct control of the administration of the occupying forces. All Turanist organisations were disbanded by the government, and the majority of Turanist publications was banned and confiscated. In 1948 Hungary was converted into a communist one-party state. Turanism was portrayed and vilified as an exclusively fascist ideology, although Turanism's role in the interwar development of far-right ideologies was negligible. The official prohibition lasted until the collapse of the socialist regime in 1989.
Hungary
Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, Hungary became a satellite state of the Soviet Union. The Soviet leadership selected Mátyás Rákosi to front the Stalinization of the country, and Rákosi "de facto" ruled Hungary from 1949 to 1956. His government's policies of militarization, industrialization, collectivization, and war compensation led to a severe decline in living standards. In imitation of Stalin's KGB, the Rákosi government established a secret political police, the ÁVH, to enforce the new regime. In the ensuing purges approximately 350,000 officials and intellectuals were imprisoned or executed from 1948 to 1956. Many freethinkers, democrats, and Horthy-era dignitaries were secretly arrested and extrajudicially interned in domestic and foreign Gulags. Some 600,000 Hungarians were deported to Soviet labor camps, where at least 200,000 died.
National Peasant Party (Hungary)
The National Peasant Party (, NPP) was a political party in Hungary between 1939 and 1949. It was led by the writer Péter Veres. The party was revived for a short time during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and after the end of communism in 1989–90.
End of communism in Hungary (1989)
On 16 March 1999, Hungary joined NATO and on 1 May 2004, along with its fellow Visegrad companions, it joined the European Union, strengthening its ties with the United States and the rest of Europe.
János Kádár
János Kádár (; ; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989) was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his retirement in 1988. His 32-year term as General Secretary covered most of the period the People's Republic of Hungary existed. Due to Kádár's age, declining health and declining political mastery, he retired as General Secretary of the party in 1988 and a younger generation consisting mostly of reformers took over.
Flag of Hungary
After the fall of communism in 1989 there was no need to change the flag, as it did not bear any communist insignia.
Hungarian People's Republic
The same political dynamics continued through the years, with the Soviet Union pressing and maneuvering Hungarian politics through the Hungarian Communist Party, intervening whenever it needed to, through military coercion and covert operations. Rajk (who was later executed) called it "a dictatorship of the proletariat without the Soviet form" called a "people's democracy." Hungary stayed that way until the late 1980s, when turmoil broke out across the Eastern Bloc, culminating with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union's dissolution.
Hungarian Soviet Republic
It was the successor of the first Hungarian People's Republic and lasted only from 21 March to 1 August 1919. Though the de jure leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic was president Sándor Garbai, the de facto power was in the hands of foreign minister Béla Kun, who maintained direct contact with Lenin via radiotelegraph. It was Lenin who gave the direct orders and advice to Béla Kun via constant radio communication with the Kremlin. It was the second socialist state in the world to be formed, only preceded by the October Revolution in Russia which brought the Bolsheviks to power. The Hungarian Republic of Councils had military conflicts with the Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the evolving Czechoslovakia. It ended on 1 August 1919 when Hungarians sent representatives to negotiate their surrender to the Romanian forces.
György Moldova
Although he himself is a self-professed "independent leftist" who has never belonged to a political party, Moldova is openly supportive of communist ideals and is known for his loyalty to the late János Kádár, Hungarian communist leader and General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, who ruled the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. Most famously, Moldova published a biography, Kádár, in which he termed this longest-ruling of all twentieth-century Hungarian political figures a "genius" and suggested that the executions of political prisoners after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution had been justified.
History of Hungary
Faced with their second failure at the polls, the Communists changed tactics, and, under new orders from Moscow, decided to eschew democratic facades and speed up the Communist takeover. In June 1948, the Social Democratic Party was forced to "merge" with the Communist Party to create the Hungarian Working People's Party, which was dominated by the Communists. Anti-Communist leaders of the Social Democrats, such as Károly Peyer and Anna Kéthly, were forced into exile or excluded from the party. Soon after, President Zoltán Tildy was also removed from his position and replaced by a fully cooperative Social Democrat, Árpád Szakasits.
Second Hungarian Republic
In October 1947, Rákosi gave the leaders of the non-Communist parties an ultimatum: cooperate with a new, Communist-dominated coalition government or go into exile. The Social Democratic Party effectively ceased to exist as an independent organization, and Independent Smallholders' Party secretary Béla Kovács was arrested and sent to Siberia. Other opposition leaders such as Anna Kéthly, Ferenc Nagy and István Szabó were imprisoned or sent into exile.
End of communism in Hungary (1989)
In October 1989, the Communist Party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party. In a historic session from 16 October to 20 October, the parliament adopted legislation providing for multi-party parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensured separation of powers among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government. On 23 October 1989 at Kossuth tér, Budapest, the Republic of Hungary was proclaimed.
Reformed Church in Hungary
Another trial came to the Church with the Communist dictatorship following World War II. After the confiscation of church estates, schools and institutions, the Communist government forced the Reformed Church to sign an agreement with the state on 7 October 1948 that brought all work and personnel of the Church under the control of the state and the Communist Party. The forty years of Communist rule brought a great setback for the Hungarian churches, and only the political changes of the 1990s brought about relief. Thereafter, a "free church in free state" model was adopted.
Charles IV of Hungary's attempts to retake the throne
Charles's last Hungarian prime minister, Mihály Károlyi, took advantage of the situation and proclaimed the Hungarian Democratic Republic, with himself as provisional president. The continued Allied occupation made Károlyi's situation untenable, and in March 1919 he was pushed out of office by a Social Democratic-Communist coalition that proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Under the Communist leader Bela Kun, Hungary became the world's second Communist nation. However, Kun's government was overthrown in August by Romanian troops. Eventually, Archduke Joseph August took power as regent for Charles, only to be forced out when the Allies refused to recognize him.
Hungarian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Hungary (KMP) was first established as The "Party of Communists from Hungary" in late 1918 by Béla Kun, a former journalist who fought for Austria-Hungary in World War I. After spending time in a POW camp, Kun, along with several associates, set up the initial workings of the KMP in Moscow in October 1918. These first members returned to Hungary in November, and on the 24th officially created the KMP. The Communist party chose "The Party of Communists from Hungary" (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja) title instead of "Hungarian Communist Party", because - at the time - the vast majority of their represented social class: the factory workers the "proletariat" hadn't ethnic Hungarian roots in Budapest yet, and the ethnic Hungarians were only a minority in the newly founded party. Initially, the group was small in number, boasting only its founders and a handful of leftist Social Democrats. Nonetheless, the political instability of the government under Mihály Károlyi and the growing popularity of the Bolshevik movement prompted the Social Democrats to seek a coalition with the KMP. For the Social Democrats, an alliance with the KMP not only increased their standing with the common people, but also gave them a potential link to the increasingly powerful Russian Communist Party, as Kun had ties with prominent Russian Bolsheviks.
István Bethlen
Increasingly shunted into political obscurity, Bethlen stood out as one of the few voices in Hungary actively opposed to an alliance with Nazi Germany. As it became apparent that Germany was going to lose the Second World War, Bethlen attempted, unsuccessfully, to negotiate a separate peace with the Allied powers. By the spring of 1945 most of Hungary had fallen to the advancing Soviet troops. The communists, who returned with the Soviets, immediately began their scheme to take over the country. They saw the aging Bethlen as a threat, a man who could unite the political forces against them. For this they had him arrested by the Soviets in April 1945. Soon after, Bethlen was taken to Moscow, where he died in prison on 5 October 1946.
Bans on Communist symbols
Hungary had a law (Article 269/B of the Criminal Code (2000)) that banned the use of symbols of fascist and communist dictatorships. The same year the Constitutional Court upheld the law when it was challenged, claiming that the involved restriction of the freedom of expression was justified. In July 2008 the European Court of Human Rights considered the challenge of Attila Vajnai who was charged with a misdemeanor for use of the red star and declared the Hungarian law to be in violation of the freedom of expression. The Court recognized the gross violations by the Nazi and Communist regimes; however, it noted that modern Hungary is a stable democracy with negligible chance of dictatorship, therefore restrictions on the freedom of expression have no justification in the country in the form of a "clear, pressing and specific social need". Eventually the law was annulled in 2013 by the Constitutional Court, citing the lack of precise definition and the European Court of Human Rights. In March 2017, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán introduced a draft law that outlaws merchandise featuring symbols like the Nazi swastika or the communist five-pointed red star, including the one used by the Dutch brewing company Heineken.
Hungarian Americans
There was a renewed economic migration after the end of communism in Hungary during the 1990s to 2000s.
1949 Hungarian parliamentary election
In June 1948, the Communists forced the Social Democrats to merge with them to form the Working People's Party. However, the few remaining independent-minded Social Democrats were quickly pushed out, leaving the party as essentially a renamed and enlarged Communist Party. Later in June, President Zoltán Tildy, a Smallholder, was replaced by Social Democrat-turned-Communist Árpád Szakasits. In December, Prime Minister Lajos Dinnyés was replaced by fellow Smallholder István Dobi, who made no secret of his sympathies with the Communists. On 1 January 1949, Hungary became a charter member of Comecon. On 6 February, Cardinal József Mindszenty, the spiritual leader of Hungary's Catholics and a prime opponent of Communism, was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Independent People's Front was formed in February. By the time of its first congress in March, it had become clear that it was to act as a vehicle for destroying rather than bringing together the main parties. Many of the more courageous members of the non-Communist parties had already been forced to resign in the summer of 1948, and the four remaining parties had been taken over by fellow travelers who swiftly turned their parties into loyal partners of the Communists. Three months after the election, a new constitution proclaiming Hungary a People's Republic and enshrining the principle of one-party rule was adopted. Schools were nationalised, collectivisation was launched, the bureaucracy was purged, the independent press was destroyed, and the last remnants of free enterprise were eliminated. Also, László Rajk, General Secretary of the Independent People's Front and Foreign Minister, who the day after the election was the main speaker at a mass demonstration where he condemned Titoist "running dogs of imperialism", praised the "brilliant strategy" of the "great leader of the peace camp", Stalin, and the "wise leadership" of Rákosi—described as Stalin's best Hungarian pupil—was himself arrested two weeks later and executed in October following a show trial.
Kingdom of Hungary
It lasted only from 21 March until 1 August 1919. The state was led by Béla Kun and was not recognized by France, the UK or the US. It was the second socialist state in the world to be formed after the October Revolution in Russia brought the Bolsheviks to power. The Hungarian Republic of Councils had military conflicts with the Kingdom of Romania (see Hungarian–Romanian War), the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the evolving Czechoslovakia. It collapsed on 1 August 1919 when Hungarians sent representatives to negotiate their surrender to the Romanian forces and Béla Kun, together with other high-ranking Communists, fled to Austria.
Hungarian Working People's Party
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the party was reorganised into the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) by a circle of communists around Kádár and Imre Nagy. The new government of Nagy declared to assess the uprising not as counter-revolutionary but as a "great, national and democratic event" and to dissolve State Security Police (ÁVH). Hungary's declaration to become neutral and to exit the Warsaw Pact, caused the second Soviet intervention on 4 November 1956.
After 8 November 1956, the MSZMP, under Kádár's leadership, fully supported the Soviet Union.
Hungary
Since the fall of communism, Hungary has a multi-party system. The last Hungarian parliamentary election took place on 8 April 2018. This parliamentary election was the 7th since the 1990 first multi-party election. The result was a victory for Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority with Viktor Orbán remaining Prime Minister. It was the second election according to the new Constitution of Hungary which went into force on 1 January 2012. The new electoral law also entered into force that day. The voters elected 199 MPs instead of previous 386 lawmakers. The current political landscape in Hungary is dominated by the conservative Fidesz, who have a near supermajority, and two medium-sized parties, the left-wing Hungarian Socialist Party ("MSZP") and nationalist Jobbik.
1949 Hungarian parliamentary election
The Communists had spent the last year and a half tying up loose ends in their bid for total power. They began the final push in October 1947, when they told their non-Communist counterparts to cooperate with a reconfigured, Communist-dominated coalition government or go into exile. By this time, Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi had become the most powerful man in the country.
Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)
In 1944, responding to the advancing Soviet forces, the Regent Miklós Horthy deposed the pro-German Prime Minister and installed a more balanced government in an effort to engage with the Allies and avoid occupation by the Soviet Union. Shortly afterward, German forces invaded Hungary, deposed Horthy as Regent, and installed a puppet regime led by Ferenc Szálasi of the anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. The Arrow Cross Party never abolished the Monarchy as a form of government, and Hungarian newspapers continued to refer to the country as the Kingdom of Hungary ("Magyar Királyság"), although "Magyarország" (Hungary) was used as an alternative. From May to June 1944, Hungarian authorities rapidly rounded up and transported hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Nazi concentration camps, where most died.
Hungary
The democratic character of the Hungarian parliament was reestablished with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist dictatorship in 1989. Today's parliament is still called "Országgyűlés" just like in royal times, but in order to differentiate between the historical royal diet is referred to as "National Assembly" now. The Diet of Hungary was a legislative institution in the medieval kingdom of Hungary from the 1290s, and in its successor states, Royal Hungary and the Habsburg kingdom of Hungary throughout the Early Modern period. The articles of the 1790 diet set out that the diet should meet at least once every 3 years, but, since the diet was called by the Habsburg monarchy, this promise was not kept on several occasions thereafter. As a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, it was reconstituted in 1867. The Latin term "Natio Hungarica" ("Hungarian nation") was used to designate the political elite which had participation in the diet, consisting of the nobility, the Catholic clergy, and a few enfranchised burghers, regardless of language or ethnicity.