Collapse of Communism in Hungary
Soviet and East European Factors:
End of socialist systems based on Marxist, Leninist thinking in Eastern Europe has been a major change in international politics. The process of economic and political reform was already in demand in these countries which had resulted in Hungarian uprising of 1956 and Prague Spring of 1968. However, the policy of Glasnost and Perestroika introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev provided a wide acceptance for the demands of structural reforms in the entire socialist world. Leaders and workers of East European countries were waiting for such an opportunity for which they were struggling against the old Stalinist leadership of their respective countries. Finally in 1991 after a lot of ups and downs the Communist Party of Soviet Union was banned and USSR was disintegrated. From one Soviet Union now fifteen other countries came into existence. Communist parties of East European countries which had already faced anti Soviet and anti- Stalinist protest in the past, now started losing their command over different section of society. People were dissatisfied from their rulers due to lack of democracy, single party rule, stagnant economies, lack of incentives, Soviet interference, imposition of Russian language, relatively backward technology and average or poor standard of living. In many of these countries majority of the people did not like the prevailing communist rule. Now they had theoretical acceptance from the new Soviet leaders who were busy reforming themselves under the leadership of Gorbachev.
Nagy and Violent Hungarian Uprising in 1956:
After the death of Soviet leader Stalin in 1953, pro — reform forces in Hungary were organized under the leadership of Imre Negy. Demands for reforming the economy as well as political areas were raised. The Soviet type of centralized planning was opposed everywhere which further led to the crisis situation of 1956. The demand for reform took a violent form when a popular uprising took place which was suppressed forcefully by the Soviet army and Pro — Moscow leadership of Hungary. Before this uprising Imre Nagy had initiated various reform measures in political, administrative and agricultural areas in spite of not being sure about his political future. He became the premier of the country twice, first during 1953–55 and again briefly in 1956. He had tried to relax the state control over the economy and mass media. He also encouraged public discussion on political and economic reforms which were not liked by the Soviet and orthodox Hungarian communist leaders. Consequently this uprising was suppressed and Nagy was executed. After this uprising, Janos Kadar became General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party. His appearance was comparatively less disputed in politics. He tried to please the Soviet leadership by restructuring the whole political and economic institution which helped him to continue in power for a long time.
New Economic Mechanism 1968
Janos Kadar ruled Hungary as top leader of Hungarian Socialist Workers Party from 1956 to 1988. In this period he and his party introduced economic reforms which were popularly known as New Economic Mechanism (NEM). This was an effort to accomplish reforms in many sectors. It created a sincere image about Kadar and his ruling party that they wanted to bring a change in Hungary. NEM allowed the collective enterprises to make autonomous directives to determine the pattern of their production. The new price system was allowed to create market relations discipline. The central administrative allocation of material supply was abolished with only few exceptions. The investment system was changed and profit became the main objective of the enterprises. All these changes created an entirely new image about the new Hungarian ruling elite. Hungary began to be seen as the pioneering country moving in the direction of economic reforms. By 1972, however, the Hungarian leaders started restricting and limiting the scope of market mechanism which again created more state protection to old ideological values. Hungary witnessed inflation and it ran a massive foreign debt. People of Hungary were not satisfied from this step and the pressure for structural reform was growing.
Demands for Democracy and Change in Leadership
Hungary was in clear need of another spell of reform to remove the inadequacies of the reform experiments of 1970s. The main question related to Hungarian reform in mid 1980s was basically political among them international condition was most important. Hungary had the constraints of not leaving the Warsaw pact and it was bound to support the Soviet interest in the region.By late 1980s national and international situation was changing and people started demanding more freedom and openness. On 16 March 1988 About 10,000 people, chanting democracy, marched through the streets of Budapest. People demanded the formation of independent trade union. The ruling party had no answer to all these and it was not able to face the people. Many top ruling party leaders were not agree with the party line on many issue. In May 1988 in an extra- ordinary party conference Karoly Grosz became the General Secretary of the ruling party and kadar era came to end. After this development Karoly Grosz along with Imre Pozsgay became two most important leaders who were spearheading the reform program in spite of differences on the extent and content of the reform.
Green Signal to New System and End of Communist Rule
In the meantime various interest groups and political parties also started emerging in Hungary which was a sign of emergence of new party system. Some of these parties were Hungarian Democratic Forum, Alliance of Free Democrats, Hungarian Social Democratic Party and Small Holders Party. In January 1989 a new law was passed by the parliament which provided the people the right to form divergent political parties in principle. Again in February 1989 the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party gave the green signal to a new system with multiplicity of political parties. Ultimately in October 1989 in the Party Congress the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party decided to change its name and hence voted itself out of existence. Even the name of the country was changed within few days. Now it became Republic of Hungary in place of People’s Republic. In January 1990 elections of parliament were held in which an alliance of Free Democrats and the Hungarian Democratic Forum came in power
