ColdWarHungary_II_2024_AL

Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt (MSZMP), Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party

Recreated Communist Party in the days of the revolution, the monoparty of the Kádár era

új gazdasági mechanizmus, New Economic Mechanism

Reform of the socialist Hungary's economic life, prepared in 1960 but it was introduced in 1968 January 1st. This reform had major changes in 3 fields: The role of central planning has been reduced and the corporate autonomy in production and investment has increased. The prices were liberalized on the market. The centrally determined wage system was replaced by a more flexible set of company-defined regulations.

háztáji, household plot

A small plot of land (typically less than 0.5 hectares) attached to a rural residence in all former socialist countries. It was the only form of private or family farming allowed during the Soviet era, when household plots of rural people coexisted in a symbiotic relationship with large collective and state farms. Highly used in the Kádár era when the NEM enabled the Hungarian market for taking advantages of a private property.

második gazdaság, second economy

The informal economic sector of the socialist countries. Also referred to as underground, unofficial, shadow economy or black or grey market.

„három T", three Ts

(Tilt/Tűr/Támogat - Forbiddance/Tolerance/Countenance) Pushed by György Aczél (greatest ideologist of cultural life during the Kádár Era) "the three Ts" were practiced in cultural life. Forbiddance referred to artists (musicians, writers, poets, etc), who were politically against communism, or criticized the system. Countenance was provided for those praising the system and being favourable with communism. Between these two extremes situated the tolerated ones, sometimes lucky and able to publish or appear, sometimes not, depending on the random mood of the political leadership or being up to their actual artifacts' message.

ellenzéki mozgalmak, opposition movement

Loose political groupings against the communist dictatorship in Hungary, which strengthened in the second half of the 1980s and played a significant role in the change of regime

szamizdat, samizdat issue

Also known as boutique literature. Illegal, generally typed publications of communist systems, written, printed and distributed in secret so that the regime's censorship cannot prohibit it. This meant the domestic distribution of Hungarian or foreign writings by Hungarian or foreign authors. Its dealers have been observed, and they have suffered numerous harassments and house searches. Therefore, they could only distribute their publications to a small group of intellectuals, in small numbers.

ellenzéki kerekasztal, Opposition Roundtable

after the Kádár era it was designed to prevent the Communists from trying to maintain power by dividing the opposition, and to establish some degree of unity in the face of the regime's own reform agenda. The table was composed of a small number of elite organizations, whose roots were poorly developed and whose very existence stemmed in part from the collaboration of key Communist reformers. Specifically, it involved all the opposition parties, the Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre Society, and the Democratic Trade Union of Scientific Workers. At a later stage the Democratic Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the Christian Democratic People's Party (KNDP) were invited.

spontán privatizáció, spontanious privatisation

it is one of the most passionately disputed components in the history of Hungarian privatisation. Some economists and politicians consider the essence of the process to be the disintegration of state enterprises into a group of companies, whereas others regard it as the sale of firms or company sections based on managerial decisions. Most participants in public disputes use spontaneous privatisation as a term of abuse and as a synonym for the conversion of political and economic power or for the preservation of assets, i.e. wasting state assets.

falurombolás, village destroyal

"Ethnic policy" of the Romanian leadership, discrimination of the ethnic Hungarians, for economic development purposes they relocated them in groups, also destroyed their villages.

MDF, Magyar Demokrata forum, Hungarian Democratic Forum

It was a center-right political party in Hungary. It had a Hungarian nationalist, national-conservative, Christian-democratic ideology. It was formed in 1987, at the Lakitelek meeting, main organiser: Lezsák Sándor. The party won the elections after the change of the regime, thus it forming a coalition government with the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) and the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP), led by József Antall, first elected prime minister of Hungary. The party was represented continuously in the National Assembly from the restoration of democracy in 1990 until 2010. It was dissolved in 2011.

SZDSZ, Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége, Alliance of Free Democrats

Its origins go back to the democratic opposition. It was founded in November 1988 and it defined itself as a liberal party. It drew its support predominantly from Budapest, from the middle classes, liberal intellectuals and entrepreneurs. It came second in the 1990 elections. Between 1994 and 1998 it was in a coalition government with the MSZP, and again between 2002 and 2010 it co-ruled with the MSZP. After the 2010 election defeat, the party dissolved.

FIDESZ, Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, Alliance of Young Democrats

This center-right Hungarian political party was founded in 1988 as an anti-communist party that promoted the development of a market economy and European Integration. In 1998 FIDESZ became the single largest party in the National Assembly and formed a coalition government with the MDF and the FKGP. Its leader, Viktor Orbán, became prime minister. The government pursued Hungary's membership in the European Union. Hungary also joined NATO in 1999. The first Orbán government lasted until 2002.

MSZP, Magyar Szocialista Párt, Hungarian Socialist Party

It is a social-democratic political party in Hungary.It was founded on 7 October 1989 as a post-communist evolution and one of two legal successors of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP).

FKgP, Független Kisgazdapárt, Party of Independent Smallholders

It is party for smallholders, agricultural workers and the urban middle class. Created during the Horthy era the party became the decisive political force during the yeras of the WWII. They would have started democratic system after the won elections in 1945 and 1947. Salami tactics of the Rakosi era destroyed them. After reorganising in 1989 they were government party in two terms (1990-1994 with the MDF és 1998-2002 with FIDESZ) In 2002 they did not reach the parliamnetary threshold.

KDNP, Keresztény Demokrata Néppárt, Christian Democratic People's Party

It is a Christian-democratic political party in Hungary. The party was founded under the name of KDNP on 13 October 1944 by Hungarian Catholic statesmen, intellectuals and clergy, and was a successor to the pre-war United Christian Party. It is officially a coalition partner of the ruling party, Fidesz, but is in reality a satellite party of Fidesz and has been unable to get into the Parliament on its own since 2006.

többpártrendszer, multiparty system

The most important institution of democracy. It means that there are many parties in political life who can run for elections and get freely elected to parliament as a government or opposition force. In a democracy, the multi-party system is the guarantee that a party cannot expropriate power and build a dictatorship.

pluralizmus, pluarity

the excess of votes received by the leading candidate, in an election in which there are three or more candidates, over those received by the next candidate (distinguished from majority)/more than half of the whole→ the majority.

nemzeti kerekasztal, National Round Table

The National Round Table Talks were a series of orderly and highly legalistic discussions held in Budapest in the summer and autumn of 1989, inspired by the Polish model. Opposition Round Table+Hungarian Socialist party representatives. It ended up creating a multi-party constitutional democracy and saw the Communist Party (MSZMP) lose its power.

rendszerváltás/rendszerváltozás, change of the system, change of regime

peaceful transfpomation of the political (from communism to multiparty democracy) and the economic (from planned economy to market economy) systems in 1989.

privatizáció, privatization

Moving an asset from the public sector into the private sector. Also means the purchase of all outstanding shares of a publicly traded company by private investors, or the sale of a state-owned enterprise or municipally owned corporation to private investors.

kárpótlás, compensation

Trying to compensate the society, non-governmental organisations and the economy for the confiscations happenning during the WW" and Communist years.

népszavazás, referendum

Asking the public opinion on certain economic, social and poltical matters.

autonómia, autonomy

self-government, political control

Kádár János

Secretary of the MSZMP, leader of Hungary bw 1956-1988 (1989)

Pozsgay Imre

A social democratic politician and university professor (DE). He was a dominant member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) during the Kádár-era and he was the one who first called the 1956 revolution a popular uprising in 1988. He played a key role in Hungary's transition to democracy after 1988. At the time of the change of regime, he was a member of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) (former MSZMP) and then founded his own party, the National Democratic Alliance, which advocated right-wing economic and left-wing social policies, but it failed to win any seats in the Parliament. He was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 1994

Tőkés László

Hungarian Calvinist priest seving in Romania. He has a decisive role in the Romanian change of the system starting the so-called Temesvár revolution

Antall József

He was the first prime minister of the government after the change of system (1990-1993). His father was a politician of the Smallholders' party and the minister of reconstruction from 1945-1946. He started to take part in politics as a member of Hungarian Democratic Forum during the times of the change of system. In 1990 he became prime minister. With his government he created the political and economic conditions of a democratic transformation. In international politics he helped to cease the Warsaw Pact and started to prepare the country to become a member of EU. Because of his illness he died before the next elections.

Göncz Árpád

the first head of state after the change of system between 1990-2000. After 1945 he was a politician of the Smallholders' party then worked as a worker. Because of his activities in 1956 (second person trialed in the Bibó-trial) he was life-sentenced to prison in 1958, he was freed in 1963. He worked as a writer and translator (Gyűrűk ura). He joined opposition movements. He took part in the preparations of the change of system in 1988-1990 as a member of Alliance of Free Democrats. In 1990 he became a member of parliament then president of the republic (1989-2000).

Horn Gyula

The third Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary from 1994 to 1998. He went into coalition with the liberal Association of Free Democrats, giving him a two-thirds majority. Horn is remembered as the last Communist Foreign Minister of Hungary, who played a major role in the demolishing of the "Iron Curtain" for East Germans in 1989, contributing to the later unification of Germany, and for the Bokros package, launched under his premiership, in 1995. In November 1956, he helped reorganize the MDP into the MSZMP, which under the leadership of János Kádár crushed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet occupation and communist rule. Later he was a member of MSZP.

Orbán Viktor

Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010; he was also Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002. He has also been President of Fidesz, a national conservative political party, since 1993.

1956. November 4.

Soviet intervention against the revolution

1958

Nagy Imre is executed

1963

amnesty

1968

New Economic Mechanism

1978

Holy Crown is back from the USA

1985

Monor meeting, first organisation conference of the Opposition

1987

Lakitelek meeting, creation of the Hungarian Democratic Forum

1989. June 16.

Nagy Imre and the martyrs odf the Revolution are rehabiltated and reburies

1989. October 23.

Third Republic of Hungary

1990

free elections (national government, local self-governments)

1991

withdrawal of Soviet troops for HUngary

III/III Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

Department II was created in order to replace the State Protection Authority in 1956 as the Political Investigation Department, which operated from 1956 to 1962. From 1962 to 1964, the state security structure was reorganized with the renaming of the department as MIA III

hiánygazdaság, deficit-economy

The economic situation resulting from the proliferation of deficits. It can also occur in market economies, but was mainly prevalent in socialist countries during the Cold War years. There were frequent queues for certain goods and a constant search for many products. Poorer quality service was typical

maszek, MAgán-SZEKtor

Prior to the 1990s, it was the name given to privately owned businesses and services that were not state-owned.

gulyáskommunizmus, goulash-communism

The social policy paradigm starting from the 1960s. The country has been characterised by general prosperity and varying degrees of socio-economic development

debt spiral

takes place when the interest on government debt drives that debt even higher - this was how the goulash-communism could be financed

Németh, Miklós

economist and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from November 1988 to May 1990. He was one of the leaders of the Socialist Workers' Party, Hungary's Communist party, in the tumultuous years that led to the collapse of communism. He was the representative of the radical reformist fraction of the HSWP

Aczél, György

Deputy Minister of Culture during the Kádár era, also the Director General of the Party's Social Sciences Institutes - responsible for the "triple T / triple S" social policy (tilt, tűr, támogat = stop, sustain, support)

Grósz, Károly

General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party from 1988 to 1989 after Kádár

Szűrös, Mátyás

served as provisional president of the Republic from 23 October 1989 to May 1990. His presidency occurred during Hungary's transition from Communism to democratic government.

1956-1989

Kádár Era

1989-90

Change of the system in Hungary

1989 August

Pan-European picnic, a peace demonstration held on the Austro-Hungarian border near Sopron August 1989. The opening of the border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic was the first event in the chain reaction, at the end of which Germany reunified, the Iron Curtain fell apart, and the Eastern Bloc disintegrated.

munkásőrség, Workers' MIlitia

a paramilitary organisation established in Hungary to support the socialist system of power, under direct party control. They were present at all party and state ceremonies as the policemen of the revolution. The workers' guards were party members with civilian occupations, committed to communist power

KISZ Communist Youth Association

the youth organisation of the HSWP

co-operative

A socialist agricultural organisation owned by its members