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Hungary in the Inter-War Years
After the fall of the communist regime and the
departure of the Romanian troops from the country, a National Army created
under the command of Admiral Miklós Horty, the one-time aide-de-camp of
Emperor Francis Joseph, advanced on Budapest.
Elections were held and on March 1, 1921, the National Assembly appointed
Miklós Horty regent of Hungary.
After the election of the National Assembly,
but before the election of the Regent, the Treaty of Trianon was signed. The
provisions of this peace treaty were extremely severe. Hungary's territory was reduced
to a third of its previous size, and the country was forced to pay a large
indemnity. What's more, the territorial provisions of the treaty resulted in
three million Hungarians being placed under the jurisdiction of neighbouring
countries.
The Treaty of Trianon shocked Hungary not only
by severing millions of Hungarians from the mother country - this could have
been gradually made acceptable by the application of minority rights and the
kind of handling of national frontiers now in evidence in Western Europe -
but also by wrecking Central Europe's historical economic region.
Between the two world wars Hungary achieved a measure of economic
development, though suffering heavy losses during the universal economic
crisis of the thirties. Hoping for the recovery of the territories that had
been lost as a result of the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary in her foreign policy got
more and more under the influence of the Axis Powers. As a result of the
Vienna Verdicts agreed upon in 1938 and in 1940, Hungary
in fact recovered some of the territories annexed to Slovakia and Romania. Unfortunately, the
country was by her alliance with the Axis Powers drawn into World War II,
which she entered in 1941, by sending an army to the eastern front.
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World War II brought heavy losses to Hungary:
during the Battle of Stalingrad and the offensive on the Don, 40,000 soldiers
of the Second Hungarian Army were killed and 70,000 were captured by the
Soviet troops, and heavy damage was inflicted on Hungarian towns by the air
raids of the Allies. The resistance against the country's involvement in the
war grew and in March, 1944 Hitler, anxious to keep Hungary in the war, decided to
occupy it. He sent for Horthy and while the Regent was staying in the
leadership quarters in Germany,
Hitler's troops marched in.
Horthy remained in his post as Regent and the
new Hungarian puppet-government fulfilled all the demands of Veesenmayer, the
German plenipotentiary. Further Hungarian troops were sent to the front, the
Gestapo took the drive against the anti-Nazis, and more than half a million
Jews were deported to the German death-camps. After Romania, Finland
and Bulgaria followed by Italy's example and went over to the Allies,
Horthy sent secret envoys to Moscow
and a cease-fire agreement was signed. After the cease-fire proclamation was
read over Budapest
radio, however, Horthy's son, Miklós Horthy Jr., was taken prisoner by the
Gestapo. Horthy was forced to sign a document appointing the Arrow Cross
leader Ferenc Szálasi National Protector and then was taken to Germany
with his family, where he lived in captivity. After the war, Horthy moved to Portugal,
where he died in exile in 1957.
The war continued. The German army was finally
driven out of Hungary
by the Soviet army in April, 1945. The war took the lives of half a million
Hungarians, and forty per cent of the nation's material resources were
destroyed. The provisions of the Treaty of Trianon were reinstated and Hungary
was forced to pay a large indemnity.
A period of reconstruction followed the war. Hungary
became a republic, democratic elections were held, and a coalition government
was formed. The Hungarian Communist Party, however, supported by the
occupying Soviet army and the KGB, did not accept the result of the
democratic process. The lawful government of the country was toppled by
unlawful arrests, deportations to Siberia,
and other means. The communists assumed power, introduced a reign of terror.
The collectivisation of agriculture, the forced development of heavy
industry, the rigid central planning, ruined the economy in a few years. As a
result of the growing resistance of the Hungarian people, a revolution that
broke out on October 23, 1956, toppled the regime headed by Mátyás Rákosi.
The government of Imre Nagy announced the beginning of a new, democratic era,
and Hungary's
withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The revolution seemed triumphant: the Soviet
troops withdrew and peace returned to the country. On November 4th, however, the Soviet army invaded the
country in overwhelming numbers and while Prime Minister Nagy applied in vain
for the help of the UN, they crushed the uprising. Thousands were arrested,
deported or executed. Imre Nagy and other leaders of the revolution applied
for asylum at the Yugoslav embassy in Budapest,
but they were deported to Romania,
later brought back to Hungary,
and after a show trial, executed in 1958.
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After a period of bloody oppression, the regime
of János Kádár tried to introduce a kind of "goulash communism":
the living standard of the population was slightly improved, and travel to
the West was allowed within limits. By introducing the slogan "Who is
not against us is with us," Kádár tried to pacify public opinion hostile
towards the regime. The system of "socialist planning", however,
even as modified by the "reform of the economic management"
introduced in 1968, did not work and the economy could be kept going only by
amassing foreign depts. The growing inflation, the lowering of the living
standard, the hopeless economic situation of the country, aroused growing
opposition, even within Communist Party ranks. János Kádár was forced to
retire and after a transitory period, the reform-communist government of
Miklós Németh took over.
During the summer of 1989, conferences took
place among the representatives of government and the budding parties of the
opposition. A system of free elections and a way towards multiparty democracy
was elaborated. At the same time, the Hungarian government opened the
country's frontiers to citizens of Soviet-occupied East Germany who wanted to flee
to the West. The chain-reaction caused by this measure introduced the historical
changes in East-Central Europe, which
brought the demise of communist rule in several countries.
Based on the agreements concluded by the
representatives of the Hungarian government and of the parties of the
opposition, general elections were held in April, 1990. The newly elected
parliament revised the Constitution and elected the president of the Hungarian Republic. In September 1990, municipal
elections were held, completing the establishment of parliamentary democracy
in Hungary.
© Zoltán Halász
English translation by Zsuzsa Béres
Translation revised by J.E. Sollosy
Bibliographic data:
Title: Hungary
(4th edition)
Authors: Zoltán Halász / András Balla (photo) / Zsuzsa Béres
(translation)
Published by Corvina, in 1998
159 pages
ISBN: 963-13-4129-1, 963-13-4727-3
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