Background to the Stalinization of Hungary.Background to the Stalinization of Hungary.

Hungary after the Trianon Peace settlement.

Kun Béla and the Hungarian Soviet Republic 1919.

White Terror.

Key events:

Attacked by Czechoslovakia, Romania and Serbia in Nov 1918.

Communist republic in March 1919.Red terror during the spring and early summer of 1919.

White Terror under Horthy and the Interwar Years.

The Vienna Awards 1938.Hungary joining Germany in the war against USSR.

Germany occupying in March 44.Hungarian Nazis Arrow Cross, coup in October 44.

Holocaust in Hungary, Rauol Wallenberg. 300 000 dead in Hungary (todays borders).

Budapest battlefield winter 1945.

STALINIZATION OF HUNGARY

Hungary in 1945.

April 13 1945 War is over in Hungary.Unlike Germany, Budapest and Hungary is ”liberated” by USSR alone.Hungarians living in Transylvania, Slovakia and Serbia are victims of awful atrocities at the end of the war.

The Soviet Authorities take three actions first:1. Find all Nazis and war criminals and punish then.2. Reconstruct the Infrastructure in Russia with forced

labour.3. Execute land reforms.

Rapes and plunder:All Hungarian families have some relative that suffered from the Red Armys march through Hungary during the winter / spring of 1945. (Zsuzsa's story).

The Soviets are NOT greeted as liberators by the Hungarian population.

Hungary in 1945.

BUT, the Hungarian society is very polarized with all the atrocities committed by the Nazis on the other hand.

In autumn 1945 a free election, the next entirely free on is in 1989.The communist leader Rákosi is convinced that the Communists (MKP) will get at least 70 % of the votes.

Smallholder's Party (Farmer's party) get 57 % of the votes.

The Communists backed by the Red Army and the Soviet ”Advisors” demand that the communists gets seats in the Government anyway.A ”Popular Front” is formed.

MKP:Minister of Interior, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Finance.

Prime minister and President from the Smallholder's Party.

The Feudal Hungary.

The MKP sabotages the Government's work from within the Government.

Demands quick Land Reforms.

The Search for Nazi collaborators and war criminal continues.

The MKP disturb the party meetings held by other parties.

Very similar to what the NSDAP did in Germany.