Republic of Hungary (1946–1949)

The Second Hungarian Republic (Hungarian: Magyar Köztársaság) was a parliamentary republic briefly established after the dissolution of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1 February 1946.

History

The Soviet Red Army occupied Hungary from September 1944 until April 1945. The Siege of Budapest lasted almost two months and the entire city was nearly destroyed.

By signing the Peace Treaty of Paris, Hungary again lost all the territories it had gained between 1938 and 1941. Neither the Western Allies nor the Soviet Union supported any changes to Hungary's pre-1938 borders.

The Soviet Union itself annexed Sub-Carpathia, having been a part of Czechoslovakia before 1938, which is now part of Ukraine.

The Treaty of Peace with Hungary signed on February 10, 1947 declared that "The decisions of the Vienna Award of November 2, 1938 are declared null and void" and Hungarian boundaries were fixed along the former frontiers as they existed on January 1, 1938, except a minor loss of territory on the Czechoslovakian border. Half of the ethnic German minority (240,000 people) was deported to Germany in 1946-48, and there was a forced "exchange of population" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

The Soviets set up an alternative government in Debrecen on December 21, 1944 but did not capture Budapest until January 18, 1945. Soon afterwards, Zoltán Tildy became the provisional prime minister.

In elections held in November 1945, the Independent Smallholders' Party won 57% of the vote. The Hungarian Communist Party, now under the leadership of Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő, received support from only 17% 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. Under Parliament, the leader of the Smallholders, Zoltán Tildy, was named president and Ferenc Nagy prime minister in February 1946. Mátyás Rákosi became deputy prime minister.

László Rajk became minister of the interior and in this post established the security police (ÁVH). In February 1947 the police began arresting leaders of the Smallholders Party and the National Peasant Party. Several prominent figures in both parties escaped abroad. 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 Working People's Party (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja) (formed by a merger of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party) became the largest single party in the elections in 1947 and served in the coalition People's Independence Front government. The communists gradually gained control of the government and by 1948 the Social Democratic Party ceased to exist as an independent organization. Its leader, 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.

On August 18, 1949, the Parliament passed the new constitution of Hungary (1949/XX.) modelled after the 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union. The name of the country became the People's Republic of Hungary, "the country of the workers and peasants" where "every authority is held by the working people". Socialism was declared as the main goal of the nation. A new coat of arms was adopted with Communist symbols, such as the red star, a hammer, and an ear of wheat.

See also

• History of Hungary