Abstract
Four decades of socialism radically transformed Hungary’s socio-political and economic systems. As in these areas, the most significant changes in civil-military relations occurred as a result of two comprehensive transformation processes. The first took place in the 1948–53 period, when the primary role of the armed forces shifted from the defense of the nation-state to the protection of the Communist regime. By the late 1940s Hungarian Communists were the undisputed domestic masters of the national armed forces. The second transformation, discussed in Chapter 5, was an inverse process. With the demise of Communism in 1989–90, the Communist Party’s control over the military gradually weakened and in time evaporated altogether.
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Notes
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Barany, Z.D. (1993). The First Transition: Sovietization (1945–53). In: Soldiers and Politics in Eastern Europe, 1945–90. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22864-5_3
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