Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)

Room 20. The Rise and Fall of Communism (1945-1990). István Ihász

Party office.) On May 3, technical work commenced on dismantling the wire fencing on the Hungarian-Austrian border. (During the Cold War the political, ideological, economic and cultural dividing line between the two global systems was also symbolically named the Iron Curtain - after Churchill's speech at Fulton in 1946.) This was a display of political will and from that moment on several hundred East Germans escaped daily across the Hungarian border to Austria in order to freely emigrate thence to West Germany. On August 19 the Sopron branch of the Hungarian Democratic Forum and the Austrian Pan-European Movement organised a Pan-European Picnic near Lake Fertő, where several thousand East Germans could step onto "free land" across the border, officially open for a few hours. Eventually, after long West German-Hungarian-Russian negotiations, official Hungarian foreign policy finally opened its borders. The restructuring of Hungary - together with parallel changes made in international politics and in the Soviet Union - played an outstanding role in shattering the autocratic rule of communist parties in the region and in the reunification of Germany. The European energy crisis raised the issue of the Bős-Nagymaros river barrage, which democratising public life treated as a symbol of the existing system and soviet reformation of nature, that is, as part of its criticism (poster) It was in the course of the National Round Table talks that a timetable was formed for the restructuring of the political system and a decision made regarding the announcement of free parliamentary elections. At the Assembly by-elections held that summer, several candidates vied for the same seat, which as a rule were won either by the Hungarian Democratic Forum or by a joint opposition candidate. The Young Communists were restructured, at their October congress the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party split in two, and on October 23 the constitutional form was changed to a republic. The announce-