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

vious weeks and months, opposition by the workers' councils, rebel groups and the intelligentsia was broken down in a merciless reign of terror, with gunfire salvos, arrests and executions. Meanwhile 200,000 people emigrated from the country. n the following three years 400 death sentences were carried out and 50,000 people either imprisoned or interned. Contrary to Kádár's earlier promise, on June 16,1958 the Prime Minster nd Imre Nagy and his associates were executed. After the quashing of the revolution, the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP), originally initiated by Imre Nagy and his circle of Reformist Communists and created (November 1, 1956) with the intention of renewing the party, became in its entirety the main political base for the consolidation of Kádárism. Kádár, citing a two-pronged attack, strove to demarcate himself both from the Rákosi-ist/Stalinist layer in the leadership and from the old opposition stamped as revisionists. As well as the Soviet military presence, he was supported by a force of arms organised out of persons from the now disbanded ÁVH and those working in units in the Ministry of e Interior (the "Quilted Jackets"). The official formation of the party army ("worker's militia"), Iso recruited from out of these, took place on February 19, 1957. The youth section of the reorganised party, the Hungarian Communist Youth Organisa-tion (KISZ) unfurled its flag on March 1, the 40

th anniversary of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Soviet Secretary Khrushchev saw his visit to Budapest in Spring 1958 as a second "yoking" of the country. His former decision guaranteed Hungary for imperial interests for decades to come. By the beginning of the 1960s the Kádár regime had been consolidated, solidly attached to the communist bloc both economically (Comecon) and militarily (the Warsaw Pact). After every part of society had been embraced by the party state's new social and political organisations, the local organs of the HSWP, the National Trade Union Council, the Behind the door of the Kozma Street prison condemned cell we remember Prime Minister Imre Nagy and the victims of 1956. On the rear wall can be read Albert Camus's hymn, "Hungarian Blood", which was to become famous, (exhibition detail) Imre Nagy

's pince-nez and smoking-jacket, which he wore even in prison