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

ment, on the first freely celebrated anniversary of 1956, took place as a form of national consensus, although as the population was still reticent concerning the "guards of change" the Party's army (the Workers' Militia) was disbanded. In the debate surrounding the four "yeses" of the November 26 referendum it became clear to the population, afire with the fever of regime-change, that the opposition parties, with their different identities and world views, were travelling parallel but separate paths. Even during the period of semi-legality their irreconcilable differences had been drawn up. It was the Free The ceremonial funeral of Imre Nagy and his companions shook the country' public opinion. Plot 301, into which the victims of 1956 had been interred in unmarked graves and which for decades it had been forbidden even to approach, turned into a new national place of pilgrimage (posters) Democrats who by collecting signatures had fought for a referendum on four questions: whether the HSWP should withdraw from politics and the workplace, the liquidation of the party's assets, the disbanding of the workers' militia and whether the person of the President of the Republic should be decided immediately by referendum or whether the choice should come under the authority of the new parliament. Of the above, the first three questions were sorted out as time went by. The HDF, then the strongest opposition party, boycotted the referendum, the only remaining matter at stake being whether the minister of state, Imre Pozsgay, then at the