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

It was in this tense situation of internal affairs that the national assembly enacted (on June 24) the Hungarian Peace Agreement signed in Paris on February 10, 1947, which restored the pre1938 Hungarian borders in law, even compelling three more villages in the Csallóköz to be given over to Czechoslovakia. With the return of our "sovereignty" the state of war between the Allies and Hungary came to an end, and they should have evacuated the country's territories within ninety days. Despite this, the Soviet Union continued to station its troops in Hungary, giving as a reason that they were required as a supply line for its troops based in the Soviet zone of Austria and the old German Empire. Ten parties vied in the parliamentary elections that were brought forward to August 31, 1947. After the dissipated Smallholders the strongest opposition became the Democratic People's Party, led by István Barankovics. Dezső Sulyok, who saw that the parties of the Left-Wing Bloc were preparing for the total annihilation of middle-class power, made a similar attempt at bringing together the Opposition, but due to communist attacks his scattered party (the Freedom Party) departed into exile. The Hungarian Independence Party was banned and its mandate unlawfully invalidated. Then, as the result of various electoral manipulations and frauds, the HCP became the parliament's strongest party (22.3%). The taking over of power by the communists also meant a change in personalities at the highest level of public office: the president of the republic, Zoltán Tildy, was removed from office; his son-in-law was sentenced to death in a fabricated "spy trial" and executed, while he was placed under house arrest. The parliament voted for the Social Democrat Árpád Szakasits in his stead, who together with his left-wing Social Democrat companions assisted the Communists in squeezing out the right-wing elements of the SDP who were against "the unity of the workers": in this way, in the summer of 1948, a forced unification Silver ornamental box made for the birthday of Party Secretary General Mátyás Rákosi