Second Hungarian Republic

The Second Hungarian Republic was the Hungarian state that existed as a parliamentary republic briefly established after the disestablishment of the Kingdom of Hungary on 1 February 1946. It was itself dissolved on 20 August 1949 and succeeded by the Soviet-backed Hungarian People's Republic. The Republic was proclaimed in the aftermath of the Soviet occupation of Hungary at the end of World War II in Europe and with the formal abolition of the Hungarian monarchy, whose throne had been vacant since 1918, in February 1946. Initially the period was characterized by an uneasy coalition government between pro-democracy elements—primarily the Independent Smallholders' Party—and the Hungarian Communist Party. At Soviet insistence, the Communists had received key posts in the new cabinet, particularly the Interior Ministry, despite the Smallholders' Party's landslide victory in the 1945 elections. From that position the Communists were able to systematically eliminate their opponents segment by segment through political intrigue and fabricated conspiracy, a process that Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi called "salami tactics". By June 1947 the Communist Party had gutted the Smallholders' Party as a political force through the mass arrests and forced exile of its main leaders and had gained effective control of the government. New elections in August 1947 substantially increased the Communists' share of the vote, though the elections were marred with fraud and intimidation. Regardless, further Communist plans managed to liquidate most of the remaining opposition parties within the next year. By October 1947, the Communists had dropped all pretense of pluralism, forcing their nominal coalition partners to cooperate with them or be exiled. This culminated in June 1948, when they forced the Social Democratic Party of Hungary to merge with then to form the Hungarian Working People's Party, essentially a renamed and enlarged Communist Party. They subsequently installed a Communist as president and...