Hungary under Communist Rule Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

Hungary had a Communist Revolution which coincided with the Paris Peace Treaty negotiations (specifically the Trianon Treaty) following World War I. Although it only lasted 133 days and was brutally put down by Admiral Horthy, it is considered to be a major reason why Hungary's territorial losses were so high.

In the inter-war period, some countries outlawed the Communist Party altogether.

Answer: False

Hungarians are not a Slavic people. The Hungarian or Magyar language is linguistically related to Finnish. Hungarians have traditionally seen themselves as part of Central, not Eastern Europe (or the Balkans).

Answer: 1948

Unlike in Poland, the Communists showed initial restraint in talking total control of the government. In September 1945, the Hungarian Roman Catholic Primate condemned Marxism without suffering any consequences. The first President of the new republic was Zoltan Tildy, a member of the Smallholders' Party. And the Ministry of the Interior, which exercised control over the state police apparatus, was not placed initially in the hands of a Communist.

Not until the peace treaty with the Allies was signed in February of 1947 did the Communists begin to tighten their control.

In 1948, the crackdown was complete.

Answer: Laszlo Rajk

Laszlo Rajk was arrested for being part of an alleged 'fascist-imperialist' syndicate in late August of 1948. However, Rajk was an ardent Stalinist who became a victim of the internal purges of the Eastern European Communist parties which began in 1947 and continued through the early 1950s. If Rajk was guilty of anything, it was of being overzealous. Between 1945 and 1947, Stalin was trying to stretch out the coalition phases so as not to further upset Great Britain and the United States. The other answers are all names of the individuals who were responsible for Rajk elimination. Rajk was rehabilitated posthumously in March of 1956.

Answer: To show support for the political revolution taking place in Poland and to urge its emulation by Hungary.

The students were trying to show their solidarity with Poland which was fighting for similar liberalizations; other demands included the restoration of Imre Nagy to power, and a re-evaluation of Hungarian-Soviet relations.

Answer: Erno Gero

Erno Gero had just recently replaced Matyas Rakosi as the First Secretary of the Hungarian Communist party. Gero did concede to the students that Imre Nagy might again become Premier. However, he was shortly thereafter replaced as the party chief by the Soviet Union in favor of Janos Kadar. Milovan Dijilas was an early contemporary of Tito's in Yugoslavia.

Answer: Imre Nagy

Nagy sided with the revolutionaries. He repudiated Gero's request for military intervention by the Soviet Union; he re-established the multiparty government coalition of 1945; he withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact and he requested United Nations protection.

Answer: Suez Crisis

The Suez crisis, which threatened to jeopardize American access to the Suez Canal, took precedence over the Hungarian Revolution for American policy makers. Realizing that there was little that the United Nations could do given the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the Security Council, the Americans declined to provide substantial aid to the Hungarians.

The revolution was crushed by Soviet troops in approximately two weeks.

Answer: Yuri Andropov

Yuri Andropov was the Soviet ambassador who helped facilitate the Soviet military intervention in Hungary. He provided false reassurances to Hungarian officials while the Soviets amassed fresh troops along the Hungarian borders. He later became head of the KGB and much later succeeded Brezhnev as head of the Soviet Government.

Answer: True

After 1962, Janos Kadar began to slowly liberalize Hungarian Communism. He presided over the creation of an economic reform program known as the NEM which included the creation of a second economy in which private enterprises were legal. By 1963, Hungarians were allowed to travel to other countries outside of the Eastern bloc, a policy unheard of in most Eastern European countries.

Answer: An Economic Reform Program

The NEM, or New Economic Mechanism, was an economic reform program innitiated by the Hungarian government in January of 1968. It allowed for the more efficient distribution of goods, offered incentives/rewards to workers meeting production levels, and allowed for the existence of certain private enterprises such as restaurants, and car repair shops.

Although not successful by Western standards, the NEM did allow Hungarians to achieve more economic growth than most Eastern European countries during the Communist era.

Answer: Karoly Grosz

Grosz presided over the end of Communism in Hungary.

Answer: Jozsef Antall

Jozsef Antall was a member of the Democratic Forum and elected the first prime minister of post-Communist Hungary.

Answer: Allen Dulles

Allen Dulles wanted the United States to send troops to Hungary. But he was vetoed by Eisenhower and his brother, John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State.

Answer: True

Radio Free Europe did offer false hope. It encouraged the revolutionaries to keep fighting, implying that after elections in the United States in November, there would be a new administration that would be more likely to intervene. RFE knew that Eisenhower was not likely to be defeated. And even if a Democratic candidate had defeated Eisenhower, they knew that the Democrats would be even less likely to intervene on the Hungarians' behalf.