Hungary: Economic Crisis and a Shift to the Right

An “iron curtain” of Communism spread over Eastern Europe as the post-World War II world tried to re-build Germany and Easter Europe. As the dictator Joseph Stalin sealed off the Eastern Bloc, the rest of Europe began to re-build under a democratic rule. This re-building continued and the USSR continued to keep their “totalitarian” hold on the East. As the Cold War continued the battle that was being fought soon became the battle between the two world super powers. This led to many conflicts and continued up until finally in 1989 the Berlin Wall was taken down reuniting Western and Eastern Germany and bringing down the “iron curtain“ that shaded the East from freedom.

First, before the Second World War, the nation of Czechoslovakia had been a strong democracy in Central Europe, but beginning in the mid 1930s it faced challenges from both the West and the East. Until the Soviet’s invasion where they installed a whole new communist government in Prague. For the next twenty

Past Setbacks; High politics surpass the economic gains. The thoughts and scarred lifestyle due to cold war with Soviet Union has faded impact on the “new” EU states. Old states fear the aggressive anti-Communist elites as they displayed a vast growth in an incredibly short phase.Though these States tend to be optimistic yet resist dictatorship and there is a fear of being swamped by the powerful West. CEE’s have a cold war vision against the United States while Western Europe has strong

In the year 1914, two gunshots had forever changed history. In this time, the countries of Europe had begun to rival in the topic of a greater territory. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had just won over Bosnia, causing considerable disagreement with the Bosnians (Nelson, 2015). Some Bosnian nationalists believed that Bosnia should be its own country, and not under the power of Austria-Hungary. Serbia also wanted the country of Bosnia under their rule due to the great population of Serbians living in Bosnia at the time. For this reason, Austria-Hungary disliked Serbia (Clare, 2002/2014). During this same time period, many other European countries wanted more land and began forming alliances. Serbia had allied with Russia, while Austria-Hungary was formed in alliance with Germany (Nelson, 2015). Despite all the conflict over land and the tension

Throughout all of the valiant efforts of Hungarian Students and workers the Hungarian revolution had begun only to see hundreds die and thousands more leave with fatal casualties. The only way the Hungarians could fight back was to take up arms and fight back with as much force as possible and eventually they did succeed only to watch all of their hopes a dreams crushed when the soviets returned to decimate the Hungarian Freedom Fighters within a matter of a few short days. The Soviet Union’s Reign had only ended when the Berlin wall was demolished in 1989 when other countries finally realized that the Communist were also a very large threat to the rest of the world, which bring me to yet another point in history when the same efforts concluded to very fruitful rewards.

The demands, “adopted at the storm meetings held at the universities” (Doc 1) call for freedom in harsh and extreme tones. Instead of compromise with communists, the students request for the “withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Hungary” (Doc 1) and to have “no interference in Hungary’s internal affairs” (Doc 1). As an alternative to Soviet rule, the students desire for Hungary to be in control of its internal affairs. The people of Hungary wish for “equal rights for individual farms and cooperative members” (Doc 1). Hungarians envision a life without communist rule intervening with the responsibilities of the country and demonstrate the idea by “[cutting] out the hated hammer and sickle that the Communists had placed at [the] center [of the Hungarian flag]” and proclaiming that they have created a new flag of freedom. ( Doc

Dating back to approximately seventy years ago, the Nazi party tried to create an alliance to help them dominate Europe. They made a promise that Slovaks would have their own country, and they moved factories into Slovakia so that the Slovaks could produce goods that would help the them win the war. When Ukraine was under Soviet rule, the Soviets intended to annex it to the Soviet Union permanently, confiscated the wealth of capitalist, and began to create collective farms by taking away the land of individual farmers and forcing them to join the collectives. Ukrainians believed that the Germans were going to save them from the Communists who had taken away everything from them. Hungary, the main loser of Paris treaties system, served as one of the Hitler’s

Eastern Europe was in a state of constant conflict and strained relationships in the early 1900s. Austria had drawn the ire of Serbia through the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Balkans had just escaped from two wars, and major powers like Russia, Germany, and Britain sought to gain an influence in newly formed countries in the area formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire. During this time, relationships were extremely crucial. They limited or expanded each country’s abilities to achieve their goals and impacted the global reactions to a country’s actions. These alliances were established from the treaties made and broken between countries from as early as the 1800s. However, the reason to make these treaties was not solely based

Even as Reagan clashed Marxism in Central America but, the USSR was crumbling. In reaction to severe economic difficulties and rising political uproar in the Russia, the Premier ‘Mikhail Gorbachev’ took office in 1985 and then announced two strategies that redefined Russian’s association to the rest of the realm: ‘glasnost’ or political honesty, and ‘restructuring’ or economic development. Soviet impact in Eastern Europe diminished. In 1989 every former communist government in the county swapped its government with a non-communist any. In November of that year the “Berlin Wall” the utmost evident sign of the decades long Cold War was to end with demolished, just done two years after Reagan had defied the Russian premier in an address at Brandenburg

and faced many difficulties. Because of their new government, they had to figure out a

Although the Soviets imposed a Stalin type of regime in Hungary during the beginning of the Soviet occupation, things continued to get worse after the failed election of the communist party in Hungary (Rainer, 2010). For example Vyachslev Molatav, a diplomat for the Soviet Union, commanded Matyas Rakosi, the leader of the Communist Party in Hungary, to use tougher actions against the Hungarian citizens in order to make a more pronounced class struggle (Wettig, 2008). The electoral loss of the Communist Party in the 1945 Hungarian elections illustrated the reality that the Central European Communists parties were weak; thus the Soviet Union felt that it was necessary to apply harsh measures onto the Hungarian people in order to ensure the survival of a communist government (Naimark, 1995). Although the Soviets believed that these measures would enforce communism as a way of life over the Hungarian population, this ended up driving the Hungarians to revolt in

Hungary was often exploited by the Soviets, who used force to steal goods from Hungarian people and demanded huge amounts of grain, meat, vegetables and dairy products. Hatred spewed throughout Hungary for Russia because they controlled their economy, which caused them to be poor. The turmoil and unrest was beginning to grow from the workers (Ray). A detailed study for the United States Army was prepared several months before the Hungarian uprisings, examines Hungary “as a potential theater for Special Forces operations”. It said, “In international and national politics, in its agricultural policy of collectivization, in its program of industrialization, in its policy of Sovietization, in its persecution of religion, its regimentation of workers and widespread use of forced labor, the Communist regime has completely thwarted Hungarian nationalism and provided all elements of the population with numerous reasons for being dissident” ("Hungary: Resistance Activities and Potentials").Yet, there was still hope for the Hungarians.

This essay will attempt to answer the question ‘To what extent is Austria-Hungary at fault for causing the start of World War One?’ This topic is significant due to the ongoing debate about how WWI started and because of the debt some countries only recently, have paid off. In 1914, the country to declare the first war was Austria-Hungary's(AH) declaration of war on Serbia. Following this was Serbia's ally, Russia, who mobilized its troops in preparation, and Germany soon after declaring war on the russians. As the snowball effect came into place, countries such as France, the United Kingdom and Belgium followed in declaring different wars amongst each other.

Communism is a topic that not many people are aware of, or its impact, especially in a small country like Hungary. Communism did a lot of good things for the country; it helped pull Hungary out of economic disaster after the war; but, it also made living there, for the long run, extremely tough for citizens. But the Soviets, although they rebuilt Hungary (relatively), their main intensions appear more and more selfish as facts come together. The Soviet Union brought help to Hungary in the short term and the long term effects, although not as beneficial, still caused an improvement as communism began to gain

The European Union played a very important role in transforming post-communist countries into democratic states with functioning market economies and the rule of law. The massive transfer of institutional and legal know-how from member