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▲ AngryData a day ago

If they teach about it people might be able to identify the actual problems of authoritarianism and having an elite class. Rather than throwing any and everything they don't like under the communist label.

▲aliasxneo a day ago | parent | next [-]

Hungary is a particularly interesting case. Failed a populist uprising in 1919. Then failed again in 1945 when the Independent Smallholders’ Party won a clear majority over the communist party. Then came the "salami tactics" (secret police arrests/killings under accusations of "fascism" or conspiracy) until the "election" in 1949 which just ended up being straight down the party line (after they merged with the socialists). Not to mention the Red Army never really left after the end of WWII.

It's not the typical story people usually think about with either a populist uprising or the Red Terror.

▲noir_lord a day ago | parent [-]

They also came quite close to succeeding, initially it looked like the Politburo would actually remove Soviet troops and let much of what they wanted to happen happen.

Then Khrushchev and the rest decided that if they let Hungary "go" they'd have a problem justifying to the people of the other not entirely willing Warsaw Pact countries why they couldn't also go.

(Dramatically simplifying for brevity), it was also a really bad time for it to happen because we (the British), French and Israeli’s decided to start a massive crisis in the middle east 2 days earlier which over shadowed events in Hungary.

My missus is Hungarian, god help you if you say that Hungary was in the USSR to her because no one else will.

Her family (and her father in particular) loathed the Hungarian Communist Party but he was something of an Anglophile which he passed on to her and indirectly that worked out for me, so when Hungary joined the EU/combined with the Hungarian government saying "If you don't like it leave" (summarising again) she decided to say "OK" and move to the UK.

▲RussianBot9580 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If they teach about it some people might realize that many a politician in the EU - the ones who are loudest about the evils of the Soviets - have parents who were high ranking members of the Politburo, and they owe their current position to said parents.

▲mopsi 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Interesting. Can you name some?