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Intelligence Against Dissidents:
The Kádár-Regime, Control of Dissenting Intellectuals,
and the Emerging Civil Society in Hungary after 1956
by MÁTÉ SZABÓ -- abstract

Politically, the Communist system of the Kádár-regime in Hungary started out with higher prospects of liberalization in the economy and in every-day life, culture and even in politics than other more “hardline” Communist regime, such as the GDR. The article depicts Kádár-regime's beginning in the 1956 anti-Stalinist revolution and its aftermath. Established in its aftermath of 1956, the Kádár regime soon took on a tendency toward reform-Communism. There were no wide-scale exclusions and which-hunts, and both Hungarians and foreign analysts tend to speak of a “peaceful change”. The article describes and analyses the scope of state security activity after the first wave of Russian and Kádárist state terror in response to 1956.