Csaba Békés. <i>Hungary’s Cold War: International Relations from the End of World War II to the Fall of the Soviet Union</i>

Csaba Békés is probably the most renowned Hungarian historian of the history of the Cold War. This book is a synthesis of his research conducted over a period of more than three decades. Hardly anyone has sifted through as many archival documents, especially from Hungary, the US, and Russia, as Békés. In this monograph, he masterfully describes the history of Hungary during the Cold War and sets new standards.Békés makes it clear that the fate of East Central Europe was not sealed at the Yalta Conference in 1945, but in Tehran in 1943. He puts the Sovietization of this region in a new light: it was neither “a cause nor a consequence” of the emerging Cold War. It began very early, at the beginning of 1944. However, Stalin had to be considerate of the West, with whom he wanted in principle to continue working. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were easier to bring under control in a “stealthy revolution” than other Eastern Central European countries (3). Békés makes it clear that neither speeding up the Sovietization process in the case of Hungary nor the founding of Cominform were a response to the US Marshall Plan.1956 was a key year in Hungarian Cold War history. Although the Soviet intervention in Hungary was stylized as one of the greatest crises of the Cold War, especially by the Western media, Békés soberly classifies it as a “pseudo-crisis” because it did not shake the East-West structure (107). For the Soviet Union, the military intervention went completely differently than planned: primarily social protests turned into an anti-Soviet liberation struggle. Imre Nagy’s government declared Hungary neutral and withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, following the example of Yugoslavia and Austria. This made a second intervention necessary for the Soviets. Békés emphasizes that Moscow would not have allowed Hungary to leave the Warsaw Pact under any circumstances.From the Soviet point of view, János Kádár was the guarantor of Hungary’s loyalty to Moscow. On the other hand, he could only achieve political stability and calm in the country with a certain national Hungarian course. Békés describes in detail the scope for action that was opening up; he even speaks of a “reversed imperium-colony” relationship (208). Hungary received cheap raw materials and energy from the Soviet Union (after Hungary had been extremely economically exploited by the Soviet Union following 1944/45). Moscow’s goal of organizing a conference on security and cooperation in Europe opened up additional opportunities for Hungary. The special involvement in the CSCE process brought Budapest economic advantages and technologies for the modernization of the country. From then on, Hungarian foreign policy was able to pursue a path more independent of Moscow, in line with the motto “what is not forbidden is (perhaps) allowed” (213).Kádár visited Bonn and Rome in 1977, and relations with the USA also improved considerably. The following year, US President Jimmy Carter returned the Crown of St. Stephen to Hungary and granted the country most-favored-nation status. A decisive factor in this decision was that the US considered the human rights situation in Hungary to be acceptable. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan seemed to ruin years of progress in international relations. The author contradicts this view, arguing for a “period of standby détente” instead of a Second Cold War, “because the mechanism of compelled cooperation continued to work” (13). Hungary only reluctantly implemented Moscow’s demand to freeze relations with the “West.”In the last two chapters, Békés describes the consequences of Gorbachev’s accession to office for East Central Europe and the end of the Cold War in a detailed and knowledgeable manner. With knowledge of all the relevant documents, Békés rightly emphasizes that the democratization desired by the Kremlin at the end of the 1980s (Hungary and the Soviet Union were the driving forces for reform alongside Poland) did not mean that the European security structure with the existence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact was called into question, neither in the East nor in the West. He rightly speaks of a deliberate (and then, in some countries, short-term) “Finlandization” of East Central Europe. Ultimately, it was the Hungarians who were one of the first to demand the withdrawal of Soviet troops. However, the acceleration of history, which then occurred with the end of an entire era, was anything but predictable or even foreseeable.This new standard work on Hungarian history during the Cold War is unreservedly recommended as a must-read for students, teachers, and academics.