Abstract

For Hungarian supporters of social progress, the year 1945 began with an exceptional historical situation. The powerful domestic forces which had prevented the replacement of the feudal-hierarchic world by democratic social institutions collapsed right before our eyes. But what was the fundamental question of Hungarian democracy at that time? What was the question on whose answer the future development of social life most depended? Was it the coalition of the democratic parties and the maintenance of this alliance? Or the strengthening of the position of the leftist parties within the coalition, so that the political preconditions for the radical reconstruction of the social and economic conditions were secured?