25 years ago: Hungarian Stalinist regime breaks with Soviet bloc

WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE

East Germany’s leader Erich Honecker (1912-1994)(1971-1989)

On September 8, 1989, the Hungarian People’s Republic opened its borders to allow some 10,000 citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) to emigrate to West Germany via Austria, over the protests of the Stalinist government in East Berlin. Two days later, Hungary requested the withdrawal of two Soviet tank battalions, proclaimed its intention of eventually becoming a neutral state, and announced the unilateral demilitarization of a stretch of its borders with Austria and Yugoslavia.

From these first acts taken in Budapest the liquidation of the Eastern European regimes began, to be followed in two years with the dismantling of the Soviet Union itself. Beginning with Hungary, factions of the Stalinist bureaucracies led and profited from the dismantling, privatization, and out-and-out looting of the state property that had been established in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the victory of the Red Army over Nazi Germany in World War II. The living conditions of the working class were thrown back decades.

With the promise of automatic West German citizenship, the East German émigrés began to arrive in Hungary earlier in the year after it said it would open its border with Austria. Negotiations continued until September, during which time the émigrés were housed by the right-wing Catholic Order of Malta charity in Budapest.

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