For a long time after 1945, Soviet advisors operating alongside Hungarian political, social and economic leaders endeavoured to force their own methods and lifestyle on to Hungarian society. Documentaries and newsreel clips shown on the monitors in the hall evoke the Soviet presence.
Hungary must be punished as an example to others.”
Joseph Stalin
The Soviet Union enforced its will in the occupied countries through its embassies and a network of Soviet advisers. Working for them was a huge army of Soviet political officers and secret service agents, whose task was to reshape the country’s functioning to align with the Soviet model. They had offices in every Hungarian ministry, in every important bureau and in every major company. But they also involved themselves in running the Hungarian political police.
They called themselves advisers, but everyone knew who they really were. When the biggest anti-communist revolution of the 20th century erupted in Hungary in October 1956, the Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov and his “advisers” prepared the Soviet military counter-attack. It was at their suggestion that János Kádár became the country’s new communist leader, after the defeat of the Freedom Fight.
The last Soviet advisers left Hungary in 1990.
