Hungarian Communist Party

Hungarian Communist Party
President	Mátyás Rákosi
Founded	November 5, 1944
Dissolved	July 22, 1948
Ideology	Communism Marxism–Leninism Stalinism
International affiliation	Comintern, Cominform
Colors	Red   Yellow
Political parties

The Hungarian Communist Party (Hungarian: Magyar Kommunista Párt, MKP) was a communist party in Hungary formed in October 1944, after Soviet soldiers entered the country. It was officially established on November 5, 1944, in Szeged.

Founders

The Hungarian Communist Party was created in Szeged on November 5, 1944, by communist exiles sent back from the Soviet Union at the suggestion of Mátyás Rákosi. These included Ernő Gerő, Imre Nagy, and József Révai, who declared themselves the temporary Central Leadership. During the siege of Budapest, members of the illegal Hungarian Communist Party in Hungary met for the first time on January 19, 1945, calling themselves the Central Committee. By then, the Central Leadership was already operating in Debrecen alongside the Allied Control Commission. It stayed there for a while under Gerő’s leadership, even after Budapest was captured, until Rákosi returned and became the party’s general secretary in February 1945. Rákosi and his group only tolerated the Budapest leadership until they could move there themselves. The Central Leadership began building the party’s organizations and developed its action program, called the "Program for the Democratic Reconstruction and Rise of Hungary." Its anti-fascist and democratic nature made it acceptable to the reorganizing anti-German, democratic parties. The leaders of the Hungarian Communist Party actively helped form the new government and prepare for the convening of the Provisional National Assembly.

The party's program

The Hungarian Communist Party aimed to rebuild the country and transform it into a democracy. They promised land reform and the full restoration of the railways. The communists wanted to hold all war criminals who worked with Nazi Germany accountable. In the spring of 1946, the party started a fight to create worker unity and push back the bourgeois parties. Later that year, they nationalized the mines and made the three-year plans into law. In 1947, they nationalized the country’s major banks and industrial factories with more than 100 workers.

Communist Election Rigging

At the 1945 parliamentary elections, the Hungarian Communist Party won 16.96% of the votes. In 1947, it gained 22.25%, becoming the largest party in Parliament. The 1947 elections were called the "blue slip elections": people who were not at their home address on election day could vote anywhere in the country using a blue voter list extract obtained from the election committee. The MKP leadership, using resources from the Ministry of the Interior and the Supreme Economic Council, printed a large number of fake slips. These were then used on election day by trained activists, with each person typically casting 10-20 votes.

Due to its economic and social activity and the results it achieved, in 1948 the Hungarian Communist Party had the chance to reshape the political landscape. It absorbed the National Peasant Party and then merged with the Hungarian Social Democratic Party, which still exists today (2025), to form the Hungarian Working People’s Party.

The party established a one-party system in 1948-1949, banning all other parties.