Did you know that the 1956 Time Magazine Person of the Year was the Hungarian Freedom Fighter? Have you ever heard of “Goulash Communism”? Are you aware that, to join NATO, Hungary held a public referendum that received an overwhelming majority? Read on to learn more about Hungary’s path to independence and NATO membership.

Hungary and its NATO Allies in 1999

Hungary has come home. We are back in the family. Together with all of you, we have just started a new chapter of history. From this day on, we are the closest allies in our great endeavour, the quest for peace and prosperity.

The years following the Second World War were very difficult for Europe, with millions of people suffering from food shortages, destroyed homes, damaged infrastructure and the collective trauma of war. On top of all of this, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe also had to endure under authoritarian influence from Moscow, if not outright military occupation by Soviet forces. But these countries never lost their hope for freedom, independence and closer ties with the West.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the idea of opening up to the West took root in Hungary’s foreign affairs, largely due to the country’s economic growth policies. Throughout the 1980s, Hungary joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and established full diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community (the precursor to the European Union), despite the Soviet Union officially opposing these Western organisations. In the Glasnost and Perestroika period, during which the Soviet Union was becoming increasingly open and transparent in government institutions and allowing its citizens to speak more freely than before, Hungary seized upon the opportunity to push the limits and advance an independent foreign policy.

In 1988, with the end of the Cold War looming, the government of Prime Minister Miklós Németh – Hungary’s final Communist leader – began to develop relations with the North Atlantic Assembly, which was the parliamentary forum of NATO. That same year, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Gyula Horn delivered a speech at the North Atlantic Assembly in Hamburg, Germany, proposing a closer partnership between Hungary and NATO. He followed this up in 1990 (then as Foreign Minister) when he stated that Hungary must consider exiting the Warsaw Pact and entering NATO.

This caused a stir within both Hungary and NATO, with NATO Spokesperson Robin Stafford stating that, “Any future political or military reorientation of Hungary is an issue in which only the Hungarians themselves can decide. However, we have no knowledge of the fact that this is an issue in Hungary today.”

The reluctance from the NATO side was understandable. It was impossible up until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to develop further relations between the Western Alliance and Hungary – or any other Warsaw Pact country, for that matter. And at the time, many believed that a disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union would come hand-in-hand with the dissolution of NATO itself, so what would be the point in discussing enlargement?

The spring of 1990 saw a new coalition government led by Prime Minister József Antall come to power in Hungary, following the country’s first multi-party democratic election since 1945. Antall’s government quickly established that the primary objective of the country’s foreign policy should be to integrate with Europe and ensure the democratic, security and economic modernisation of Hungary. Despite all of these promising new steps, NATO membership remained a long-term objective. The more immediate priority was the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungarian territory. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved in the summer of 1991, a major step towards the self-determination that Hungary had been fighting for over many decades, and a significant milestone on its journey towards NATO membership.

Prime Minister of Hungary József Antall is welcomed to NATO Headquarters by Secretary General Manfred Wörner, 18 July 1990.

What exactly led to the momentous events of 1988-1991, during which Hungary finally succeeded in its long fight for freedom? The historical thread stretches back to the early 20th century.

In October 1918, Hungary declared independence from the Austrian-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, which was left battered and bruised at the end of the First World War. Up until then, Budapest had a large degree of autonomy over domestic affairs and some financial matters, but decisions on foreign policy and military matters – although nominally made jointly by Budapest and Vienna – were in fact made exclusively by the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. Indeed, Hungary tried to resist entering the First World War, but was dragged into the conflict because of the Dual Monarchy system. In the turbulent period following the war, both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary collapsed. They were succeeded by a chaotic series of short-lived successor states, including a six-month Hungarian Soviet Republic led by communist revolutionary Béla Kun, who expected to receive military assistance from the Soviet Union and was forced to flee the country when it failed to materialise. Shortly thereafter, Hungary officially lost a large percentage of its territory and population to surrounding countries as part of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon (known as the Dictate of Trianon in Hungary, which was forced to sign the agreement against its will), which re-established the Kingdom of Hungary.

During the Second World War, Hungary was a member of the Axis powers together with Germany, Italy, the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Bulgaria. In 1944, the Soviet Union began to advance upon German-occupied Hungary (which had been invaded by German forces after its government attempted to begin peace negotiations with the United Kingdom and the United States). After a 50-day siege, Budapest was taken by the Red Army in February 1945, and there began the Soviet occupation that would last for decades to come. Though the Paris Peace Treaty (1947) restored Hungary to its pre-1939 borders (with the exception of three border villages, which were transferred to Czechoslovakia), it also permitted the Soviet Union to maintain troops on Hungarian land.

The Warsaw Pact was founded in 1955, and Hungary was compelled to join. However, less than a year later, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech criticising Stalinism. This new climate of freedom of expression spurred Hungarians to rise up against the Communist regime and Soviet occupation, and active fighting broke out in Budapest in October 1956. The freedom fighters were able to install Imre Nagy as Premier. He promised to create a multiparty system in Hungary, declared neutrality – and Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact – and requested the support of the United Nations. But by 4 November, the Soviet Union had brutally suppressed the revolution and taken Nagy into custody.

Demonstrators march through Budapest carrying a Hungarian flag from which the Soviet coat of arms has been cut. (Interfoto Hongrie/Sipa/Newscom)

Despite the violent crushing of the 1956 uprising, it nonetheless led to significant reforms that gave Hungary more room to manoeuvre than other Eastern Bloc countries. This allowed Hungary to develop its own peculiar ideology, which came to be known as “Goulash Communism”. Named after the traditional Hungarian dish, which is made with a variety of seemingly dissimilar ingredients, “Goulash Communism” described the mixed nature of Hungarian communism after 1956, which no long adhered strictly to Marxist-Leninist teachings, but allowed economic developments, consumerism and an evolution in foreign affairs. This evolution slowly brought about an end to authoritarian domination and paved the way for a more free and liberalised society, culminating in a peaceful revolution in 1989. A reallocation of power took place by means of Round Table Talks between Hungary’s opposition groups, and by 1990, the last vestiges of communism were wiped from the constitution and parliamentary democracy was restored.

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, 1956: The Hungarian Freedom Fighter

Hungary’s newly established democracy was an essential component for the country’s eventual integration into the Euro-Atlantic community and Western international organisations, including NATO. In 1990 alone, Foreign Minister Géza Jeszenszky and Prime Minister Jozsef Antall made separate visits to NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and the Secretary General of NATO, Manfred Wörner, visited Budapest in turn. Antall was the first Prime Minister from a member state of the Warsaw Pact to cross NATO’s threshold.

In August 1991, the failed coup attempt against reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev stirred up concern about a possible hard-line backlash in the Soviet Union. In October 1991, Antall returned to NATO Headquarters to deliver a speech to the North Atlantic Council, in which he expressed his understanding that NATO membership was unrealistic at the time, but he expected NATO to take a firm stance in cases of aggression against any European country.

Our primary objective in this decade is to gain membership to the European Communities and NATO.

At the end of the year, on 20 December, the first meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) was held. At the time, the NACC consisted of all NATO member countries plus nine Central and Eastern European countries, including six former Warsaw Pact countries and the three Baltic states. Fatefully, the first meeting was held on the same day that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was announced, and the Soviet flag was removed from the podium while all participants watched on.

The first meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council at NATO Headquarters, 20 December 1991

When Gyula Horn became Prime Minister in 1994, his government promised to further the previous administration’s efforts to integrate Hungary into NATO and other Euro-Atlantic organisations. To that end, in 1995, Hungary became the first non-member country to establish a diplomatic mission to NATO. Prime Minister Horn also announced that the final decision on Hungarian accession to NATO would be affirmed by a public referendum in Hungary when the time was right.

Cooperation between NATO and Hungary flourished throughout the 1990s. During the conflicts that broke out in the Western Balkans following the breakup of Yugoslavia, ties between Hungary and NATO were strengthened due to the continuous consultation that was established between the two. In 1992, the Hungarian government also authorised the use of its airspace for NATO’s Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) reconnaissance airplanes, which proved vital in ending the crisis.

In early 1994, Hungary was among the first group of countries to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme, which allowed the country to gain experience in the field, organising and participating in peacekeeping activities with other countries under NATO command. Joining the Partnership for Peace enabled Hungary to build the interoperability of its armed forces with those of NATO Allies, which helped advance its path towards NATO accession. Participation in the Partnership for Peace Programme also increased trust between Hungary and other members of the programme, including neighbours with whom it shared a difficult past.

Foreign Minister of Hungary, Géza Jeszenszky signs the Partnership for Peace Framework Document, Brussels, Belgium, 8 February 1994

Hungary participated in several Partnership for Peace exercises, including Cooperative Light, which was hosted on Hungarian soil in 1995 and involved several Allies and partners, including Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Estonia, Finland, Poland and Romania.

Hungary was the first non-member country to participate in NATO’s Implementation Force (IFOR), a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission which was deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina following the end of the Bosnian War. Hungary allowed IFOR troops to transit through its territory, and even allowed NATO to station IFOR troops on Hungarian soil. As a result, valuable relationships were forged between NATO troops stationed in Taszar and local Hungarians, thanks largely to the exemplary conduct of the soldiers.

Hungarian troops deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of IFOR in 1996.

As part of IFOR, Hungary sent an independent engineering unit to carry out 81 missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. They conducted road and bridge surveys, mine clearance, explosive ordnance disposal, infrastructure design, building and repairs, and snow and ice clearance. At the conclusion of their IFOR mission, all members of this unit received a medal for model service from NATO Secretary General Javier Solana.

When NATO’s follow-on Stabilisation Force (SFOR) mission was established in 1996, Hungary once again rose to the occasion, securing transit for SFOR troops and providing the Hungarian engineering unit.

This participation in various NATO exercises and missions enabled Hungary to demonstrate that it met many of the requirements of NATO membership, and was devoted to the common values of democracy and security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

In July 1997 at the NATO Summit in Madrid, following years of fruitful partnership and cooperation, Allied Heads of State and Government formally invited Hungary, Czechia and Poland to begin accession negotiations with the Alliance. The government of Hungary called for a public referendum on NATO membership on 16 November 1997, and all parties of the National Assembly called on their supporters to vote ’Yes’. Though the expected outcome was a vote for NATO membership, the overwhelming majority of 85.3% ‘Yes’ to 14.6% ‘No’ shocked even the most optimistic pundits.

The next day, on 17 November 1997, Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs sent a Letter of Intent – which NATO requires as a condition of accession – to Brussels, confirming Hungary’s unequivocal desire to join the Alliance. The Foreign Ministers of the Allies signed the Accession Protocols for the three countries on 16 December at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in the presence of the Foreign Ministers of Hungary, Poland and Czechia. And in 1998, as Allies were ratifying Hungary’s Accession Protocols in their national parliaments one-by-one, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Minister of Foreign Affairs János Martonyi visited NATO Headquarters and declared Hungary’s dedication to NATO and Euro-Atlantic security.

Finally, after many long, tumultuous decades during which Hungarians struggled for their right to self-determination, their right to decide their own path and security arrangements, Hungary made its own decision to join NATO. On 12 March 1999, inside the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, United States, the Foreign Ministers of Hungary, Czechia and Poland deposited their countries’ Instruments of Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty, becoming NATO Allies. Just a few days later, the Prime Ministers of the three new NATO members gathered at NATO Headquarters in Brussels to watch the flags of their independent countries rise for the first time, to fly among those of their NATO Allies.

The Hungarian flag is raised at NATO Headquarters for the first time, Brussels, Belgium, 16 March 1999.