Communist rule in the People's Republic of Hungary came to an end in 1989 by a peaceful transition to a democratic system. After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was suppressed by Soviet forces, Hungary remained a communist country. As the Soviet Union weakened at the end of the 1980s, the Eastern Bloc disintegrated.
The events in Hungary were part of the Revolutions of 1989, known in Hungarian as the rendszerváltás (lit. 'system change' or 'change of regime').
The removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria occurred in 1989 during the end of communism in Hungary, which was part of a broad wave of revolutions in various communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The border was still closely guarded and the Hungarian security forces tried to hold back refugees. The dismantling of the electric fence along Hungary's 240 kilometres (149 mi) long border with Austria was the first fissure in the "Iron Curtain" that had divided Europe for more than 40 years, since the end of World War II. Then the Pan-European Picnic caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Berlin Wall.