Hungarian Working People's Party in the context of "People's Republic of Hungary"

The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (Hungarian: Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt, pronounced [ˈmɒɟɒr ˈsot͡sijɒliʃtɒ ˈmuŋkaːʃpaːrt], MSZMP) was the ruling Marxist–Leninist party of the Hungarian People's Republic between 1956 and 1989. It was organised from elements of the Hungarian Working People's Party during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, with János Kádár as general secretary. The party also controlled its armed forces, the Hungarian People's Army.

Like all other Eastern Bloc parties, the MSZMP was organized on the basis of democratic centralism, a principle conceived by Vladimir Lenin that entails democratic and open discussion of issues within the party followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the MSZMP was the party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee of the MSZMP was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo. The party leader was the de facto chairman of the Politburo and a de facto chief executive of Hungary. At various points he served as the prime minister in addition to being party leader.

The Hungarian Communist Party (Hungarian: Magyar Kommunista Párt, pronounced [ˈmɒɟɒr ˈkomːuniʃtɒ ˈpaːrt], abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, pronounced [ˈkomːuniʃtaːk ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡi ˈpaːrcɒ], abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar period and briefly after World War II.

It was founded on November 24, 1918, as Party of Communists in Hungary, and was in power between March and August 1919 when Béla Kun ran the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was later overthrown by the Romanian Army, Kun was exiled to Vienna and later he and many other communists moved to Moscow. During those years, membership was becoming smaller every year. During World War II the party changed its name to the Peace Party, but only a year later in 1944, they embraced a new name which they would hold until 1948. After the war, they regained power, and their membership rose up quickly, which led to Mátyás Rákosi suppressing other parties in the country besides the social democrats (which were aligned with them) to form a one-party state. In 1948, the party merged with the social democrats to form the Hungarian Working People's Party which became the next ruling party of Hungary. It was also a member of Comintern and its successor Cominform.

Mátyás Rákosi ([ˈraːkoʃi ˈmaːcaːʃ]; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892 – 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communist politician who was the de facto leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party from 1945 to 1948 and then as General Secretary (later renamed First Secretary) of the Hungarian Working People's Party from 1948 to 1956.

Rákosi had been involved in left-wing politics since his youth, and in 1919 was a leading commissar in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. After the fall of the Communist government, he escaped the country and worked abroad as an agent of the Comintern. He was arrested in 1924 after attempting to return to Hungary and organize the Communist Party underground, and ultimately spent over fifteen years in prison. He became a cause célèbre in the international Communist movement, and the predominantly Hungarian Rákosi Battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War bore his name. Rákosi was finally allowed to leave for the Soviet Union in 1940 in exchange for prized battle flags captured by Tsarist Russian forces after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

The State Protection Authority (Hungarian: Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1945 to 1956. The ÁVH was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's KGB in Hungary responsible for supporting the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and persecuting political criminals. The ÁVH gained a reputation for brutality during a series of purges but was gradually reined in under the government of Imre Nagy, a moderate reformer, after he was appointed Prime Minister of Hungary in 1953. The ÁVH was dissolved by Nagy's revolutionary government during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and succeeded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs III.

Archived data related to the ÁVH and the Ministry of Internal Affairs III are made available through the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (hu).