Soviet occupation of Hungary
 Hungary |
 Soviet Union |
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Russian-Hungarian relations in the period 1945-1991 were characterized by political interventions by the Soviet Union in internal Hungarian politics for 45 years, the length of the Cold War. Hungary became a member of the Warsaw Pact in 1955; since the end of World War II, Russian troops were stationed in the country, intervening at the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Starting in March 1990, the Soviet Army began leaving Hungary, with the last troops being withdrawn on June 19, 1991.
By 1943–1944, the tide of World War II had turned. The Red Army regained the pre-war Soviet territory, and advanced westward from its borders to defeat Germany and its allies, including Hungary. Officially, Soviet military operations in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945, when the last German troops were expelled, although Soviet troops (and political advisers) remained within the country.
During the period of Soviet occupation of Hungary in World War II (1944–45) under a system known in Hungary as malenki robot (Russian for "little work") it is estimated that up to 600,000 Hungarians (of which were up to 200,000 civilians) were captured by the occupying Soviets and deported to labour camps in the Soviet Union - of those deported up to 200,000 perished. The first deported Hungarians started to return to Hungary in June 1946, with the last returning in the years 1953-1955, after Stalin's death. The Soviet policy of deportations for forced labor extended to other occupied nations, however no other Soviet occupied nation was hit as hard as Hungary - for comparison, it is estimated that 155,000 to 218,000 Germans were deported from mainland Germany.
The Soviets made sure that a post-war government dominated by Communists was installed in the country before transferring authority from the occupation force to the Hungarians.
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