Word: kadar
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Hungarian revisionism, nicknamed "goulash communism," produced prosperity and glitter for a while, but the economy nonetheless went into a long decline because the stagnation was too widespread and deep rooted to be cured by tinkering. Party boss Janos Kadar, the quisling who had replaced Nagy, was ousted in May 1988. He was succeeded by moderate reformer Karoly Grosz. But as in the Soviet Union, moderate reform was, by definition, inadequate. Drastic measures were necessary and, in the Gorbachev era, acceptable to Moscow. In search of new ideas and a democratic image in January 1989, parliament passed legislation permitting the formation...
Such concessions were too much for some of the party's hard-liners. They set about forming their own political groups, each claiming to represent the ideals of the old Communist Party. "We will soldier on as a Communist Party," said Roland Antoniewicz, leader of the Janos Kadar Society, one newborn hard-line splinter named after the party's longtime leader who died in July...
Once hailed as the most liberal Communist leader in Eastern Europe, Janos Kadar has become a political pariah in his own country. Following his ouster as General Secretary last May after almost 32 years in power, Kadar, 76, remained party president. Last week Kadar was stripped of the largely ceremonial job and expelled from the Central Committee...
Party officials cited Kadar's poor health as the reason for his removal, but some Western and Hungarian political analysts speculate that the government wanted him out of the way before it rehabilitated the reputation of Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary at the time of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Kadar is said to have given evidence at the trial of Nagy, who was hanged for treason. Others say that the party, by breaking with "Kadarism," wished to underline its pro-reform stance...
...political work, I probably committed errors," wrote Kadar in a letter to the party's Central Committee after his removal. "But all my actions were dictated by good intentions...