I am Hungarian, and it would have made more sense to bring up any other post-socialist country instead. One of the most popular historical leaders of Hungary is János Kádár, who was the one who requested help from the Soviet Union in 1956 after Imre Nagy announced that he would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact.
Also, at the second parliamentary election after the socialist era, MSZP (one of the successor parties of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, alongside the Hungarian Workers’ Party) campaigned on the promise of democratically restoring all the “good things” (they put it this way) from socialism, which immediately won them all the parliamentary seats that could be won by one party in 1994. Of course, the MSZP did not keep any of their campaign promises and implemented more neoliberal policies with strong austerity (the infamous Bokros package). The then-prime minister, Gyula Horn, also made explicitly anti-strike statements. As a result, there was a significant chance that the still-Marxist Hungarian Workers’ Party would enter parliament in the 1998 parliamentary election. Therefore, the parliamentary parties voted to raise the electoral threshold in common agreement, so that this could not happen.
TLDR:
In Hungary, the assessment of the socialist era is not as black and white as many people think.
I am Hungarian, and it would have made more sense to bring up any other post-socialist country instead. One of the most popular historical leaders of Hungary is János Kádár, who was the one who requested help from the Soviet Union in 1956 after Imre Nagy announced that he would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact.
Also, at the second parliamentary election after the socialist era, MSZP (one of the successor parties of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, alongside the Hungarian Workers’ Party) campaigned on the promise of democratically restoring all the “good things” (they put it this way) from socialism, which immediately won them all the parliamentary seats that could be won by one party in 1994. Of course, the MSZP did not keep any of their campaign promises and implemented more neoliberal policies with strong austerity (the infamous Bokros package). The then-prime minister, Gyula Horn, also made explicitly anti-strike statements. As a result, there was a significant chance that the still-Marxist Hungarian Workers’ Party would enter parliament in the 1998 parliamentary election. Therefore, the parliamentary parties voted to raise the electoral threshold in common agreement, so that this could not happen.
TLDR: In Hungary, the assessment of the socialist era is not as black and white as many people think.