Opposition in Hungary and Poland during the State-Socialist Period: An Attempt at Comparing and Mapping Relations

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study is to describe the different political and social conditions of opposition activity in Hungary and Poland between 1956 and 1989, and to map the relations between the various opposition groups. It starts from the premise that after 1956 radically different political, economic, and social conditions developed in the two countries. While in Poland the situation was relatively favorable for opposition activity, in Hungary the possibilities were limited; and only in the late 1970s, and especially after the birth of the Polish Solidarity movement, did the scope for action increase. In this article, I argue that the political, ideological, and generational determinants of Hungarian opposition groups in Hungarian-Polish opposition relations have been decisive in their choice of Polish partners. Hungarian opposition groups contacted Polish groups whose worldview corresponded to their own as this aspect was more important to them than the oppositional attitude itself. The article points out that the East-Central European opposition movement was a transnational phenomenon—not only because the task of all oppositions was to formulate and represent responses and reactions to the socialist system but also because they converged and interacted through their internal relations, channels, and mutual interactions.