ABSTRACT
The regime which has arisen, with local variations, through- out the zone of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe has become known as ‘Popular Democracy’. Soviets, Matthias Rakosi argued, were a form of government arising out of civil war, but the East European states had been spared civil war because the Soviet army, advancing through their territory, had not only defeated the German army but had shattered the old political structure, and disarmed the old ruling classes, of Eastern Europe. The decisive crisis was the arrest by the Soviet authorities of Bela Kovacs in February 1947, and the transition was completed when Nagy was replaced as Premier by Dinnyes four months later. Knowing that the Soviet authorities would insist on a coalition government, and would consider the coalition ‘unrepresentative’ without the Communist Party, the small farmers yielded. The Polish Provisional Government recognised by the Great Powers in July 1945 was nominally a coalition.
