ABSTRACT
This book investigates who were and what was the aim of the most active participants of the Hungarian regime change and what role the opposition intelligentsia played in the democratic transition. The concept of transition is understood more broadly than the mainstream academic literature considers it. In this book, I cover the period between 1977 and 1994 to highlight the incremental, rolling, and accelerating nature of political change. It includes the late communist period, the disintegration of the system, the regime change itself, and the early post-transition years. I introduce the concept of rolling transition that I consider as the model for those nonviolent, elite-driven regime changes in which the educated leaders of the opposition—the intellectuals—do not take up the role of the vanguard, but keep rotating themselves as the dynamics of transition require. My starting point to approach the emergence of democratic political divisions is that their formation was linked not only to historically determined deep currents but also to certain break points or turning points. Some historical moments have a significant effect on the organization of political forces and the transformation of political systems. These rare moments also form generations.
