ABSTRACT
This chapter compares two leaders who, together, ruled Hungary for more than 50 years during almost the last seven decades of the history of the country. The Communist dictator János Kádár spent 32 years in power (1956–88) as the local agent of the Soviets. He was successful in navigating between the expectations of the Soviets and the wishes of his own people. The collapse of Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe ended his career and he died in 1989. The second leader, the ultranationalist autocrat Viktor Orbán, started as a liberal politician in 1988 and served as Prime Minister of a democratic government (1998–2002). Since he returned to power in 2010, however, he has abused his constitutional majority by systematically hollowing out democracy from inside and creating an authoritarian regime. The character and ruling style of these two nondemocratic leaders can explain many of the present problems of the democratic political culture in Hungary.
