Throughout history, strong-willed Russian autocrats have rescued their country from foreign domination, disorder, and possible chaos, often using the cruelest means to achieve their ends. Gorbachev tried to implement socialism with a human face in the Soviet Union, but failed. In the early 1990s, once again, Russia needed a strong hand to pull it out of chaos. In August 1991 Boris Yeltin emerged as such a leader, but unlike earlier strong leaders, he was determined to pull Russia out of the Communist morass and affect his country's integration with Western democracies through democratic...

In this comprehensive analysis of Hungarian political and economic developments over the past 30 years, Felkay focuses particularly on the role played by the country's long-tenured Communist leader, Janos Kadar. Basing his study on a comprehensive critical analysis of the official Hungarian press, ideological journals, relevant documents, and other statistical reports from 1956 to the present, Felkay argues that Hungary's rapid recovery from the cataclysmic events of 1956 was the direct result of Kadar's ability to overcome the alienation of his compatriots without incurring the...

Freed from over forty years of Soviet domination, Hungary finally was given a chance to determine its own destiny in the last decade of the twentieth century. This book takes the reader through the complex period of Hungary's transformation from a Soviet satellite to an independent democratic country, with an emphasis on Hungary's finding its place in the post-communist world. Inspired by the political freedoms and economic successes of Western democracies, Hungary rejected the one-party rule and command economy and opted for multi-party parliamentary democracy and the rapid conversion to...