In this book Rudolf Tokes offers a comprehensive study of the politics and personalities of the rise and fall of Hungary's communist regime. The study provides a fully documented reconstruction of the several phases of the ancien regime's road from economic reform to political collapse, based on interviews with former top party leaders and transcripts of the Party Central Committee. Tokes gives an in-depth account of Hungary's peaceful transformation from one-party state to parliamentary democracy, and a comprehensive assessment of Hungary's post-Communist politics, economy and society.