In recent decades, there has rarely been a printed Marxist paper in Hungary. This is why it is a tremendous achievement that supporters of the IMT could present the first issue of their newspaper, Fáklya, in early November, to a packed room in Budapest.

Thursday 1 June saw the first public meeting of the Hungarian group of the IMT, Fáklya (Torch) at the Gólya Co-operative Centre in Budapest with 30 in attendance. This is an important breakthrough for the forces of Marxism in Hungary, the first of many to come.

In April 2022, Viktor Orbán secured a fourth consecutive electoral victory in Hungary. His party, Fidesz, won over 54 percent of the vote, the highest vote share by any party since the restoration of capitalism in Hungary. But a lot can change in seven months. Now, public discontent with the economic crisis is rising, and the working class and youth are beginning to take action, despite the government’s divisive demagogy.

Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 3 April 2022. Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party has won a supermajority for the fourth consecutive time. On this occasion, they won against an opposition that united a whole range of parties, from the right-wing Jobbik to the supposedly left-wing Socialist Party. While the opposition lost more than 800,000 voters compared to their combined vote in 2018, the far-right Mi Hazánk, founded in 2018 by former Jobbik politicians, entered parliament.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán secured his third successive term in the 2018 general election. Now, for the first time since 2010 polls show that the “united opposition” would defeat his party if an election was held today. According to the survey conducted by one of the best known Hungarian pollsters Medián, Fidesz support fell by 6 percent in a single month to 34 percent in December, while the opposition added 2 percent and took over Fidesz at 36 percent. 

The Hungarian working class is awakening and radical students are paving the way for nationwide protests. Since mid-December, a protest movement has been rolling across the country against the extension of working hours. Prime Minister Victor Orbán is under pressure for the first time.

Right-wing Hungarian prime minister, Victor Orbán has received a blow as a wave of protests has spread throughout the country. The protests have been triggered by a new piece of legislation, labelled the “slave law”, which was passed on 12 December. This vicious attack on Hungarian workers will allow employers to increase the amount of overtime they can ask of workers from 250 to 400 hours per year, which equates to roughly eight hours per week. Not only this, but there can be a delay in payment for this overtime of as much as three years.

Last Sunday, Hungarians went to the polls following a campaign period the likes of which has been unseen since the fall of Stalinism. One of the functions of bourgeois democracy is to create a false sense of participation. Previous elections were generally conducted in an atmosphere of anticipation, with the public following debates between political parties in the media, and discussing developments on street corners and at work. The people felt they had some say over their destinies. In the last eight years however, there has been a fundamental change in the character of Hungary’s democratic process.

On Sunday 2 October, Hungary held a national referendum over the mandatory resettlement of refugees in the country. The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, had hoped to use the vote to strengthen his authority both at home and abroad. Instead, he has suffered arguably his most embarrassing setback since he came to power in 2010.

The 13th of February 2016 is likely to go down in history as the awakening of the working class and the beginning of the class struggle in 21st century Hungary. Tens of thousands of people gathered in front of the Hungarian Parliament building demanding the abandonment of all educational “reforms” of the last 5 years.  In spite of pouring rain thousands and thousands marched proudly, showing concern not just for education, but for the health service, for transport, against corruption and what is now commonly called the “mafia state”.

Currently Hungary is in the limelight, hardly a news report anywhere in the world goes by without images of thousands of refugees entering the country, trying to board trains out of the country, suffering ill treatment at the hands of the Hungarian authorities. Contrastingly, there are also pictures of volunteers helping or trying to help desperate families camping out in railways stations, walking on the sides of motorways or along railway lines.

The right-wing FIDESZ (Young Democrats’ Union) of Viktor Orbán have once again won the elections in Hungary. However, due to the very high levels of abstention, in reality only 25% of the electorate actually voted for them, most people being utterly disgusted with politicians in general.

Hungary has been in the news lately and while a fully fledged dictatorial regime is nowhere near established yet, the steps that Viktor Orbán’s FIDESZ (Alliance of Young Democrats) government had been taking for the last 3 years point in no other direction by concentrating more and more power in the hands of the executive and neutralising or weakening all the existing counterbalancing powers within the state and society. In other words we have been witnessing a prolonged shift towards authoritarian rule by Orbán, the legal framework of which is represented by a series of constitutional “reforms” aimed at entrenching FIDESZ into power.

“In the space of twenty years, in a throwback to eighty years ago, millions believe the racist, chauvinist ‘ideas’ of the 1930’s.” writes Attila Csernok in Népszava, a Hungarian liberal daily. Is the situation in present day Hungary that critical? Does the election of the Fidesz government in April 2010 by a two thirds majority mean a return to the horrors of 1930’s Hungary?

The Hungarian presidency of the EU ended on 30^th June and life is supposed to be getting back to normal all over the country.  Or is it? The population of Hungary, that elected the right-wing FIDESZ/KDNP government just over a year ago with a two thirds majority, very soon discovered what such a government really meant.