Hungary National Security
Two soldiers, Esztergom, 1918
THE HUNGARIAN PEOPLE'S ARMY (HPA) of the late 1980s
comprised
ground and air forces under the supervision of the
Ministry of
Defense. The ground forces accounted for more than 77
percent of
the total strength of the HPA, which in 1989 numbered
slightly
less than 100,000 troops. The armed forces that
constituted the
HPA were committed by treaty to the Soviet-East European
alliance
known as the Warsaw Pact. Another military force, the
Border
Guard, which patrolled the country's frontiers, was
supervised by
the Ministry of Interior, as were the National Police and
the
Security Police. Hungary had no uniformed state security
police.
The Workers' Guard, a part-time force similar to a
national guard
was an arm of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. The
HPA and
the Border Guard obtained manpower through a system of
universal
male conscription; service in the other organizations was
voluntary. A small number of women also served in the
armed
forces in auxiliary roles but were not subject to
conscription.
Political changes in Hungary and the Soviet Union in
the late
1980s promised drastic changes in the HPA's relationship
to the
party and to the Warsaw Pact. Reformers proposed removing
the
national security forces from tight party control to
reduce the
likelihood that they would be used for domestic political
coercion. The lessening of tensions in Europe had allowed
the
financially strapped Hungarian government to severely cut
its
military budget without fearing domestic or international
reprisal. Both Soviet and Hungarian officials spoke
cautiously of
the possibility of a politically and militarily neutral
Hungary.
In 1989 the Soviet Union had begun withdrawing a small
portion of
its 65,000 troops stationed in Hungary. Ironically, by the
late
1980s many Hungarians viewed this withdrawal with dismay
because
they had begun to see the Soviet forces in their country
as
protection against an increasingly militant Romania.
Political liberalization also encouraged changes in the
criminal justice system. Regime leaders promised to
depoliticize
the administration of justice and the police, although as
of 1989
the apparatus of repression remained intact. However,
harsh
measures against dissent and public demonstrations, which
had
been taken as late as 1986, had stopped by 1989.
Data as of September 1989
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