Hungary, 1947 — dissident coup
Event Summary
In late May 1947, Hungary's Soviet-backed Communist Party, led by Deputy Premier Matyas Rakosi, forced out the democratically elected Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy of the Smallholders Party through a fabricated conspiracy. Over the preceding months the Communists had used what became known as salami tactics to strip the Smallholders of their 1945 electoral majority, expelling dozens of MPs on charges tied to an alleged conspiracy and, in February 1947, allowing Soviet forces to abduct the party's general secretary Bela Kovacs. While Nagy was traveling in Switzerland, the Soviets presented false evidence implicating him; with his young son held hostage in Budapest, Nagy agreed to resign around May 30 and formally did so in early June once his son reached Switzerland.
Rakosi installed the more compliant Lajos Dinnyes as premier on May 31, a decisive step toward full Communist control of Hungary. Nagy went into exile in the United States and was the last non-Communist head of the Hungarian government until 1990.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
31005311947
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Ferenc Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary (forced to resign, exiled).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
Chicago Daily Tribune
Associated Press
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →