This book, by an author uniquely qualified to describe and comment on the Hungarian situation, is the first to look at Hungary from the post-Kadar perspective.

Hungary was the first Soviet satellite state to be invaded by Soviet troops. Janos Kadar, its Party leader for 32 years, took office in 1956 at the head of a government determinedly submissive to Moscow. Hungarians thought he had sold out. Yet over the next quarter century, Kadar quietly extended the limits of Soviet tolerance by gradualist reforms. He did not rock the Moscow boat, Paul Lendvai argues, but within the constraints of loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and to Moscow's supremacy, he proceeded to improve the quality of Hungarian life. Just how this happened is the subject of this book.