Hungary Officially Declared a Republic

Forty years of Communist rule formally came to an end Monday as Hungary officially declared itself an independent republic.

“This is a prelude to a new historical age,” acting head of state Matyas Szuros said, declaring the republic at noon in a speech to tens of thousands packing Parliament Square in Budapest. “The Hungarian republic is going to be an independent, democratic and legal state in which the values of bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism are expressed equally.”

The Communist People’s Republic of Hungary is dead, Szuros declared. “As of today, our nation’s name is the Republic of Hungary.”

As Szuros pronounced the words “Republic of Hungary,” the crowd erupted in cheers. Church bells throughout the country peeled at noon.

The proclamation came on the 33rd anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising, the revolt against Communist rule that began on Oct. 23, 1956, and was crushed by Soviet tanks 12 days later, killing as many as 32,000 people.

In the evening, a crowd bearing flashlights and estimated by organizers at more than 100,000 interrupted speeches before Parliament with shouts of “Russians Out! Russians Out!”

Others tore the Communist hammer-and-sickle symbol from red, white and green Hungarian flags, as had the activists of the 1956 uprising.

Announcement of Hungary’s new status followed a purge by Parliament last week of all Stalinist elements from Hungary’s 1949 constitution, which defined the country as a socialist people’s republic according supreme power to the working class.

Apart from East Germany, which calls itself a democratic republic, all of Hungary’s East Bloc allies define themselves as either people’s republics or socialist republics.

“This is a great day for Hungary,” said one senior Western diplomat present in the square, where elderly people with moist eyes mingled with young people in a mainly festive mood.

In Washington, the State Department congratulated Hungary, saying the choice of the day for the announcement was particularly significant.

Hungary is well on the way to achieving the ambitions thwarted 33 years ago. And this time, as Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth said Sunday, Hungary does not have to fear defeat by a foreign power.

“Our hands are not tied,” he said in a televised speech.

Hungary’s first multi-party parliamentary elections since 1947 are due to take place by the middle of next year.