(This article has been prepared by the KHAR Center as part of the research project “Authoritarian Regimes and Transregional Mechanisms of Influence.”)
Part I
Introduction
The rise to power of Donald Trump in the United States, and his immediate gestures toward Russia while signaling disdain for traditional allies, intensified concerns over Europe’s security. Alongside existing military threats from Russia and economic threats from China, the increasingly unreliable nature of the U.S. as an ally prompted stronger discussions within the European alliance to unify their efforts. (RFE/RL 2025)
Uncertainty stemming from the U.S.’s statements and conduct concerning NATO’s future has revived discussions within the European Union regarding the creation of a joint military force. Following the U.S. announcement in March 2025 to halt military aid to Ukraine, EU leaders convened an emergency meeting in Brussels and decided to increase their military assistance to Ukraine. This marked one of the strongest demonstrations of unity and solidarity on security matters within the EU to date. (Hermann 2025)
However, this initiative also deepened long-standing internal rifts within the EU. Particularly after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has increasingly followed a pro-Russian line, shifted into an overt sabotage position following the EU’s calls for a joint military and increased support for Ukraine. (Budapest Times 2025)
Over the past decade, Orban’s warm relations with authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, and Turkey—alongside his obstruction of Western unity against Russian aggression and his comprehensive use of authoritarian tools in domestic politics—have turned Hungary into a country rapidly distancing itself from European democratic values and simultaneously undermining the security policies of both the EU and NATO. This article by the KHAR Center analyzes how Viktor Orban’s authoritarianism and opportunism have transformed Hungary into a threat to the West.
Purpose of the Analysis
This analysis seeks to explore how a country located in the heart of Europe, whose economic and military security is fully guaranteed by the West—through its EU and NATO memberships—has turned into a mouthpiece of Putin’s authoritarianism and a potential threat to European security. It also considers what this threat might signify for Europe’s future.
Key Research Questions
- How did Hungary become a factor that threatens European unity?
- Given their historically poor relations with Russia, why do Hungarians today show indifference toward their country’s increasingly close relationship with Moscow?
Sources
The article primarily relies on academic and scholarly sources, with supplementary use of news and analytical media platforms.
Historical Background – What Ties Hungary to Russia?
Looking for historical roots behind Hungary’s tilt toward the East—or more specifically toward Russia—would be misleading. Historically, Hungary and Russia do not share pleasant chapters; on the contrary, Hungary’s history is marked by enmity with Russia, along with rebellions and quests for security against this animosity.
These relations trace back notably to 1848 when Hungary’s liberal-nationalist movement, led by Lajos Kossuth within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, initiated a struggle for autonomy that evolved into a war for independence. The Russian Empire supported Austria by sending in 200,000 troops to suppress the Hungarian uprising in 1849, which ended with Kossuth fleeing into exile in the Ottoman Empire. (Deak, 1979a)
In 1852, at a banquet in Pittsburgh, Kossuth voiced his people’s hatred for Russia with the words:
“Russia is the central force of despotism that opposes the natural rights of peoples. Wherever the spark of liberty ignites in Europe, it is extinguished first by St. Petersburg.” (Cornell University, Library)
Describing the foundations of current Russian expansionism—Slavophilism—as “a great despotic lie” (Hans, 1953), Kossuth called Tsar Nicholas not only an invader of Hungarian soil but also the godfather of all oppressions in Austria. (Deak, 1979b)
Following the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, Hungary briefly regained independence. However, only a few months after the revolution of October 31, 1918, a Soviet-style regime—the Hungarian Soviet Republic—was established in 1919. This led to an unsuccessful war with Romania over disputed territories, and Hungary signed the Treaty of Trianon, which stripped the country of two-thirds of its land and cut off access to the sea. (Insamer, Hungary)
Hungary backed Nazi Germany during World War II in hopes of reclaiming lost territories. But after the Red Army entered Hungary in 1944, the country became part of the Soviet bloc. In 1949, the Hungarian People’s Republic was declared. As in other Stalinist regimes, mass arrests, torture, suppression of opposition, and KGB-style governance became standard practice. (Bideleux & Jeffries, 2007)
These pressures culminated in the 1956 uprising, which began as a student movement and evolved into an armed revolt. On October 23, the protests started at the Budapest University of Technology and soon became a nationwide movement. Its leader was Imre Nagy, a former prime minister dismissed by conservative forces. He was reinstated after the uprising began and immediately declared Hungary's neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact on November 1, demanding the departure of Soviet troops. (Romsics, 1999)
However, only three days after Nagy’s announcement, the revolution met a tragic end. On November 4, 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. An estimated 2,000–3,000 people died, and over 200,000 fled to Western countries. Nagy and the military leader of the uprising, General Pál Maléter, were arrested and executed in 1958. (Judt, 2005)
Following the uprising, Moscow installed János Kádár, who would rule Hungary for 32 years. The trauma of the bloody revolution lingered for years, though by 1966, a period of relative liberalization began. In 1968, with the introduction of economic reforms, a new model of governance emerged—one loyal to the USSR but somewhat more tolerant.
As long as the population stayed out of politics and did not challenge Soviet ideology, they were allowed limited access to market benefits and some openness to the West (travel, etc.). This system, unique within the Eastern Bloc, came to be known as “Goulash Communism.” The name drew a parallel with Hungary’s famous stew—rich, diverse, and containing many contrasting ingredients. (Bociaga, 2022)
But “Goulash Communism” entered a decline in the mid-1970s. The 1973 oil crisis triggered economic troubles in many countries, including Hungary. Limited export revenues forced the government to borrow from abroad. Rising debt levels pushed the regime toward more export incentives and new reforms. As a result, Hungary joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1982. However, this failed to rescue the failing system. By the late 1980s, Hungary’s economy had deteriorated further.
In 1989, the socialist regime collapsed. The country was officially renamed the Republic of Hungary. The constitution was changed, free elections held, and independent media and civil society began to emerge.
A Zigzagging Political Portrait – From Radical Liberalism to Right-Wing Nationalism
In retrospect, these years marked not only the collapse of communism but also the beginning of the Orban era. It was during this period that Viktor Orban entered Hungarian politics with great fanfare, and despite his many political zigzags, he remains on the scene to this day.
Understanding how Hungary became a “landmine” within the European Union is impossible without examining Orban’s political portrait. The Hungary that has become the “grey zone” within the EU—dominated by internal corruption, oligarchy, media control, propaganda-driven societal manipulation, and simultaneously maintaining close ties with authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, and Turkey while relying on NATO and the EU for its military and economic security—is entirely Orban’s creation.
Teenage Communist
Born in 1963, Viktor Orbán was a member of the Hungarian Young Communist League (KISZ), the youth wing of the ruling Socialist Workers' Party in Hungary during his adolescence. Although he later declared that he had distanced himself from communist ideology (Debreczeni 2002a), a secret document revealed by Hungarian sources suggested that in 1982, Orbán was considered a “loyal man of the system” (Kuruc 2012).
Left-Radical Liberal
While studying law, Orbán met prominent Hungarian politicians such as Gábor Fodor (who left politics in 2019) and László Kövér (still Speaker of the National Assembly), with whom he would later co-found Fidesz (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége – Alliance of Young Democrats). Another of Orbán’s early political partners was Lajos Simicska, a schoolmate who would become one of Hungary’s richest men. During Orbán’s first term as Prime Minister, Simicska served for a year as head of the Tax and Financial Control Administration (APEH) and later became a well-known oligarch. However, after a falling out with Orbán in 2015, Simicska sold off his assets and withdrew from politics.
What united these four figures and transitioned them from youthful communism to liberal conservatism was their shared dissatisfaction during military service and their political engagement in the student trade union of the law faculty. The years they spent at the István Bibó Special College for Law Students, founded in Budapest in 1983, laid the foundation for both their personal and political careers. Their relative freedom of action in socialist Hungary was facilitated by Kádár’s reluctant openness to reforms, the fact that the college director was the son-in-law of the then Minister of Interior, and from 1986 onwards, financial support from George Soros, who also funded the college’s journal and other activities (Lendvai 2017).
According to Lendvai, from his days as a student leader, the defining trait of Orbán’s political character has been a relentless will to power. Though he crafted an image of a principled, clean politician through a compliant media, in reality, he learned early how to evade responsibility and pursue self-interest without principles.
Fidesz, which would go on to shape nearly 40 years of Hungary’s political life, was founded on 30 March 1988 as a movement opposing the collapsing communist regime. Orbán, who claimed to have had no ideological quarrels with communism and to have grown up apolitical, now presented himself as a political, active, radical, and reformist youth leader (Kenney 2002).
Within a short time, Fidesz attracted hundreds of young people. However, the broader public first learned of the movement after Viktor Orbán’s sensational speech on 16 June 1989 at Heroes’ Square. Speaking at the reburial of Imre Nagy, the Hungarian politician executed by the communist regime in 1958, Orbán demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary (Lendvai 2017).
Although this speech boosted his popularity, Orbán was then in Oxford on a Soros Foundation scholarship and therefore could not run for party chair at Fidesz’s founding congress. Upon returning to Budapest, he resumed political activities and surpassed his friend Gábor Fodor, becoming a member of parliament for the Pest district in Hungary’s first free elections. Until 1993, he led Fidesz’s 22-member parliamentary faction.
Like other post-communist countries, Hungary faced the challenges of transition. The government of József Antall (1990–1993), often considered Hungary’s most honest post-communist leader, gradually lost ground due to structural difficulties and Antall’s fatal illness.
Viktor Orbán, who maintained a sharply liberal stance, became one of Hungary’s most popular politicians thanks to the live broadcasts of his parliamentary speeches. After his policy paper in 1992, Fidesz was accepted into Liberal International. (Web Archive, 2006) Orbán hosted the organization’s congress in Budapest in 1993, and this popularity elevated him to the leadership of Fidesz in April 1993—just as protests against the government were mounting.
Center-Right Shift
Under Orbán’s leadership, Fidesz began shifting from a radical liberal youth movement to a center-right party (Djankov 2015). However, this transition, along with Orbán’s absolute leadership ambitions, caused tension with Gábor Fodor, his childhood friend and former party leader. Fodor and other liberals left to join the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), which had once been an ally of Fidesz but would become its competitor.
In his detailed portrait of Orbán, Paul Lendvai attributes the Fidesz–SZDSZ split to the social and personal differences between the groups. According to Lendvai, SZDSZ was composed of former communists and intellectuals—often Jewish, well-educated, and cosmopolitan—while Orbán described himself and his peers in a 1998 interview as follows:
“My family had no ties to the peasantry, and I’m not even speaking about the bourgeoisie. I came from a rootless, eclectic background, but in our class there were boys whose fathers were priests or Protestants. There were those from the traditional middle class.” (Lendvai 2017)
Lendvai argues that these differences—deeply rooted in childhood, upbringing, lifestyle, and class—shaped Orbán and his circle. What began as subconscious resentment eventually turned into open hostility toward liberal and left-wing intellectuals. According to Lendvai, Orbán’s abandonment of liberalism, embrace of nationalist values, and eventual open rejection of democracy in 2014 all stem from this complex of inferiority.
The split within Fidesz led to its narrow survival in the 1994 elections. But Orbán swiftly shed his liberal “shirt” and rolled up his sleeves for cooperation with center-right forces. Fidesz was renamed the Hungarian Civic Party, and the transformation extended from political terminology to personal appearance. Bearded, casually dressed liberals became clean-shaven, conservatively dressed politicians. Speeches by Orbán and his allies began emphasizing tradition, patriotic stories, national interest, family, motherland, and middle-class values instead of political and economic issues (Lendvai 2017).
After the country’s first free elections, Orbán and Fidesz entered opposition. From 1995 onward, they opposed the ruling socialist and left-liberal coalition. By embracing right-wing, conservative, nationalist, and populist rhetoric, Orbán forged a right-wing opposition coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum and the Independent Smallholders’ Party, eventually taking its leadership. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, this coalition—led by Orbán—emerged victorious. Fidesz, unexpectedly, became the main governing party, and Orbán began his first four-year term as Prime Minister.
Fiery NATO Supporter and Russia Critic
Orbán’s political rise from 1989 onward was defined by military and economic integration with the West. Today a sharp critic of the West, back then Orbán was one of its most enthusiastic advocates (Tóth 2024).
In 1997, during Hungary’s referendum on joining NATO, Orbán chaired the NATO Integration Committee. He emphasized the importance of NATO membership with the words:
“To overcome the 20th-century condition in which Hungary’s security and territorial integrity were constantly violated, there is no alternative to joining the Western alliance” (X 2024).
Ironically, Hungary joined NATO during Orbán’s first premiership in 1999. That year, he declared:
“Thanks to the tragic events of 1956, Hungary gained its freedom in 1990 and, without spilling a drop of blood, secured its security in 1999. With our NATO accession, the painful and uncertain period of the past 50 years has come to an end.” (NATO 1999)
For nearly a decade, Orbán remained critical of Russia. When Russia invaded Georgian territory in 2008, he protested:
“This is unprecedented since the Cold War ended. Russia’s imperial approach and use of brute force was unimaginable in the last 20 years.” He also claimed that Moscow’s justification for Georgia was identical to its rationale in Budapest in 1956. (Index 2008)
Conservative Hungarian Nationalist
Domestically, Orbán’s first four years were marked by efforts to concentrate decision-making power in the prime minister’s office while weakening parliamentary oversight. Cabinet matters were no longer debated collectively—decisions were made in advance by Orbán and his inner circle. For the first time in Hungarian history, cabinet meetings went unrecorded, and parliament sessions were held once every three weeks instead of weekly. (Lendvai 2017)
Despite preserving his popularity for four years through this radical identity shift, Orbán narrowly lost the 2002 elections to the Socialists and Liberals, who strongly criticized Hungarian nationalism (IPU 2002).
According to Debreczeni—author of two contrasting biographies of Orbán written between 2002 and 2009—the defeat stemmed from two main reasons: the right wing’s opportunistic alliances with radical nationalists like István Csurka, and the failure of Fidesz to substantiate its corruption allegations against the previous government (Debreczeni 2009a).
From Secularism to Piety
Orbán’s transformation from 1988 to 2002 extended beyond politics. Once a staunch atheist who grew up in a secular environment, mocked clergy in parliament, and opposed religious education in schools during the early 1990s, Orbán began embracing religion in the late ’90s. Through the priest Zoltán Balog—who became one of his closest allies—he established ties with churches, ensured clerics had front-row seats at political events, and even held a religious wedding ceremony ten years after marrying his devout Catholic wife (Lendvai 2017).
According to Debreczeni, this didn’t mean Orbán had become truly religious—rather, he believed in the utility of anything that served his political interests (Debreczeni 2009b).
Step by Step Toward Authoritarianism
However, Europe and the world came to know Orbán’s true face after 2010, when he returned to power for a second term. While in opposition (2002–2010), Orbán developed close ties with European conservative leaders like Wilfried Martens, Helmut Kohl, and Wolfgang Schüssel. He skillfully capitalized on the mistakes and scandals of the ruling Socialist-Liberal coalition—especially Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s infamous 2006 admission that he had lied about the budget deficit—as well as the 2008 financial crisis and the lack of an alternative opposition. By stoking nationalist sentiment, Orbán won re-election with a massive majority. (Heinrich Böll Stiftung 2014)
If we include the 17% vote share of the far-right Jobbik Party, over 75% of Hungarians voted for the right in that election. For the first time in democratic Hungary’s history, a single party (Fidesz) held a two-thirds parliamentary majority (Lendvai 2017).
This was a turning point for Hungary—and a major step forward in Orbán’s march toward authoritarianism.
Conclusion
Viktor Orbán’s personal and political transformation is not just a story about one man or one country—it has evolved into one of the most serious threats within the European Union.
Coming into politics as a liberal, pro-Western reformist who denounced Soviet tanks and demanded free elections, Orbán hollowed out these values over time, using them instrumentally to stay in power. His right-wing populist, conservative, and nationalist rhetoric—coupled with anti-democratic governance—has diverted Hungary from the path of classical liberal democracy and turned it into a kind of “grey zone” within the EU.
Orbán’s transformation is not just a shift in political positions—it is a dramatic reversal from one extreme to another. From atheism to religiosity, from liberalism to nationalism, from pro-Western integration to pro-Eastern authoritarianism—his journey reflects political instincts shaped by a worldview that sacrifices principles for the sake of power.
For Orbán, ideologies and alliances serve only one goal: remaining in power. Once proclaiming, “Western alliance is Hungary’s only salvation,” he now echoes Kremlin propaganda and has become one of the main internal saboteurs of Europe’s security architecture.
Viktor Orbán is the classic authoritarian leader who does not hesitate to change ideologies, zigzag politically, and trample democratic values to hold onto power.
The greatest paradox of all is that this authoritarian figure has remained on the political stage for years—right within the heart of the European Union, a club of liberal democracies.
Click here to read the second part of the article.
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