Hungarian People's Army

The Hungarian People's Army was the military of the Hungarian People's Republic and the armed branch of the ruling Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party from 1951 to 1990. It kept close ties to the Warsaw Pact and was built on Soviet lines, with Soviet advisers placed at every level from the late 1940s and a political commissar system for ideological instruction. It consisted mainly of the ground forces, which made up about 90 percent of its strength in the early 1980s, together with an air and air defence arm and a small Danube Flotilla. Its only combat abroad was helping the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact states to crush the Prague Spring in 1968. After the 1956 revolution the Soviets took most of its equipment and dismantled its air force. A reorganisation from 1985 replaced divisions with brigades and corps. As Hungary left socialism the army was converted into the Hungarian Defence Forces.