Hungarian People's Army

Soviet influence over the Hungarian armed forces began to rapidly increase starting in November 1948, "..when hundreds of Soviet military "advisers" were assigned to the Hungarian army from the top all the way down to the regimental level.[1] Although theoretically acting only as advisers, they influenced all important decisions. Beginning in December 1948, thousands of Hungarians began attending Soviet military and political academies to gain technical expertise and political indoctrination. Hungarian generals were sent to Soviet general staff schools."

After the 1948 creation of the HPA the allies and the Soviet Union permitted it to have a 65,000 strong Army and an Air Force with 5,000 personnel and 90 aircraft. The first Minister of Defence Mihály Farkas completely based the HPA off Stalinism until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. The HPA mimicked the Soviet Army's Political commissar model, In which party members could teach the ideas of Marxism–Leninism to soldiers of the HPA. After Stalin's death, de-Stalinization swept through the HPA quickly leading to the resignation of Farkas as Minister of Defence.

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the People's Army was deployed at a minimum. During this period, the Soviet Army invaded Hungary due to the revolution which was taking place. As a result, the Soviets took away most of the HPA's equipment, and dismantled the Air Force. In 1959 they began rebuilding the HPA and the new Hungarian leader János Kádár, asked for 200,000 Soviet troops from the Southern Group of Forces to stay in the country, which led to the government to rely more on the Soviets leading to the deterioration of the HPA.

In 1968, the Soviet Union and four other member states of the Warsaw Pact, building on the doctrine of “limited sovereignty”, invaded Czechoslovakia in gross violation of the principle of non-interference in internal affairs (Article 2(7), Chapter I of the United Nations Charter). Bypassing the Parliament, the Hungarian party and the government decided to take part. The designated troops were largely those of 8th Motor Rifle Division. The Hungarian military units were ordered on July 27, 1968, at 3 o'clock in the morning, to be fully operational and to carry out the mobilization of the reservists. The troops occupied Aszód and Rétság on 28 July, and their prepared waiting areas in the area between, and were prepared to carry out the task here. Out of the mobilised Hungarian personnel, four were killed in accidents.

The Danube Flotilla was incorporated into the Ground Forces in 1968.[2]

In the late 1970s, the top political leadership demanded that the military leadership propose an organizational structure better suited to the size, geographical location, position in the Warsaw Pact, and changes in armaments and technology. The aim was to create an army that was better suited to the size and military geographical position of Hungary smaller than the existing one, and with less but more modern equipment. At the end of 1984, General Lajos Czinege was retired. The plans, drawn up in consultation with the Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces, provided for substantial changes in both forces, the implementation of which would begin in 1985. This was the so-called "RUBIN task", which was in all respects a modernization and reorganization policy that aimed to:

• continue the Hungarian commitments to the Warsaw Pact
• provide the HPA with modern and advanced equipment
• adapt the military doctrinal practices to the changing times

This policy eliminated the division level organization in both forces, and thus, four corps were created, three land forces and one for domestic air defence, replacing eight divisions.

The Air Defence and Aviation Command was established to provide domestic air defence. On the basis of the disbanded 1st Home Air Defence Army Command and the two Air Force Divisions, the 1st Hungarian Air Defence Corps Command was established in Veszprém, incorporating the newly formed brigades of Hungarian Air Defence (air-missile and radio-technical units). As a result of the replacement of reconnaissance aircraft with more modern ones, an independent squadron was organised on the basis of personnel of the 101st reconnaissance aircraft regiment. Transport and combat helicopters were organised into regiment-level units.

For ground troops, although the army corps command level (5th Army Command) and army corps direct-reporting troops remained unchanged, an entirely new structure emerged with the abolition of divisions and many of the regiments and the introduction of NATO styled brigade organizations, a first in the Warsaw Pact. This meant that the 1st Mechanized Corps was set up in Tata and the 2nd Mechanized Corps in Kaposvár. The 3rd Corps, which had been independent in Cegléd until then, was subordinated to the 5th Army Command. Each land forces corps, by 1988, included five brigades (infantry and armored) organized into a brigade HQ and the combat, combat support and service battalions and/or companies under the brigade framework. [2]

In 1981 Danube Flotilla received six AM type modern minesweepers, and by 1988 it consisted of 700 men and eighty-two vessels, including ten Nestin MSI (riverine) boats. During wartime its chief functions would have been to clear the Danube River and Tisza River of mines, and, in addition, to assist the Hungarian Ground Forces and other Warsaw Pact armies to successfully transport their men and its materiel across rivers.

Soviet troops relaxed their control during the era of Mikhail Gorbachev, and Hungary later became a Democratic Republic. As it moved on from socialism the HPA was converted into the new model, officially dissolving the HPA and becoming the new Hungarian Defence Force.