The Clash of Colonialisms: The Race between Hungarian Communist and Anti-Communist Anti-Colonialism in the Third World

• In Event: Hungary, (anti)Colonialism, and the Global Cold War

Abstract

This paper explores how Hungarians on both sides of the Iron Curtain opened up to Afro-Asian decolonisation through competing constructions of Eastern European semiperipheral postcoloniality to be shared with the Third World. State-socialist Hungary struggled to open up via socialist globalisation against Western protectionism, and developed anti-colonialism against Western Empire and solidarity towards emerging postcolonies. The stakes were high, because Hungarian anti-communist political refugees in the West were already racing to first develop anti-colonial solidarity towards postcolonial countries and persuade them against “Soviet colonialism”.

Author

• Zoltan Ginelli, Independent Scholar