Hungary honors the memory of the victims of communism with dozens of events across the country today, Feb. 25, which is on the same day in 1947 when a symbolic figure of Hungary's multi-party system, Béla Kovács, was arrested and deported to the Soviet Union on fabricated charges of treason.

Hungary, which saw an estimated one million citizens who suffered death, imprisonment and deportation under communist occupying forces, also recognizes the approximately 100 million victims of communist regimes worldwide on Feb. 25.

In Soviet-occupied Hungary, Kovács, the secretary-general of the Smallholders' Party, was one of the staunchest opponents of the introduction of a Soviet-style communist system. Although his party won an absolute majority with 57 percent of the vote during the 1945 elections, the Soviets forced the party to form a coalition with three other parties, including the Communist Party.

Due to his continued resistance to Soviet rule, prompted when two Hungarian communist politicians demanded the Soviets occupy Hungary with military forces in 1947, then Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy, who also belonged to the Smallholders' Party, moved to dismiss Kovács from his position.