It was the end for the DDR and ultimately, I would argue, for Lenin's system. That picnic in Sopronpuszta was the day the exsanguination started. Perhaps the study of fascism had gone out of fashion in the Kremlin, otherwise they might have remembered Goebbels's note in his 1941 diary: "One must always keep an eye on the Hungarians. They are masters of betrayal."

Only three years earlier, on the 30th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution, it seemed as if the Hungarian Communist Party could comfortably enjoy another 30 years of power. The "democratic opposition" issued a statement celebrating the aims of the revolution, just about the only action it had the power to carry out. The 52 signatories make interesting reading, since they were the only ones in a country of ten million willing to make a stand against dictatorship - an indication of how the MSZMP had mollified the population. One of the signatories, György Krassó, in essence the Godfather of the opposition, was by then resident in London because, as he confided to me, he thought "nothing will ever change".

The 52 were, however, the singularity that was shortly to produce Hungary's political big bang. Let me say now, I salute everyone who had the guts to put their names on that document. It's very poignant, however, to review the names. A few are dead. A smattering were, frankly, misfits and nutters. Some went on to achieve insanity. Sándor Lezsák and Sándor Csoori went on to form, with Pozsgay's blessing, the MDF, the first "new" political party. István Csurka became a figurehead for the far-Right. Árpád Göncz, János Kis, Ferenc Koszeg founded the SZDSZ, the party that was briefly the home for the old-timers of the opposition.

A number who took risks and made great sacrifices, such as Iván Bába and Jenö Nagy, didn't get the recognition or thanks they deserved. Above all, there was Tibor Pákh, whose inability to refrain from fighting, after years in the Gulag and then Hungarian jails, was of a truly implausible, Polish level. Krassó might have been the trickster master of the opposition, but Pákh was the hardest.