Thread by @szekyjanos

1) Sometime during the darkest hours last night (as planned, but in secret, no witnesses), the monument of Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of the Hungarian revolution was removed from a square next to the Budapest Parliament, where it has stood since 1996.
444.hu/2018/12/28/az-…

2) The official explanation says the square shell be reconstructed as it was in 1944, before the German occupation, and the statue will be replaced by the original monument to the victims of the 1919 Red Terror.

3) But the whole Orbán mythology is centered around the speech he made on the occasion of Imre Nagy's and his associates' reburial, where he said the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Hungary should be negotiated.

4) Nagy's biggest political "crime" in the eyes of the post-1956 regime was his announcement that Hungary would exit the Warsaw Pact (the Russian-led military alliace), which resulted in his execution.

5) Now some associations. One of the first signs that things would change in Hungary was a poem by Gáspár Nagy in 1986, demanding the Imre Nagy should be buried (then his body lay in an unmarked grave, wrapped in tar paper). NI (incorporated in the words) are his initials.

6) The literary magazine, where it was published, was banned for a while. The official campaign was directed by a high-ranking communist party official called András Knopp, who was also responsible for keeping an eye on dissident intellectuals in general.

7) When the regime collapsed, Mr. Knopp disappeared from the political scene. In 2003 (during the socialist-liberal Medgyessy government) he re-emerged as a founder of Emfesz, a gas trading company operating in Hungary, effectively owned by none else but Dmytro Firtash.

8) He was also CEO to another Firtash project called GEMM, set up to produce titanium in India.

9) Now, at 80, Mr. Knopp, a rich man, lives in Moscow. His 1980s policies re Imre Nagy are now in harmony with the Orbán government's policies, who has made a full turnaround in Russian issues. Moscow has not forgiven Imre Nagy. Connect the points.