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| 1988, June 22 |
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| Political reform and shift of positions: János Kádár, leader of the ruling Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party since 1956, was replaced by Karoly Grósz. Nearly a third of the Politburo members were replaced by advocates of reform. The new members included Imre Pozsgay, leader of the Patriotic People's Front, and Reszö Nyers, a main architect of the 1968 economic liberalization who had been ousted from the Politburo in 1975. | 1 |
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| 1989, Feb. 11 |
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| The government approved the formation of independent parties in a multiparty system. | 2 |
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| April 12 |
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| János Berecz and three other conservative opponents of reform were expelled from the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party. | 3 |
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| May |
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| Dismantling of the border fences built in the mid-1960s began. | 4 |
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| May 5 |
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| Jánós Kádár lost his positions as party president of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party and member of the Central Committee after Mária Ormos, a historian, delivered a speech to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences denouncing him as a Soviet puppet. | 5 |
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| June 8 |
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| Minister of Culture and Education Ferenc Glatz announced that, as of September, Russian language would no longer be required in Hungarian schools and universities. | 6 |
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| 1989, June 16 |
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| The body of former prime minister Imre Nagy was exhumed and reburied with state honors on the thirty-first anniversary of his execution. | 7 |
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| Oct |
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| The Hungarian Socialist Workers Party renamed itself the Hungarian Socialist Party and renounced Leninism. | 8 |
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| Nov. 15 |
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| Hungary applied for full membership in the Council of Europe. | 9 |
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