It was a delicate question. At any rate, they wanted to maintain their faith and their idealism. Yes, maybe Stalin was a dictator, they thought, but still, the idea of Socialism remains both good and decent. They defended this view for a long time to come. In Hungary, society has given great opportunities to and invested in their youth.
People are still afraid here.
People were afraid to talk with each other, were afraid of history, they were scared to tell the truth. It is difficult to be freed of this attitude. Still today I notice that whenever they talk, people look left and right for fear of being reported to the authorities. In Poland, it seems better than in Hungary. In Hungary the thirty years of the Kadar regime left deep scars.