This article analyses the change of regime in Hungary, 1989-90. The author mostly stresses those steps of different political movements which "depraved" the changes. He establishes that the main tendencies were present already within the frameworks of the Kádárian policy. He states that a kind of pragmatic and illusionless rationalism characterizes the common sense of Hungarian people today. He takes a stand for a radical reformism based on reality which is built from below and which -in contradiction to the political practice in a narrow sense – concentrates on the protection of human interests and the labourers' ownership.