The Transformer

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made his political debut as an anti-communist activist in the liberal youth movement.

Born in 1963, Viktor Orban grew up in poverty in Soviet-dominated, communist Hungary. As a law student in Budapest, he joined a group of young liberals and started working for philanthropist George Soros’s organization. The organization, which later became the Open Society Foundations, granted him a scholarship to study European political philosophy at Oxford University.

Orban became a founding member of the Alliance of Young Democrats, or Fidesz, and was catapulted to national attention in 1989 when he gave a passionate, nationally televised speech at one of Budapest’s most memorable anti-communist rallies. In 1993, Orban became president of Fidesz and a forceful advocate for liberal reforms.

To boost his and his party’s political fortunes, Orban moved to the political...