Gáspár Miklós Tamás

Gáspár Miklós Tamás (1948–2023) was a Hungarian political philosopher, journalist and writer born in Cluj, in the Hungarian minority of Romania. Influenced by Marxism and libertarian socialism, he became one of the most visible public intellectuals of the Hungarian opposition in the last years of state socialism and during the democratic transition that followed.

He left Romania in 1978 after being harassed by the Securitate and settled in Budapest, where he joined the unofficial opposition to the regime of János Kádár. In 1989 he helped found the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats and sat in parliament until 1994, though he later distanced himself from the party. During the 1990s his thinking moved toward a sharper critique of capitalism and a neo-Marxist outlook. He directed the Institute of Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and in 2010 co-founded the Green Left.

His best-known contribution is the concept of post-fascism, used to describe political systems that retain authoritarian and nationalist features of fascism within new forms. His ideas continue to shape Hungarian debates on democracy, authoritarianism and the left.