from the Smallholders' parliamentary group, diminishing their majority. The expelled parliamentarians then formed the Hungarian Freedom Party, which became the country's most vocal anti-Communist opposition force. Nagy was accused by many fellow Smallholders of weakness in resisting these demands, but his ultimate goal was to appease the Communists until a peace treaty could be negotiated and their Soviet sponsors withdrew. He also hoped that by appeasing the Communists, the Hungarian government could use their leverage with Moscow to gain more favorable terms for the peace treaty. This was despite the plainly anti-Hungarian position of the Soviet Politburo, which ended up backing none of Hungary's peace treaty demands and in fact ruled out doing so. Ultimately, the Communist Party's position served as little more than a ploy to increase its own influence. Coup d'état of 1947 From early 1947 the Communist Party under then-Deputy Premier Mátyás Rákosi increased its attacks on the Smallholders, accusing their leaders of complicity in a vast alleged conspiracy. They used this as an excuse to begin forcing the arrest and recall of over 50 of its MPs, successfully depriving the party of its democratically won majority. The Soviet Union, whose army was occupying Hungary at the time through the Allied Commission, played a key role in this process by providing the supposed evidence of the Prime Minister's involvement, and also kidnapped Béla Kovács—the Smallholders' Party's popular General Secretary—to deport him to the Soviet Union in defiance of Parliament. On 14 May 1947, Nagy traveled abroad to Switzerland, likely hoping to warn the West of the deteriorating situation in Hungary. The Communists used the opportunity to get rid of their strongest remaining opponent, and on 28 May the Soviets presented false evidence implicating Nagy in the conspiracy. As the Communists had taken his son hostage in Budapest, Nagy agreed to resign on 30 May, but did not formally ratify his resignation until his son had reached Switzerland on 2 June. Rákosi appointed Lajos Dinnyés—a Smallholder politician willing to collaborate with the Communists—as his replacement on 31 May, which granted the Communist Party effective control of the Hungarian government. Subsequently, Nagy was granted asylum in the United States. He would be Hungary's last non-Communist head of government until the collapse of Communist rule and restoration of free elections in 1989–90. In addition, he would be the last prime minister east of the Iron Curtain not to be a