This move is being resisted by the left-wing and centrist parties who control the council, on the grounds that the past cannot be rewritten and that the awarding of the honour by the Hungarian Government in 1947 cannot be undone.

These names have been written into the history of the capital... we cannot strike them out

Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky

Matyas Rakosi, the Communist leader who ran Hungary with an iron fist from 1947, was a close ally of Stalin who only lost his tight grip on power after the death of the Soviet dictator in 1953.

Stalin spat rumbles on

Earlier this week, the far-right Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP) put forward a motion calling for Stalin to be removed from the list of former honorary citizens.

Budapest: The past has the power to muddy the waters

This was rejected by the Hungarian Socialist Party - the successors to the Communists - and the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) members of the Budapest city council.

The MIEP immediately retaliated by boycotting the vote on this year's granting of honorary citizenship awards.

Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky, an SZDSZ member, said that the past could not be denied.

"These names have been written into the history of the capital. We cannot strike them out. It is impossible to obliterate the past," he said.

The SZDSZ also pointed out that the current list only dates from 1990 and therefore does not include Stalin's name.

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