Anticipating reform reduces the need for later internal centralization.

Evidence

In Hungary, the party’s past reforming role, its active participation in the abolition of the party-state, and the genuine popularity of some of its leaders meant that the transition would be considerably less mired in conflict, and the party would be far less marginalized. Not only had the party preempted and dampened opposition demands for reform, but considerable personal ties formed between the party reformists and the democratic opposition. Both the technocratic administrators and the intellectuals in party institutions increasingly agreed with the opposition that democratic reforms were required. In short, the party was able to anticipate the transformation of the polity, and respond accordingly – its break with the past was more decisive than in any other case, and the need to centralize was considerably lower than in Poland or in the former Czechoslovakia. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 570

Categorization

• XREF: Comparative payoff for reader’s question: which parties survived by adapting early and preemptively shedding the old threat identity.