imre nagy A Biography János M. Rainer Translated by Lyman H. Legters with a Foreword by István Deák

Transcription

1 imre nagy A Biography János M. Rainer Translated by Lyman H. Legters with a Foreword by István Deák

2 Published in 2009 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, NY Copyright 2009 János M. Rainer Originally published as Nagy Imre (Budapest: Vince Kiadó, 2002) The English translation is based on the German version revised by the author and translated by Anne Nass: Imre Nagy vom Parteisoldaten zum Märtyrer der ungarischen Volksaufstands Eine politische Biographie (Paderborn: Schönigh, 2006) The translation project has been initiated and coordinated by János M. Bak and was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Hungary and the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Budapest. The right of János M. Rainer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Communist Lives: 2 isbn: A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by A. & D. Worthington, Newmarket, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham

3 CONTENTS List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Series Foreword by Matthew Worley Foreword by István Deák Preface to the English Edition by János M. Rainer vii ix xiii xv xix 1. Beginnings 1 2. To Remain a Communist Fifteen Years in Moscow Forced March Towards Socialism Up the Ladder The New Course Victory and Defeat In Opposition Revolution Endgame November the Fourth The Verdict Facing Death Alone The Legacy Post Mortem Resurrection 188 Notes 199 Glossary of Persons 231 Select Bibliography 247 Index 253

4 1 BEGINNINGS Imre Nagy was born in 1896 in the town of Kaposvár in the southwestern Hungarian county of Somogy. His paternal grandparents were servants on an estate south of Lake Balaton; his maternal grandfather was a farmer who owned some six hectares of land in the same vicinity and was also a wheelwright. His parents left the village when young to earn their living in the city. Both found employment at the county administration in Kaposvár, the father as carriage driver for the lieutenant-general of the county, the mother as serving girl for his wife. They became acquainted there in 1895 and married in January They rented a small two-room apartment in the main street, not far from the county headquarters. Imre Nagy was born prematurely on 6 June The father, József Nagy, was then 27 years old and Protestant; the mother, Rozália, born Szabó, was 19 and Catholic. Their son was baptized in the father s evangelical (Lutheran) confession. Three sisters were born in the subsequent years: Mária, Terézia and Erzsébet. The fourth child died in infancy, as did Terézia at a comparatively young age. Mária, the oldest sister, lived in Budapest, where she died in In the Communist movement, Nagy was known as a man of peasant origin. In the broadest sense, that was true, but not at all in the sociological one. In his lifetime, his parents were never engaged primarily in agriculture, and he himself had never lived for a long time in village surroundings. He came from the milieu of the Hungarian small town of the turn of the century, the inhabitants of which enjoyed close relations with the village and the peasantry. In the 1860s his hometown was still small, with 6,000 7,000 inhabitants and was of a predominantly agrarian character. The upswing began first in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Kaposvár became a railroad junction and a seat of the county bureaucracy; in three decades its population grew fourfold. Its outward appearance bore the stamp of the eclectic style of the time. As mentioned above (see p xxi) from the autobiographical notes, written in 1957, we know more about the Nagy family history, and Imre s childhood and youth, than about his later life. His description of the small-town atmosphere of half a century before is drenched in nostalgia; although early on he experienced unjust social conditions, he remained attached to the comfortable petty bourgeois world of his childhood and the sociable style of the province for the rest of his life. As a child and then in his youth, he spent much time with his parents and the relatives of his mother, and thus directly accumulated impressions of 1

5 2 imre nagy 1. The Nagy family, c From left to right: Terézia, mother Rozália, father József, Imre, Mária. (Hungarian National Museum) the work and lifestyle of poor, landless peasants. The decisive experience for him was not primarily the misery and poverty of village life, but rather the difficulty of climbing out of it: the successes and the many failures that resulted from peasant origins and the misery the peasants sought to overcome. A certain ambivalence is apparent, when he writes about his grandmother in the autobiography: [She] was a tall woman with pale visage and grey hair who dressed in peasant style and went barefoot. I was fond of her but as a young student I was ashamed when I was seen with her in town. 1 His parents attempt to rise above peasant life was an open-ended family project. It was still unclear at the time of their son s birth whether the effort would succeed or whether they would make it only to the lowest level of urban petty bourgeoisie. He was six years old when his father entered state service as a postal employee with the prospect of a pension. The modest but secure position was evidently not enough to satisfy his spirit of enterprise, for he began in 1907 to build a house. The credit that he needed was to be repaid from renting out three apartments in the house. But in 1911 he lost his job and had to sell the house. From then on he remained an unskilled worker until his death in The other route to upward mobility, the one preferred by his mother, was through education: Imre Nagy was sent, after finishing elementary school, to

6 beginnings 3 the gymnasium (the humanist high school) in Kaposvár where he completed four classes between 1907 and His own characterization of his work at the gymnasium was mediocre. His half-year report card in the fifth year showed an unsatisfactory in mathematics, which cancelled his tuition waiver. At 16 he thus had to leave school because of insufficient accomplishment and lack of funds, at the request of the parents. 2 This was also the time when his father lost his postal job, so the adolescent had now to give serious thought to an occupation. As Nagy later wrote: My decision to leave the gymnasium was already made as I finished the fourth class. The impulse came from several classmates who opted for industrial jobs. My mother was strongly opposed to it and wept on my account. I began training as a locksmith with the intention, after a year of practice, to enter the advanced technical school in Budapest. 3 He started right away in Kaposvár as an apprentice in a small metalworking firm, and then moved to northern Hungary to work in the factory for agricultural machinery in Losonc/Lučenec. A year later he returned to Kaposvár and in 1914 received his journeyman s certificate as a metal fitter. After a short time in the workshop of his mentor, he left in summer 1914 and, unable to follow up his plan to go to Budapest, enrolled in the commercial high school in Kaposvár. As he later recalled, his parents urged that course on him, but it was not contrary to his own desires either. Thus, after giving up on his mother s wish that he graduate from the gymnasium and qualify for a career as a civil servant, he now chose, as a compromise, a practice-oriented commercial training, one that offered a road to clerical positions and at least a lower middle-class standing. Thus, the 18-year-old journeyman terminated his employment as a locksmith and began work in summer 1914 as office help in a lawyer s office. On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Bosnian terrorists. Nagy recalled: There was a great people s festival in the streets of Kaposvár when the news reached us. 4 His employer was among the first to be mobilized. Yet the onset of war against Serbia a month later was without consequence for the younger age groups. The young clerk remained in the lawyer s office, earned money and was entrusted with useful chores. The academic year at the commercial school began for him in September, the last year that Nagy spent in a classroom and probably the most placid and peaceful year of his entire life. The description of those times 40 years later reads like recollections of good old days. They convey the optimism about the future of a young man who no longer had any doubts about his own abilities and felt equal to challenges yet to come. His comments on this brief period in his life contain no reference to family poverty or to disagreements about future plans. There were now no difficulties with learning: I did well in school, was an outstanding student. The

7 4 imre nagy director, an older former Benedictine, a straightforward and cheerful man and good teacher, made friends with me and considered me his best pupil. And I was a great admirer of him. 5 Nagy apparently felt that he had found the right path, and was now even in agreement with a mother who wanted me to become an educated man and a white-collar worker. It was obviously not hard for him to say goodbye to his metalworking career. Imre Nagy, who devoted his entire adult life to the labour movement, often had occasion later to reflect on his origins and his class status. It is noteworthy, in his autobiographical notes, how much more intensively he remembers his experience as a student than as a young worker. He describes vividly the events and persons (teachers, relatives, family friends) from his school years, but his depiction of his apprenticeship and journeyman year is flat and without emotion, even though it is permeated with the obligatory pathos surrounding the concept workers. Even the account of his initial encounter with the labour movement that was so decisive for his whole life comes across as perfunctory: The workers association was housed at that time in rooms at the Hotel Bárány on the main street opposite from our workshop. We obtained books and newspapers there; attended lectures and festivities. A new spirit and new ideas ripened in us: notably the concept of socialism. We belonged to the labour movement and associated ourselves with the working class. 6 All that seems paltry alongside what we learn of his enthusiasm for sport, notably football and wrestling, which would play no special role for him as an adult. One can imagine that Nagy meant to write in greater detail about his encounter with the labour movement and in general his involvement in politics, perhaps in a later section of the incomplete autobiography. From the finished portion, we learn simply that he acquired little political experience in this period and had yet to adopt a definite stance. And the young man was now genuinely in love for the first time: I went to Sétatér Alley where three attractive girls lived as neighbours. They were good friends, formerly schoolmates who had graduated from high school. I was with them all the time and felt very comfortable in their company. They were pleasant and cheerful. One of the girls struck a special chord with him: Out of sympathy and then affection came real deep love a sincere love that accompanied me through the time at the front and then during the POW times, a love that consoled me in many difficult times and encouraged me to prevail. 7 The war, however, soon brought an end to all this. In December 1914 Nagy was called up for military service and found fit for induction. The school year ended in May 1915 and he was commanded to report for duty without a certificate of graduation. He was assigned to the 17th Royal Hungarian Honvéd Infantry Regiment stationed in Székesfehérvár, not far from his hometown.

8 beginnings 5 I put on the traditional braid-decorated red Honvéd uniform and was called a dashing soldier. The training was not difficult for me and I learned everything quickly. Barracks life was also not a problem. Cleaning rooms, floors, and toilets was not new to me, for I had often had to clean the workshop. Learning military science was also not difficult either. I adjusted easily and with joy to the life of a soldier. 8 His good physical condition, acquired through work and sport, was of course a factor. The prevailing mood, war hysteria, and national enthusiasm at the onset of the war had an impact on all the young men and Nagy was no exception. The whole city was gripped by wild excitement, resembling an agitated sea. We youths were in fine spirits, urged each other on, and sought to inspire everyone for the war. We swam with the current on the highest crest of enthusiasm, as if our entire past and our education only took on meaning through this event. 9 In August 1915, after three months of basic training in Székesfehérvár, Nagy s unit was sent to the Italian Front. They took up their stations in the mountains near Monfalcone on the Gulf of Trieste. Nagy recalled: The land surface was rocky, covered by a thin layer of reddish clay as if drenched in blood. There was hardly any protection. Digging foxholes in the rock was impossible, so we piled stones on each other. We had to work with pick and chisel in order to fashion any sort of cover. The enemy shells that fell among the rocks broke up the stone so that the splinters became a kind of hailstorm. Then the grenade launchers and cannon shot. More soldiers were wounded by the shower of stones than by enemy fire. The intoxication of enthusiasm for war slowly ebbed from our heads. One could no longer preserve illusions: this was war in its true nature. After one of the battles that became so famous, we stood there in the valley as if petrified. The names of fallen comrades were read out the losses were horrendous. 10 In the third Isonzo battle, Nagy was wounded in the leg and, after convalescence in the field hospital, was moved first to Ljubljana, then to Ogulin in Croatia (where his mother visited him) and finally back home. He was then trained in Budapest and in Pécs as a machine-gunner. Marching orders came early in the summer of 1916 and he had to leave with the 19th Machine Gun Battalion, now as a corporal, to the front in Galicia. His unit took up positions in the vicinity of Czartoriek, south of Luck. The Austro-Hungarian army was soon overwhelmed by the Russian offensive commanded by General Brusilov, and Nagy now lived through one of the most dreadful battles of the Eastern Front. The panic-stricken, totally disorganized retreat, the nightmare of all armies, made a deep impression on him:

9 6 imre nagy The rapid retreat turned into flight. The roads were inundated with retreating units coming from all directions. Infantry, artillery, sappers, medics all mixed up together. A huge turbulence of leaderless troops with no idea where they were headed. Commands and the threat of punishment availed nothing, and the soldiers threw away not only their weapons but even their provisions. Only a few held on to their coats and blankets. These six days were veritable hell. We were fed perhaps two or three times. We ate cabbage and other vegetables without noticing the sand and dirt; we ate out of dirty mess kits; there was no water to drink so we drank the stagnant water from puddles. 11 After a temporary break in the fighting, a new Russian advance began at the end of July Cossack bands led the attack, followed by wave after wave of Russian infantry. The Hungarian machine-gun emplacements, much feared by the Russians, were under constant artillery fire. At this point, gunner Imre Nagy was wounded: I was struck in the leg by shrapnel. Following orders, I removed the insignia from my cap and uniform jacket and smeared dirt on the less faded spots where they had been, for it was understood that the Cossacks would shoot any captured machine-gunner. 12 The frontline moved on as the Russians advanced, driving the prisoners along with them. The wounded Nagy remained lying on the field where various groups, Russians and Hungarians mixed up together, wandered about looking for their units. No one paid attention to the dead and wounded. Nagy s notes do not tell us how long this lasted, whether minutes or hours. I lay bleeding on the ground. I told Hungarian medics to tend my wounds, but they just ran on past me one of them was actually an acquaintance from Kaposvár (a porter at the hospital there). He was the one who brought the news home that I was either dead or a prisoner. I crawled past corpses, charred and putrefying corpses, until I found a dry spot where I could hide. I was found there by Russian medics who bound up my wounds, laid me on a stretcher, and took me to an ambulance in the woods. 13 Thus it came about that Imre Nagy, 20 years old, machine-gunner, unmarried, student of the commercial high school, member of the Hungarian Iron and Metal Workers Union, became a Russian prisoner on 29 July 1916 on one of the countless battlefields on the Galician front. The maturing youth was snatched for good from his accustomed small world, but he was also granted a postponement of those questions that demand answers on the eve of adulthood: who he was and what direction his life was to take. Indeed, in the nearly five years spent in Russia before he could go home to Hungary, those questions and their possible answers had in large measure become obsolete.

10 beginnings 7 By the autumn of 1916, after the Brusilov offensive, more than 300,000 men of the Austro-Hungarian army were Russian prisoners. 14 The wounded Nagy landed in a field hospital, first in Kursk and then in Voronezh. This was his first encounter with the land and people with whom his later life would be so closely associated under good and not so good circumstances. What could the 20-year-old know of Russia? For a patriotically raised young Hungarian, the tsarist empire was the brutal repressor of the 1848 independence struggle. Concerning the Russian Revolution of 1905, we knew only the tales told us by parents. We grew up in the spirit of the 1848 revolution in Hungary. I could not remember anything of the Russio-Japanese War. When we children had any position at all, our sympathies were with the Japanese. When we played war no one wanted to be the Russian. 15 Repugnance and fear were probably his predominant emotions. In describing his capture he mentioned several times that he had been afraid of the Russian soldiers, especially the Cossacks, and that he expected the worst at their hands. But that changed noticeably in the hospital: The field hospital [in Voronezh] was housed in a gymnasium for girls. Along with the good care that we received, there was also more variety; life became more pleasant and we began to adapt to the status of war prisoner. I began to learn Russian, helped in this by the nurses. There was a chapel where the girls attended mass and, since we were not barred from going there, it became a routine habit to go to church. Acquaintances, friendships, affectionate relationships began to develop. The girls gathered under our windows in the evening and, so far as our modest vocabularies permitted, we carried on conversations. 16 The leg wound healed rapidly and Nagy was sent to a camp in Darnitsa, near Kiev, then to Ryazan, and finally in late autumn (in summer clothing) on a transport to Siberia. The Russian army command treated the prisoners differently: separation of officers and enlisted grades, as required by the Geneva Convention. But in addition, political considerations were applied to the distribution of the prisoners by nationality: by the second year of the war, Hungarians, Austrians, Germans and Turks were sent to the remotest parts of the empire, Hungarians mainly to Turkestan and Siberia. Prisoners of Slavic origin (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Bosnians) were more commonly kept in camps in the European parts of Russia. (From these battle-ready Slavic camp inmates the Legions were later recruited, including the politically and militarily important Czechoslovak Legion. 17 ) The prisoner transport that took Nagy to his Siberian destination was act ually a shabby little train holding 13 passengers and two guards. It wandered about for some time on the snowed-in Trans-Siberian line until it reached Camp Berezovka on Lake Baikal, not far from Ulan Ude. This barracks city, built

11 8 imre nagy during the Russo-Japanese War, was one of the largest soldier cities, designed for 30,000 40,000 residents with modern infrastructure, paved streets and good sanitary facilities. 18 As a student, Nagy was assigned to one of the intelligentsia barracks separate from the ordinary soldiers, holding some 300 men with higher education, reserve officers, and men who had graduated from any sort of higher school. Life as a prisoner of war, like his time in the army, contributed to Nagy s self-discipline and also, perhaps, to his aloof nature. Such qualities were necessary for survival but also signified that the insecure youth was maturing into adulthood. His basic education was continued in the camp, as far as that was possible, and although it remained fragmentary, it made him thirst for more. Nagy s socialization at Berezovka, typically for that time and place, tended towards a leftist orientation. As his autobiographical notes indicate, he attended a learning circle, in fact a Marxist discussion group, until Like so many of his generation and of later comrades, Nagy became acquainted with Bolshevism as a prisoner of war. An organizational committee of social democratic prisoners was founded in December In February 1918 some Cossacks with Bolshevik sympathies arrived at Berezovka and tried to persuade the prisoners and guards to fight their own revolution, i.e. rebel against their officers, but were met with refusal. However, propaganda gradually scored some successes, as when some ten per cent of the camp s inhabitants joined the armed units of the Siberian Bolshevik Centre (Tsentrosibir). Nagy was among them. From March 1918 he fought in various units until a company of the anti-bolshevik Czechoslovak Legion encircled his troop, and so in early September he became a prisoner once again. In the meantime, he had joined the Communist (Social Democratic) Party of the Foreign Workers of Siberia, a separate organization because the Russian party did not yet accept foreign prisoners of war as members. Escaping from the Czechs, Nagy spent the next year and a half in the Lake Baikal area, then under White control, holding temporary jobs and maintaining contact with fellow Hungarians who shared his situation. In 1920 this group of Hungarian workers and peasants (Nagy may or may not have been among them) took part in the Irkutsk Bolshevik uprising. White counteroffensives were repelled until units of the Bolshevik Fifth Army reached the town on 7 February At that point, the Civil War ended for Imre Nagy. 19 By this time the only way to get home was to work through the new revolutionary regime in Russia. However, the decision to side with the Bolsheviks had not been the only choice available. Nagy always emphasized that his had been a conscious decision, though these were of course the statements of a Communist Party militant who used familiar clichés to describe his encounter with the movement. It seems likely that the young man found a convincing and uplifting message in the revolution, one that spoke to his family background, the

12 beginnings 9 2. Party membership card, Russian Communist (Bolshevik) Party, December (1956 Institute archive) events of his young life, his marginal social position and the horrific experience of war. The prospect of peace and the promise of social equality and justice could only appeal to the young exile, who must also have been influenced by educated and intelligent friends. In the chaos that surrounded him, Nagy was looking for security and a better life, and the signs of a new world that he could decipher with his limited Russian posters, flyers, headlines sent a clear message. Important too was his involvement with the Red Guards, an army where commanders were always comrades. His first experiences and impressions of the new revolutionary order reflected social and political conditions in and around Irkutsk. Although he had received a pass for travel homeward, he stayed on for another year. On 12 February 1920 he became a candidate member and on 10 May a full member of the Bolshevik Party of Russia. In addition, he became what his parents had always wanted for him: he served as a clerk in the office of the Liquidation Committee that dealt with prisoners of war and, after summer 1920, in the office of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) which had taken over those functions. He also made speeches as a party activist and wrote for Forradalom (Revolution)

13 10 imre nagy and Roham (Attack), local organs of the Hungarian Communists. 20 Tens of thousands of Hungarians fought on the Red side in the Civil War, but most returned home when the war ended. By early 1921 there were only some 3,000 4,000 Hungarian Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. As one of that contingent, Nagy soon found his way into a small circle, the group that Béla Kun, founder of the Party of Communists in Hungary (KMP) and leader of the ill-fated Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, 21 planned to send home to build up an underground centre in Hungary while strengthening as well as unifying the existing smaller cells. A report of May 1921 stated: Altogether 278 comrades were sent home, charged with minor tasks, by the Political Department. They located in the smaller Hungarian towns and are now trying to establish contact with Vienna, Berlin, or Moscow. 22 Nagy was among them. Kun maintained that the groups of activists at home would disrupt the trade unions, begin to organize and lead strikes, and prepare and initiate the armed uprising. After a month of training by the Cheka in conspiratorial work, they received their marching orders. It is easy to imagine how well they were prepared for underground work in a country where the Communist Party had been prohibited since 1919 and its captured leaders charged with high treason. 23 Nagy joined a transport for returning prisoners in April 1921 and, after a long journey and two weeks in a debriefing camp, reached his hometown at the end of May. Some of his companions were placed under police surveillance; others simply avoided contact with each other and, still more, with the almost illusory underground party.

14 beginnings First page of Forradalom (Revolution), journal of the Hungarian Communists of Irkutsk, 12 June Feuilleton by Nagy entitled Sötétség (Darkness). (1956 Institute archive)

15 INDEX Aczél, Tamás, 89, 90, 111, 184, 231 Adenauer, Konrad, 182 agriculture agrarian policy, 13, 18, 30, 36, 49, 166, 208 agrarian question, 20, 28, 30 2, 45, 53 collectivization, 20, 49, 57 8, 60, 72 land reform, xxiii, 16 17, 32, 35 6, 38, 40 1, 51, 54, 57, 133, 168 Alpári, Gyula, 14, 231 Andropov, Yurii Vladimirovich, 77, 94 5, 103, 123, 125, , 136, 213, 215, 231 Angyal, István, 116, 231 anti-stalinism, xxiv xxv, 145, 158 Apró, Antal, 110, 231 Association of Working Youth (DISZ), ix x, 80, 91, 97 ÁVH see Hungarian State Defence Authority Bak, M. János, xxvi Balogh, Mrs József, 161 Bárd, Imre, 161 Bartók, Béla, 89 Bata, István, 78, 115, 231 Benjámin, László, 89, 214, 231 Beria, Lavrentii Pavlovich, 57 8, 64 5, 67, 70, 73, 210, 231 Bethlen, István, 13 Bibó, István, 39, 43 4, 47, 132, 135, 137, 232 Bíró, Zoltán (brother of Mátyás Rákosi), 33, 232 Biszku, Béla, 145 6, 232 Bognár, József, 127, 232 Brusilov, Aleksei Alekseievich, 5, 7 Bukharin, Nikolai, 20, 81, 232 Bulganin, Nikolai, 58, 232 Cheka, ix x, 9 10, 12 collectivization of agriculture, 20, 49, 57 8, 60, 72 Comintern, ix, xv, 14, 20, 22 4, 25, 27 9, 34, 36 7, 42, 48, 199, 203 4, 231 4, 239, 243 Agrarian Institute of, vii, 22, 24 6, 28 30, 199 International Lenin School of, 23, 199, 205 Committee for Historical Justice (TIB), xi, Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU, Bolsheviks), ix, xxi xxii, 20, 24, 33, 72, 87, 90 1, 115, 119, 141, 143 4, 170, 174, 199, 205, 231 2, 237, 239, 240 2, 244 Hungarian Communist Party (MKP, ), x, 37, 40 5, 200, 232, 234, 236, 238 9, 241, 243 Hungarian Party of Communists in Hungary (KMP, ), ix x, 10, 14 23, 28 9, 168, 199, 204 5, 231, 234 6, 238 9, Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (MSZMP, ), ix x, 130, 132 3, 138, 144, 146 7, 153, 182, 190 2, 196 7, 200, 203, 231 8, 240 2,

16 254 imre nagy Hungarian Workers Party (MDP, ), ix x, 53, 64 5, 69 71, 74, 76, 80, 83, 85, 87, 91, 94, 96, 107, , , 124, 175, 200, 225, 232 4, 236, 238, 240, Deák, István, xxvi democracy, people s, 38 8, 43, 51, 59, 61, 71, 74, 76, 109, 120, 122, 146, 170, 172, democratic transition (1989), xxv, 193, democratization, 51, 78, 120, 167, 175 Déry, Tibor, 89, 94, 214, 224, 232 Dimitrov, Georgi, 35, 42, 50, 199, 205, 207, 233 DISZ (Association of Working Youth), ix x, 80, 91, 97 Dobi, István, 62, 127, 233 Donáth, Ferenc, 46, 50, 98, 105, 107 8, 110, 112, 134, 137 8, 142, 147, 149, 159, 189, 214, 218, 221 2, 233 Dubcek, Alexeander, 83, 166, 233 Dudás, József, 122, 219, 233 Dutt, Rajani Palme, 148 Égető, Mária, Mrs Imre Nagy, 13, 14, 16, 17, 25, 27, 28, 45, 172, 233 Engels, Friedrich, 33, 53 Erdei, Ferenc, 100, 103, 118, 120, 123, 128, 130, 133, 217, 233 Farkas, Ferenc, B., 132, 233 Farkas, Mihály, 35, 41, 50, 55, 58, 60, 65, 66, 75, 77, 91, 94, 96, 233 Fazekas, György, 86, 89 90, 144, 214, 234 Fehér, Kálmán, 224 Fehér, Lajos, 55, 74, 234 Ferencsik, József, 224 Fischer, József, 132, 234 FKGP see Independent Smallholders Party Földvári, Rudolf, 108, 234 Franz Ferdinand, Habsburg Archduke, 3 Friss, István, 212, 234 Gerő, Ernő, 32, 34 5, 41, 55, 57 8, 60, 62, 64, 70, 75 7, 95 7, 103 5, 107 8, 110, , 115, 153, 175 6, 179, 207, 209, 217, 234 Gheorghiu-Dej, Gheorghe, 131, 152 Gimes, Miklós, 86, 89, 91, 93, 100, 111, 115, 145, 147, 149, 159, 164 5, 214, , 234 Gőgös, Ignác, 15, 235 Gollan, John, 148 Gomułka, Władysłav, 49, 50, 97, 181, 184, 208, 216, 235 Göncz, Árpád, 197 GPU, ix x, 21 Grősz, József, 68 Grósz, Károly, 191 Gyenes, Antal, 54, 108, 115, 209, 235 Hajdu Tibor, 79 Haraszti, Sándor, 86, 89, 91, 98, 100, 137 8, 214, 235 Háy, Gyula, 99, 235 Hegedüs, András, 46, 58, 82, 93 5, 97, 105, 108, 110, 113, 115, 212, 235 Hegedűs, B. András, xxv, 93, 235 Heltai, György, 125, 183, 236 Hevesi, Ákos, 22, 236 Hidas, István, 58, 236 Hitler, Adolf, 33, 35, 134 Horthy, Miklós, xv, 15, 35 6, 123 Horváth, Imre, 128 Horváth, Márton, 41, 91, 104, 236 Hungarian Association of Students of Universities and Colleges (MEFESZ), x, 97 Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), x, 196, 246 Hungarian Democratic Youth Association (MADISZ), x

17 index 255 Hungarian State Defence Authority (ÁVH), ix, 55, 77, 95, 108, 116, 118, 121, 208, 236, Independent Smallholders Party (FKGP), ix, 41 5, 47 8, 108, 120, 122, 132, 232 3, 238, 241, 245 industrialization, 57, 60 1, 64, 69, 81, 232 Iván Kovács, László, 116, 236 Jánosi, Ferenc, 55, 87, 89, 100, 137, 144, 149, 151, , 236 Janza, Károly, 116, 236 Kádár, János, 41, 43, 49, 55, 56, 70, 77, 89, 91, 94 8, 105, 107 8, 110, , , 123 4, 127 8, 130 2, 136, 138, , 153, 161, 166, 168, 175 6, 179, 181 2, , 195, 197 8, 203, 212, 221, 229, 235, 236, 237 8, Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseevich, 73 Kállai, Gyula, 105, 143 4, 151 3, 223, 237 Kardos, László, 99, 237 Kelemen, Endre, 225 Kelemen, Gyula, 122, 132, 237 Kende, Péter, xx, xxv, 192, 237 Kéthly, Anna, 77, 122 3, 130, 132, 237 KGB, ix, 29, 104, 143, 231, 233, 240, 245 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 58, 64, 73, 81, 86, 90, 93, 95, 97, 103 4, 115, 119, 126, 131, 136, 141, 143 9, 152, 174, 181, 219, 222, 237, 240 1, 244, 246 Király, Béla, 121 2, 128, 135, 146 7, 191, 237 Kis, János, 189, 192 Kiselev, Evgenii Dmitrievich, 63, 65, 70, 237 Kiss Károly, 41, 95, 98, 113, 238 Köböl, József, 91, 98, 107 8, 238 Kónya, Lajos, 89, 99, 214, 238 Kopácsi, Sándor, 108, 111, 138, 145, 149, 159, 168, 238 Kornai, János, 83, 238 Kossa, István, 41, 238 Kossuth, Lajos, 102, 114, 174, 196, 198, 217, 228 Kovács, Béla, 48, 108, 120, 130, 132, 238 Kovács, Imre, 47 Kovács, István (general), 128, 130, 137, 238 Kovács, István (politician), 41, 95, 97, 108 9, 205, 238 Krassó, György, 189, 239 Kun, Béla, 10, 12, 14, 21 3, 27 9, 202, 205, 239, 241, 244 Lakatos, Mrs Péter, 224 Lakatos, Péter, 224 land reform, xxiii, 16 17, 32, 35 6, 38, 40 1, 51, 54, 57, 133, 168 Landler, Jenő, 12, 14, 21, 234, 239 Legters, Lyman H., xxvi Lenin, Vladimir Iliich, 33, 49, 53, 74, 87, 232 Litván, György, xxv Lőcsei, Pál, 89, 111, 214, 239 Losonczy Géza, 86, 89, 91, 93 4, 96, 98, 100, 105, 107 8, 110, 112, 120, 127 8, 130, 132 3, 137 8, 143 4, 147, 151, 156 7, 214, 239 Lukács, Georg, 18, 19, 20, 21, 29, 50, 105, 108, 132, 138, 204 5, 239, 244 Madách, Imre, 89 MADISZ see Hungarian Democratic Youth Association Malenkov, Georgii Maximilanovich, 57, 58, 65, 72, 142, 237, 239 Maléter, Pál, 127 8, 130, 132 3, 137, 145 7, 149, 156, 158 9, 164 5, 240

18 256 imre nagy Malinin, Mikhail Sergeevich, 104, 119, 133, 240 Mălnăşanu, Aurel, 133, 240 Mao Zedong, 55 Marosán, György, 95, 240 Marx, Karl, 33, 53 Marxism-Leninism, 18, 51, 59, 88, 90, 145, Matthews, D., 148 MDF see Hungarian Democratic Forum Mécs, Imre, 191, 240 MEFESZ see Hungarian Association of Students of Universities and Colleges Mekis, József, 100, 212, 240 Méray, Tibor, xx, xxv, 80, 89 90, 115, 183 4, 225, 228, 240 Mérei, Ferenc, 189, 240 Mező, Imre, 93, 99, 121, 240 Miklós, Béla, 35 Mikoyan, Anastas Ivanovich, 58, 73, 90, 95 6, 104, , , 115, 119, 124, 126, 215, 241, 244 Mindszenty, József, 68, 93, 132, 181, 241 Molnár, Árpád, 16 Molnár, Erik, 31 Molnár, Miklós, xx, xxv, 86, 183, 185, 241 Molotov, Vyacheslav, Mikhailovich, 35, 58, 141, 146, 241 (M)SZDP see Social Democratic Party, Hungarian MSZMP see Socialist Workers Party in Hungary Müller, Ernő, 18, 241 multiparty system, 36, 39, 45, 71, , , 168, 173, 175, 178, 216 Münnich, Ferenc, 25, 26, 33, 105, , 116, 131, 142, 144, 241 Nagy, Balázs, 93, 214, 241 Nagy, Erzsébet (daughter of Imre Nagy), xxv, 16, 17, 25, 26, 205, 207 Nagy, Erzsébet (sister of Imre Nagy), 1 Nagy, Ferenc, 43, 47, 241 Nagy, Gáspár, 189 Nagy, József (father of Imre Nagy), 1, 2, 162 Nagy, László, xx, 183 Nagy, Mária (sister of Imre Nagy), 1, 2 Nagy, Terézia (sister of Imre Nagy), 1, 2 National Association of Peoples Colleges (NÉKOSZ), x, 48, 55, 89, 99, 235, 237 national independence, xxv, 90, 116, 133, 167, 172, 174 5, National Peasant Party (NPP), xi, xv, 40, 44, 47, 120, 132, 233 NÉKOSZ see National Association of Peoples Colleges Németh, László, 89, 242 neutrality, 79, 90, 120, 125, 128 9, 139 New Course ( ), 64 72, 75 83, 86 9, 98, 169, 173, 181 NKVD, ix x, xvii, 29, 33 4, 191, 199, 206, 231 Nógrádi Sándor, 109, 242 NPP see National Peasant Party Olt, Károly, 212 Orbán, Viktor, 191, 242 Őry, Károly, 14 15, 242 Pallavicini, Count, 41 party opposition, 86, 88 9, 91, 93 4, 96, 98, 102 3, 111, , 137, 146, 150, 156, 168, 170, 175 6, 183, 187, 197 8, 216, , 243, people s democracy, 38 8, 43, 51, 59, 61, 71, 74, 76, 109, 120, 122, 146, 170, 172, People s Front, 78, 107 Péter, Gábor, 70, 77, 95, 208, 242

19 index 257 Peyer, Károly, 13 Piros, László, 115, 242 Poll, Sándor, 16, 29, 242 Pongrátz, Ödön, 116, 242 Ponomarev, Boris Nikolaevich, 144, 242 Pozsár, István, 110 Pozsgay, Imre, 190, 242 Rácz, Sándor, 191, 243 Radó, György, 214 Radó, Zoltán, , 224 Rajk, Júlia, 99, 137, 157, 243 Rajk, László, 41, 42, 43, 49, 50, 70, 77, 91, 95, 97 9, 208, 236, 243, 244 Rajnai, Sándor, 145, 154, 182, 243 Rákosi, Mátyás, xv, xvi, xxii, 15, 34 6, 39, 40 4, 48 50, 55, 57 60, 62, 64 6, 70 1, 73 4, 76 86, 88 9, 91, 94 7, 105, 112, 120 1, 123 4, 145, 150, 153, 170, 175 6, 179, 188, 193, 198, 210, 213, 232 3, 236 7, 239 4, 243, 245 reform of socialism, xxiv xxv, 35 6, 60, 63, 69, 71, 76, 166, 195, 198 Révai, József, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 32, 34, 35, 41, 49, 50, 58, 60, 91, 94 6, 153, 210, 243 revolutionary committees, 106, 115, 118, Roman, Walter, 142, Rónai, Sándor, 113, 243 Rudas, László, 29, 244 secret police Cheka, ix x, 9 10, 12 GPU, ix x, 21 Hungarian State Defence Authority (ÁVH), ix, 55, 77, 95, 108, 116, 118, 121, 208, 236, KGB, ix, 29, 104, 143, 231, 233, 240, 245 NKVD, ix x, xvii, 29, 33 4, 191, 199, 206, 231 Serov, Ivan Alexandrovich, 104, 240 Sinkovics, István, 13, 15 Social Democratic Party, Hungarian ((M)SZDP), x xi, 12 15, 17, 21, 25, 44, 49, 53, 77, 118, 120, 122 3, 130, 132, 203, 234, , 243, 245 socialism reform of, xxiv xxv, 35 6, 60, 63, 69, 71, 76, 166, 195, 198 transition from capitalism to, 19 20, 26, 30, 32, 38 9, 46, 48 51, 63, 71, 82, 119, 124, 169, 171 3, Socialist Workers Party in Hungary (MSZMP, ), x, 14 17, 25, 29, 203, 220, 235 Soldatic, Dalibor, 136 8, 244 Soviet system, 50, 181, 186, 195 Sovietization, 38, 46 Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich, xvi, 20, 33, 35 6, 38 9, 48 9, 53, 57 8, 65, 66, 67, 74, 87, 90, 145, 169, 171, 181, 228, 232, 237, 241, 243 Stalinism, 27, 97, 145, 170, 178, 180, 187, 190 Sugár, Andor, 25 Sulyán, György, 224 Suslov, Mikhail Andreevich, 82, 94, 104, 109, 112, 119, 126, 215, 244 system change, 192, 194 5, 197 8, 228 Szabó, Ferenc, S., 47 Szabó, István, B., 132 Szabó, Rozália, Mrs József Nagy (mother of Imre Nagy), 1, 2, 162 Szabó, Zoltán, 40, 47 Szalai, Béla, 75, 212, 244 Szalai, József, 158 Szántó, Béla, 17, 244 Szántó, Zoltán, 16, 17, 29, 30, 34, 74, 91, 98, 110, 124, 132, 137 8, 157, 161, 205, 220, 244 Szász, Béla, 50, 244 Szerényi, Sándor, 21, 23, 244

20 258 imre nagy Szilágyi, József, 111, 115, 131, 144, 147, 149, 155, 158 9, 214, 218, 245 Szilágyi, Mrs József, 222 Szücs, Miklós, 130, 245 Tánczos, Gábor, 93, 108, 245 Tardos, Tibor, 94, 245 TIB see Committee for Historical Justice Tikhonov, 103 Tildy, Zoltán, 43, 108, 115, 118, 120, 123 4, 127 8, 130, 132, 134, 137, 146, 149, 159, 245 Tito, Josip Broz, 49, 79, 93, 97, 136, 141, 143, 152, 181, 222 transition from capitalism to socialism, 19 20, 26, 30, 32, 38 9, 46, 48 51, 63, 71, 82, 119, 124, 169, 171 3, democratic (1989), xxv, 193, Újhelyi, Szilárd, 88, 100, 137, 157, 214, 245 Unwin, Peter, xx Vági, István, 14, 15, 25, 220, 245 Varga, Eugene, 50, 205, 245 Vas, Mrs Zoltán, 138 Vas, Zoltán, 76, 97 8, 108, 157, 212, 245 Vásárhelyi, Mária, 229 Vásárhelyi, Miklós, 86, 89, 91, 93, 100, 115, 137, 149, 155, 189, 191, 214, 222, 246 Vida, Ferenc, 149, 160 3, 192, 224 Virágh, László, 161 Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich, 38, 40, 246 Weisshaus, Aladár, 14, 15 workers councils, 106 8, 111, 114, 120, 130, 138, 178 9, 191, 243 Zelk, Zoltán, 89, 246 Zhukov, Georgii Konstantinovich, 119 Zimányi, Tibor, 191, 246