Laszlo Rajk, the son of
a shoeshop owner, was born in Hungary
on 8th May, 1909. As a young
man he joined the Hungarian Communist Party and was eventually expelled
from Budapest University for his political activities.
Rajk worked as a building
worker until 1936 when he went to Spain
to defend the Popular
Front government
from being overthrown by
the Nationalist
Army. During
the Spanish
Civil War he
served as party secretary to the Hungarian battalion of the International
Brigades. At the end of the war he escaped to France where
he was imprisoned.
In 1941 Rajk returned to
Hungary
and became secretary of
the Communist Party Central Committee. He was arrested by the Hungarian
authorities and remained in prison until the country was liberated
by the Red Army in 1945.
In elections held in November,
1945, the Smallholders Party won 57% of the vote. The Hungarian Communist
Party, now under the leadership of Matyas
Rakosi and Erno
Gero,
received support from only 17% of the population. The Soviet commander
in Hungary, Marshal Voroshilov, refused to allow the Smallholders
to form a government. Instead Voroshilov established a coalition government
with the communists holding all the key posts.
Rajk became minister of
the interior and in this post established the security police. In
February 1947 the police began arresting leaders of the Smallholders
Party and the National Peasant Party. Several prominent figures in
both parties escaped abroad. Later Matyas
Rakosi boasted that he had dealt with his partners in the government,
one by one, "cutting them off like slices of salami."
The Hungarian Communist
Party became the largest single party in the elections in 1947 and
served in the coalition People's Independence Front government. The
communists gradually gained control of the government and by 1948
the Social Democratic Party ceased to exist as an independent organization.
Matyas
Rakosi also demanded complete obedience from fellow members of
the Hungarian Communist Party. His main rival for power was Radk,
who was now foreign secretary. Rajk was arrested and at his trial
in September 1949 he confessed to being an agent of Miklos
Horthy, Leon Trotsky, Josip
Tito and Western
imperialism and admitted that he had taken part in a murder plot against
Matyas Rakosi and Erno
Gero.
Laszlo Radk was found guilty and executed.
(1)
Laszlo Radk, confession (September, 1949)
It was (in 1947) that I
first realised that not only Rankovic (Yugoslav minister of the interior)
"and other men who had been in Spain were pursuing Trotskyist
policies and that they were working hand-in-glove with the American
intelligence agencies, but Tito too, the prime minister of Yugoslavia!
They failed because the
government reshuffle here in 1948 rooted out all the people we had
infiltrated into every walk of government life, into the public and
state agencies, the army - everywhere. And the propaganda work of
the Catholic reactionaries led by Mindszenty, on which Tito had also
been counting, came to nothing, because the mighty central government
of our People's Democracy dashed one of their most important instruments
out of their hands by nationalising the Catholic schools. That was
a crippling blow to the whole plan!"
(2)
Tibor Szonyi, prosecuting council against Laszlo
Radk (September, 1949)
Tito and his clique! In
their dealings with us and their own accomplices, they dropped their
mask and spoke openly of overthrowing our People's Democracy. They
would have stopped short at no crime. Honourable court, I too, offered
my services for these wicked plans. And my crimes are no less heinous
when compared with the offences committed by the arch-criminals of
the pernicious Tito gang.
(3)
David Irving, Uprising! (1981)
A few weeks later, Rajk's
young widow Julia sees the official Blue Book on the trial. When she
reads her husband's first reply a sad smile flickers across her angular,
handsome face. Ladislas Rajk has beaten the system after all. Despite
the violence, the drugs, and the dress-rehearsals, he has left a clue
for posterity right there in his first words.
"When were you born,"
the court had asked.
And Rajk had answered,
"On March 8th, 1909."
But that was not true.
It was May 8th. How could any man make such an error unless to leave
a hidden message to the world outside that all was not as it seemed?
(4)
National Communism and Popular Revolt in Eastern Europe (1956)
On October 3 the Central
Committee of the HWP announced that it had reached a decision to pay
"last respects worthy of militants and revolutionaries... to
comrades who, as a result of political trials in past years, have
been innocently condemned and executed, and who have already been
rehabilitated earlier by the Party's Central Committee and reinstated
in their Party membership"
On October 6, 1956, there
took place the ceremonial reinterment of Laszlo Rajk, Lt. Gen. Gyorgy
Palffy, Tibor Szonyi, and Andras Szalai, the chief victims of the
purge trials of 1949.
(5)
Report on the reinternment of Laszlo Rajk in Szabad Nep (4th
October, 1956)
The silent demonstration
of the hundreds of thousands of mourners was a pledge not only that
we will preserve the pure memories (of the four dead leaders) but
will also remember the dark practices of tyranny, lawlessness, slander,
and defrauding of the people. The people stood honor guard at the
biers. The silent demonstration began. Is it possible to give an account
of this, on the basis of consecutive impressions of the facts, the
events? It is not! No, it is not possible to speak of mourning when
we describe the procession of thousands upon thousands. People were
numbed not only by a deep sense of grief but by burning hatred, by
the memory that these comrades, these men were executed as enemies
of the fatherland, of the people! We were led to believe - and we
were willing to believe - the slanders about you! Forgive us for this,
comrades.
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