László Rajk (8 March 1909 – 15 October 1949) was a Hungarian

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician, who served as Minister of Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was an important organizer of the Hungarian Communists' power (for example, organizing the

State Protection Authority The State Protection Authority ( hu, Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1945 to 1956. The ÁVH was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's KGB in Hungary responsible ...

(ÁVH)), but he eventually fell victim to

Mátyás Rákosi Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892
– 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...

Background

Born in

Székelyudvarhely Odorheiu Secuiesc (; hu, Székelyudvarhely, ; german: Odorhellen) is the second largest municipality in Harghita County, Transylvania, Romania. In its short form, it is also known as ''Odorhei'' in Romanian and ''Udvarhely'' in Hungarian. The Hun ...

, the ninth of eleven children in a family of

Transylvanian Saxons The Transylvanian Saxons (german: Siebenbürger Sachsen; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjer Såksen''; ro, Sași ardeleni, sași transilvăneni/transilvani; hu, Erdélyi szászok) are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania ( ...

, his ties to Communism began at an early age when he became a member of the

Communist Party of Hungary The Hungarian Communist Party ( hu, Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary ( hu, Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar ...

(KMP). Later he was expelled from his university for his political ideas and would become a building worker, until 1936 when he joined the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. He became commissar of the

Rakosi Battalion The Rákosi Battalion was a volunteer unit founded in April 1937. It was formed predominantly of Hungarians, who fought in the CL International Brigade and the XIII International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The battalion wa ...

XIII International Brigade The 13th International Brigade – often known as the XIII Dąbrowski Brigade – fought for the Spanish Second Republic during the Spanish Civil War, in the International Brigades. The brigade was dissolved and then reformed on four occasions. ...

. After the collapse of Republican Spain, he was interned in France until 1941, when he was finally able to return to Hungary, where he became Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, an underground Communist movement. In December 1944 he was arrested by a detachment of the

Arrow Cross Party The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...

. He was to be executed, and was transported to the prison of

Sopronkőhida Sopronkőhida is a village in northwestern Hungary, 4 km north of the city Sopron and 5 km south of the border with Austria. Significance The village is the location of an infamous Hungarian military prison. Its notoriety stems from ...

, then into Germany; but the intercession of his elder brother, Endre, a fascist under-secretary, saved his life. László Rajk was released on 13 May 1945. He went home to Hungary and took part in party politics. He became a member of all the leader corporations of the party (MKP) and the Extemporal Parliament. Rajk was a member of the

High National Council The High National Council ( hu, Nemzeti Főtanács) was the collective head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th ...

from 7 December 1945 to 2 February 1946. On 20 March 1946 he was appointed minister of the Interior. In this post he organized the Hungarian Communist Party's private army and secret police (an organization analogous to the

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

Securitate The Securitate (, Romanian for ''security'') was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului (Department of State Security), the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Previously, before the communist regime ...

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...

and so on), the ÁVH (originally ÁVO), and he became directly responsible for this. Under the cover of "struggle against fascism and reaction" and "defence of the power of proletariat", he prohibited and liquidated several religious, nationalist, and maverick establishments and groups (the number of these was about 1,500), and set up the first

s. He was reassigned from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 5 August 1948 to 30 May 1949. Rákosi, who saw Rajk as a threat to his power, decided to accuse him on false charges and had him arrested on 30 May 1949 on trumped-up charges. Rajk, who was popular among the Communists before, soon became the "chained dog" of

Tito Tito may refer to: People Mononyms * Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), commonly known mononymously as Tito, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman * Roberto Arias (1918–1989), aka Tito, Panamanian international lawyer, diplomat, and journ ...

, Horthy and "the imperialist".

Trial

László Rajk was accused of being a "

Titoist Titoism is a political philosophy most closely associated with Josip Broz Tito during the Cold War. It is characterized by a broad Yugoslav identity, workers' self-management, a political separation from the Soviet Union, and leadership in the ...

Spy", an agent for western imperialism and one who planned on restoring capitalism and jeopardizing Hungary's independence. During his time in prison, Rajk was tortured and was promised acquittal if he took responsibility for the charges brought against him. Stalin's NKVD emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secretary

Mátyás Rákosi Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892
– 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian

and his ÁVH to orchestrate Rajk's

. At his trial, held between 16 and 24 September 1949, in the large assembly hall of the headquarters of the Metal and Engineering Workers' Trade Union in Budapest, he confessed to all the charges brought against him. After his confession the prosecution decided, against the promise made, to call for the heaviest sentences to be brought down upon him and the other seven men who stood trial with him. Rajk was to be made an example for the beginning of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's anti-Titoist purges. Rajk, along with Drs Tibor Szönyi and András Szalai, was sentenced to death. Rajk was executed on 15 October 1949.

Post-trial/reburial

The Rajk trial marked the beginning of the anti-Titoist drive movement of Stalin. His trial also marked the beginning of the removal of all political parties in Hungary. The purges, however, left the economy in a truly disastrous state whereby a lack of capital inflow doomed the building projects that were underway. A vast number of the

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

were then employed on the sort of manual labouring duties usually reserved for skilled professionals. The result left the country with an inadequate infrastructure and unsatisfactorily manufactured goods. The government was also using too many men to search for spies within the country and not enough to perform the productive work to sustain the economy. Dissatisfaction with Rákosi's rule began to surface. On 28 March 1956, following numerous demonstrations, Rajk was rehabilitated in spite of his responsibility for the excesses of the secret police ÁVH which he had founded in 1946, including initial large purges and executions under his direction. The rehabilitation speech, even though it was not publicized, had vast consequences for Rákosi, who had used the Rajk guilt as an explanation for the other purges that followed. Now that he had to admit that he was, indeed, wrong, it would end up ruining Rákosi's rightful authority. Lászlo Rajk was then reburied, before 100,000 mourners, on 6 October 1956, along with two other men who lost their lives during the purges. (This was a precursor to the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

, which began on 23 October.) Júlia Rajk's commitment to rehabilitating her late husband's reputation was instrumental to the large turnout for the funeral.

List of defendants in the Rajk trial

*László Rajk (born in 1909), Minister of Foreign Affairs (executed) *György Pálffy (1909), Lieutenant General (sentence deferred to military court, executed) *Lazar Brankov (1912), Counsellor, Yugoslav Legation (life imprisonment) *Dr Tibor Szönyi (1903), Member of the National Assembly (executed) *András Szalai, (1917), government official (executed) *Milan Ognjenovich (1916), government official (9 years) *Béla Korondy (1914), Police Colonel (sentence deferred to military court, executed) *Pál Justus (1905), member of the National Assembly (life imprisonment) 15 people were executed and 78 others were sentenced to prison in relation to the Rajk case.See the historian Tibor Zinner's notes on p. 416 of the 1989 Hungarian edition of Béla Szasz's ''Without Any Compulsion'' (1963)

Play

László Rajk: the events of his political and family life, beginning circa 1945, his trial, execution, reburial, atonement, and ending with the

and Russia's armed invasion of Hungary, are all portrayed in Robert Ardrey's 1958 play, ''

Shadow of Heroes ''Shadow of Heroes, a play in five acts from the Hungarian Passion'' is a 1958 documentary drama by Robert Ardrey. It concerns the lead-up to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Hungarian Uprising and its aftermath. Its premiere resulted in the re ...

''.

Notes

References

* *

Bibliography

Koltai, Ferenc: ''László Rajk and his Accomplices before the People's Court'', Budapest 1949
(MEK) * Litvan, Győrgy ''The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: Reform, Revolt, and Repression 1953–1963'', Longman Publishing Group, 1996. * Rajk, Laszlo'', Columbia Encyclopedia'', 6th Ed. Columbia University Press, 2001. https://web.archive.org/web/20060509173752/http://www2.bartleby.com/65/ra/Rajk-Las.html (December 1, 2005) * Stokes, Gale (ed.) ''From Stalinism to Pluralism: a Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945'', New York and Oxford University Press, 1991.

External links

*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajk, Laszlo 1909 births 1949 deaths People from Odorheiu Secuiesc Székely people Hungarian Communist Party politicians Members of the Hungarian Working People's Party Hungarian Interior Ministers Foreign ministers of Hungary Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1945–1947) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1947–1949) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1949–1953) Hungarian people of the Spanish Civil War Executed politicians Executed Hungarian people 20th-century executions by Hungary International Brigades personnel Executed communists