Mátyás Rákosi (; 9 March 1892Mátyás Rákosi, Encyclopedia.com; accessed 22 July 2020. – 5 February 1971Matyas Rakosi – History of 1956, rev.hu; accessed 22 July 2020.) was a Hungarian communist politician who was the de facto leader of Hungary from 1948 to 1956.Bertényi Iván. Gyapai Gábor: Magyarország rövid története (Maecenas, 2001).Matyas Rakosi profile, Britannica Online Encyclopedia; accessed 22 July 2020. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party from 1945 to 1948 and then as General Secretary (later renamed First Secretary) of the Hungarian Working People's Party from 1948 to 1956. Mátyás Rákosi was the chief architect of the laws that confiscated the property of various churches in Hungary, as well as the mass deportations to Hungarian forced labor camps, such as Hortobágy and Recsk forced labor camps.
Rákosi had been involved in left-wing politics since his youth, and in 1919 was a leading commissar in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. After the fall of the Communist government, he escaped the country and worked abroad as an agent of the Comintern. He was arrested in 1924 after attempting to return to Hungary and organize the Communist Party underground, and ultimately spent over fifteen years in prison. He became a cause célèbre in the international Communist movement, and the predominantly Hungarian Rákosi Battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War bore his name. Rákosi was finally allowed to leave for the Soviet Union in 1940 in exchange for prized battle flags captured by Tsarist Russian forces after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
As the Red Army drove the German Wehrmacht out of Hungary at the end of World War II, Rákosi returned to his home country in early 1945 and became the leader of the re-founded Hungarian Communist Party. The party suffered a crushing defeat in Hungary's postwar free election, at the hands of the agrarian Independent Smallholders' Party; however, at Moscow's insistence the Communists received key positions in the government including the Interior Ministry, while Rákosi himself became a heavily influential deputy prime minister. From this position, the Communists were able to use political intrigue, subterfuge, and conspiracy to destroy their opponents piece by piece, in what Rákosi would later term "salami tactics". By 1948, they had gained total power over the country, and in 1949 the country was proclaimed a people's republic with Rákosi as its absolute ruler.
Rákosi was an ardent Stalinist, and his government was very loyal to the Soviet Union; he even set up a personality cult of his own, modeled on that of Stalin. He presided over the mass imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian people, and the deaths of thousands.Hungary: The Revolution of 1956 – Britannica Online Encyclopedia, britannica.com; accessed 22 July 2020. He orchestrated show trials modeled on those of the USSR, among the most prominent victims of which was his former lieutenant László Rajk. His policies of collectivization and mass repression devastated the country's economy and political life, causing massive discontent. After the death of Stalin in 1953, Rákosi was partially demoted at Moscow's behest and the reformist Communist Imre Nagy became the new prime minister; however, Rákosi was able to use his continuing influence as First Secretary to thwart all of Nagy's attempts at reform and ultimately force the latter out of office in 1955.
After Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's famous "Secret Speech" in early 1956 denouncing the crimes of Stalin, Rákosi found his position fatally compromised. Large numbers of people within the party and society at large began to speak out against him and call for his resignation, as information about the Party's past abuses came to light. Rákosi was finally forced to resign in July 1956 and leave for the Soviet Union, replaced by his second-in-command Ernő Gerő. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 occurred barely three months later as a result of the abuses of Rákosi's system, and his former rival Imre Nagy became a dominant figure in the Revolution. Soviet troops ultimately crushed the uprising and installed a new Communist government under János Kádár.
Rákosi lived out the rest of his life in exile in the Soviet Union, denied permission to return home by the Hungarian government, out of fear of mass unrest. He died in Gorky in 1971, and his ashes were returned to Hungary in secret. Rákosi is generally seen as a symbol of tyranny and oppression in Hungary.Mink, András. "Mátyás is Dead, Justice is Here." Blinken Open Society Archives.
Early years
Rákosi was born in Ada, a village in Bács-Bodrog County in the Kingdom of Hungary (now a town in Vojvodina, Serbia). Born to Jewish parents, the fourth son of József Rosenfeld, a grocer, his mother Cecília Léderer would give birth to seven more children. Of his younger siblings the most notable was (1904–2006), an administrator, who also became active in Communist politics and was, for a time, General Manager of the Mátyás Rákosi Steel and Metal Works during his brother's rule.Pünkösti, Árpád: A szerelmes Rákosi , In: Forrás, 2003–10 His other siblings were Béla (1886–1944), Jolán (1888–1988), Matild Gizella (1890–1970), Izabella (1895–1967), Margit (1896–1926), Zoltán (1898–1988), Mária (1902–1938), Dezső (1906–1960) and Hajnal (1908–1944). József, Béla and Hajnal were killed during the Holocaust.
Rákosi's paternal grandfather participated in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848; as a result, he had to flee the village following the defeat. Rákosi's father, József Rosenfeld, was called "Kossuth's Jew" by the villagers, because he had been a member and avid supporter of the oppositionist Party of Independence and '48. He changed his surname Rosenfeld to Rákosi in 1903.A Belügyminisztérium 1903. évi 86113. sz. rendelete. Névváltoztatási kimutatások 1903. év 42. oldal 38. sor He later repudiated religion and in common with most other Marxists described himself as an atheist and opponent of organised religion.
Rákosi was a diligent and good student during his childhood.Pünkösti Árpád: Rákosi, Sztálin legjobb tanítványa, mek.oszk.hu; accessed 22 July 2020. He finished his elementary studies in Sopron, then took his final exam at the High Technical Gymnasium of Szeged in 1910, where one of his teachers was Mihály Babits. He then studied external trade at the Eastern Commerce Academy.ELTE Egyetemi , leveltar.elte.hu; accessed 22 July 2020 (in Hungarian). He won scholarships for a year each in Hamburg (1912) and London (1913).
While still a student in Hungary, he joined the Hungarian Social Democratic Party (MSZDP) in 1910 and was also a secretary and active member of the anarcho-syndicalist student movement, the Galilei Circle.Propagandafilm forgatókönyve Rákosi Mátyás 60. születésnapjára (MOL M-KS 267. f. 65. cs. 388. ő. e. – Magyar Országos Levéltár MDP Rákosi Mátyás titkári iratai). Géppel írt másodlat; accessed 22 July 2020 (in Hungarian).
He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War and was captured on the Eastern Front in 1915 and held as a prisoner-of-war in Far Eastern POW camps by the Russians until the end of the war. Taking advantage of the chaotic situation in Russia, he successfully escaped from his detention and moved to Petrograd, centre of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Early career
After returning to Hungary, he participated in the communist movement of Béla Kun and also joined the Party of Communists in Hungary. During the short-lived 133-day Communist rule after the resignation of President Mihály Károlyi, when the Hungarian Soviet Republic was established, Rákosi served as Deputy People's Commissar for Trade from 21 March to 3 April in the Revolutionary Governing Council led by Sándor Garbai. Between 3 April and 24 June 1919, Rákosi was one of the six people's commissars for social production, alongside Jenő Varga, Antal Dovcsák, Gyula Hevesi, József Kelen and Ferenc Bajáki. He was also involved in the Hungarian Red Army's Northern and Eastern military campaigns against the newly formed Czechoslovakia and Romania. At the end of July 1919, he was promoted to Commander of the internal law-enforcement Red Guard for a short time.
Following the Hungarian Soviet Republic's fall, Rákosi fled Hungary on 2 August 1919 via the Austrian border, eventually to the Soviet Union where he worked as part of the Communist International, including representing it at the Livorno Congress of the Italian Socialist Party in 1921.Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; p.16
Rákosi arrived in the Soviet Union via Vienna as a member of the Béla Kun group in May 1920. with instructions from Béla Kun and Jenő Landler, he was the first to personally report to Lenin about his experiences in the fallen Hungarian Soviet Republic. Although he did not develop a close relationship with Lenin later, the meeting remained a defining experience for Rákosi for the rest of his life and he made a painting about this important meeting in the 1950s.
The positional advantage that Rákosi gained by being among the first of the former leaders of the Soviet Republic to arrive in Moscow contributed to the rapid rise of his international communist political career. He spoke twice at the Second Congress of the Comintern, and in the autumn of 1920 he was already organizing as a delegate of the world organization in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. In January 1921 – also on behalf of the Comintern – he visited Italy, and then again he convinced the German and Czechoslovak parties of the necessity of excluding the moderates. Several complaints were received against him due to his left-wing radicalism (from both the Italians and the Germans), nevertheless at the Third Congress of the Comintern – mainly thanks to Zinoviev's actions – Rákosi was elected one of the secretaries of the Executive Committee. From then until the beginning of his mission to Budapest (December 1924), Rákosi worked in the leadership of the Comintern. In this capacity, his living conditions were probably better than average, although he does not mention this in his memoirs. Since he traveled a lot due to his frequent foreign missions, he did not spend much time in Moscow. It is certain that during his stays in Moscow – like other members of the Hungarian communist emigration – he also lived in the so-called "emigrant house" on Vorontsovo Field.
After returning to Hungary in 1924, he was imprisoned, but he was released to the Soviet Union in 1940, in exchange for the Hungarian revolutionary banners captured by Russian troops at Világos in 1849.
The Rákosi trials refer to the criminal trials held between 12 July and 4 August 1926, and then between 21 January and 4 February 1935. The first trial dealt with the case of communists arrested in September 1925.
Following international and domestic protests, the summary trial court, which sat on 14-16 November 1925, ordered the case to be referred to a regular court. The first defendant in the case, Mátyás Rákosi, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, the second defendant, Károly Őry, to four years, and the third defendant, Ignác Gőgös, to three and a half years.
Rákosi's sentence expired on 24 April 1934, but due to his role during the Hungarian Soviet Republic , he was convicted again in the so-called second Rákosi trial – for crimes of high treason, rebellion, 27 counts of murder as an accomplice, 17 counts of murder as an instigator, and counterfeiting of currency – and was sentenced to life imprisonment.