Heading the network of Nazi agents, Rajk establishes a closer alliance with the CIA station in Belgrade at Tito’s invitation, and – disguised as a ‘passionate communist’ – promotes Yezhov-style provocative terror attacks against Hungarian citizens so to foment an anti-communist uprising
Rajk – who received the support of the kulaks, Trotskyites and the Hungarian Nazi ‘Arrow Cross’ – installed the Nazis into key positions of the post-1945 Hungarian state with the assistance of Allen Dulles’s top aide, OSS official Noel Field. By Tito’s direct invitation, Rajk established an alliance with the CIA station in Belgrade and began to work with Kostov (the Bulgarian Titoist leader) for the establishment of a Greater Yugoslavia allied to American imperialism and hostile to Soviet power. The Rajk network installed Laszlo Marschall onto the leadership of the Hungarian secret police. The Marschall gang engaged in a campaign of provocative terror against Hungary’s population, similar to the Trotskyite provocative atrocities committed during the Civil War or similar to Yezhovschina, with the aim of provoking anti-communist uprisings.
This is Part 2 of a two-articles series. Read Part 1 here.
Part 1 is titled ‘The RAJK (Reich) Network: The Horthyite Penetration into Hungary’s Communist Movement’.
The History of the USSR & the Peoples’ Democracies
Chapter 15, Section 2 (C15S2)
Saed Teymuri
Rajk’s support base was predominantly from the remnants of the former Nazi regime as well as Trotskyite infiltrator elements in Budapest’s labour movement:
Rajk's … following contained diverse elements ranging from extreme left-wing of Budapest and other key centers of industry to former Arrow Cross members who supported the one outstanding non-Jewish leader of the party. (FACTIONALISM IN THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY (1945-1956) (REFERENCE), CIA, January 28, 1957, p. 27) (IMG)
Rajk, who received support from the left-opportunist tendencies as mentioned above, had held the Trotskyite view that communists should not ally with the progressive bourgeois-democratic parties – this is not surprising since Rajk himself was a Nazi agent. Rajk was a Trotskyite preacher of fanatical emotional behaviour. Contrasting the characters of the communist ‘Stalinist’ leader Rakosi, Erno Gero (the Hungarian version of Malenkov), and Laszlo Rajk, the US State Department report stated:
While Rakosi had important features of “cooled down” wisdom of age and experience, Gero was cold machinelike soulless party fanatism [sic; fanaticism] in itself, dry and without any appeal to the emotions; Rajk was full of emotions. He preached hatred…. (‘THE TACTICS AND STRATEGY OF COMMUNISM IN HUNGARY 1919-1949’, Stanford Research Center of Stanford University, External Research Staff of the US Department of State, Series 3, No. 30, September 13, 1950, p. 285) (IMG)
According to the Anglo-American-German intelligence agent Karel Kaplan, the CIA operative Noel Field asked Allen Dulles to sponsor Tibor Szonyi. ‘In April 1945, during the final weeks of the conflict,’ the Kaplan revelations presented in a US intelligence memorandum stated, Field sent to Allen Dulles:
a letter asking that backing be given to Tibor Szonyi, a Hungarian anti-fascist and communist…. (Revelations of Karel Kaplan, Intelligence Memorandum for Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, CIA, May 3, 1977, p. 7) (IMG{GDR})
The CIA-backed Tibor Szonyi was relied on by the Gestapo agent and Anglo-American agent Rajk to appoint Rajk loyalists onto Party cadres. Geoffrey Swain of the BBC wrote:
It was his communist contacts which, towards the end of the Second World War, aroused the interest of the American undercover organisation the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Field. Alan Dulles, the Head of OSS and brother of John Foster Dulles, future US Secretary of State, contacted Field to help organise the return of émigré groups of German and Hungarian communists to their respective countries. It was this Hungarian operation that was to be so controversial: in December 1944 money provided by Dulles was used by Field to organise the return to Hungary of a small émigré group headed by Tibor Szönyi. Field obtained surplus Yugoslav partisan uniforms and planned a return route via France, Italy and Yugoslavia, a partisan route run by the Yugoslavs. A Hungarian link between Tito and American imperialism had been established. (…). To make matters worse, after 1945 Rajk had often asked Szönyi, who became head of the Party's Cadre Department, to find jobs for various veterans of the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, at least this was the complaint of the Soviet representative on the ACC, he had systematically removed from positions of authority in the police service those officers who had spent the war years in the Soviet Union. (Eastern Europe Since 1945, Geoffrey Swain, Nigel Swain, 2018, p. 70) (IMG)
The rise of Rajk to power also led to the elevation of Janos Kadar as Rajk’s deputy and associate. It also involved the appointment, almost certainly with the approval of Szonyi, of ‘former’ Zionist activist Horvath at the media sector:
In the general distribution of rewards to … Communists, Rajk took over leadership of the Budapest party organization with Kadar as his deputy, pending Rajk's appointment as minister of the interior in March 1946. Marton Horvath, resistance leader and reputed former Zionist, became editor of Szabad Nep and members of the Debrecen Communist cell received important posts: Kallai and Losonczi were awarded key propaganda positions; Ferenc Donath was appointed to the Ministry of Agriculture; Sandor Zold to the Ministry of Interior and Szilard Ujhely to the Ministry of Social Welfare. Other local Communists were provided with seats in parliament or jobs in the party apparatus. (FACTIONALISM IN THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY (1945-1956) (REFERENCE), CIA, January 28, 1957, p. 21) (IMG)
In the meantime, with Szonyi in charge of the appointments of the Party cadres, and Rajk in charge of the counter-intelligence sector, the fascist intelligence network led by Rajk was able to freely release from internment camps many people who were openly Nazis, including Rajk’s own Nazi brothers. Rajk then proceeded to install these Nazis in local positions in the provinces and to promote his own hatred towards the Yiddish proletarians. According to a document by the US State Department’s external research wing,:
His brothers fled to Germany with the Nazis, [but] some of them came back to Hungary later, [and] Rajk who by that time was already Interior Minister secured their releases from the internment camp and even helped them to obtain some small position in the provinces. In Hungary former “small Nazis” were considered a good ideological investment. The Communist Party gave a chance to tens of thousands of former Nazi Party members, rank and file, in that category to make good the errors of their past by entering the Communist Party. Rajk enthusiastically backed this Communist Party move. This and his extreme anti-semitism were well known facts in Hungary. (‘THE TACTICS AND STRATEGY OF COMMUNISM IN HUNGARY 1919-1949’, Stanford Research Center of Stanford University, External Research Staff of the US Department of State, Series 3, No. 30, September 13, 1950, p. 285) (IMG)
Rajk, the hateful anti-Semite, helped expel the Yiddish people from Hungary, thus stockpiling cannon-fodder for Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon. Furthermore, the Rajk era had seen an elevation of the ‘former’ Zionist elements in the media sector of Hungary. By contrast, Rakosi, a Yiddish-Hungarian, was the leading anti-Zionist purger in Hungary (see C16S2). The fascist spies in Hungary had as their base the comprador classes, such as the bureaucrats and kulaks. In any case, he CIA reported::
Peasants who had received farms under the land reform and joined the party may also have looked to Rajk as a possible opponent of Soviet-style collectivization. (FACTIONALISM IN THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY (1945-1956) (REFERENCE), CIA, January 28, 1957, p. 27) (IMG)
Given his Trotskyite credentials and emotional behaviour, what Rajk probably advocated was a combination of forced ‘collectivization’ in order to foster mass resentment towards collectivization, and at the same time a liberal economic policy in favor of the kulaks. This was the classic anti-collectivization pincer assault strategy used by the Titoists in the bloc.
Rajk was also a Yugoslav and American intelligence agent. A declassified US State Department and intelligence analysis document states clearly:
In February 1948, Rajk went secretly to Belgrade where Tito brought him into contact with the intelligence agents of the American embassy and he started to work for them from that time onwards. On that Belgrade meeting they also agreed on the establishment of a Southeastern European union independent of Moscow under the leadership of Tito and one of their officers in that organization would be the Bulgarian Kostov deputy prime minister. (‘THE TACTICS AND STRATEGY OF COMMUNISM IN HUNGARY 1919-1949’, Stanford Research Center of Stanford University, External Research Staff of the US Department of State, Series 3, No. 30, September 13, 1950, p. 290) (IMG)
Hence, by February 1948, Rajk was already an American spy, collaborating closely with Tito and his agent Traicho Kostov, Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister, towards Hungary’s and Bulgaria’s incorporation into a hostile anti-Soviet Greater Yugoslav Empire. Hungary and Bulgaria, not just Albania, were subject to Tito’s aggressive ambitions. An excerpt of Rajk’s conversation with a prison cellmate several months later is telling:
The impulse for the first campaign against Rajk followed Cominform's Yugoslav resolution, with which Rajk didn't completely agree, as he later admitted to a prison cellmate:
The truth is that I have a different opinion than Rakosi on some issues, for example concerning Yugoslavia. I never concealed that. I never believed that Tito was a traitor. I always believed this accusation would cause fateful disunity of the socialist camp.
(Report on the Murder of the General Secretary, Karel Kaplan, 1990, p. 26) (IMG)
Having gained a foothold in the Hungarian government:
Rajk, who … was obviously allowed latitude in selecting his subordinates, installed former Spanish Civil War comrades in important posts in the civil police…. (FACTIONALISM IN THE HUNGARIAN WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY (1945-1956) (REFERENCE), CIA, January 28, 1957, p. 26) (IMG)
Note that Rajk’s friends in the Spanish Civil War had risen up in the ranks as a result of the murder of General Zalka, the anti-fascist commander opposed to Rajk. From 1948 onwards, Rajk formed a powerful Titoist fifth column in Hungary’s police/security service.
First RAJK tried to place his own men into the key positions…. His political secretary of state, who had the power in his hands, was a former lawyer from Szeged, SZEBENYI Endre, the two chiefs of the police section ere: EKES Istvan, lieutenant colonel and MARSCHALL Laszlo, colonel. RAJK’s friendship with MARSCHALL dates back from France. MARSCHALL was the chief director of the police instruction matters. [The] press department was headed by CSERESNYES Sandor a former fighting comrade of his from Spain. (Background of the Rajk Case, CIA, May 23, 1956, p. 7) (IMG)
Marschall – in the name of communism, so to discredit communism – engaged in Trotskyite-style anti-popular police terrorism against the Hungarian masses, with the aim of provoking mass resentment towards the Hungarian state, the USSR, and scientific socialism. Referring to Marschall, the CIA confirmed:
The organization of the interment (concentration) camps, the nightly disappearances, the unlawful arrests, the atrocities of the AVH all are connected with his [Marschall’s] name. (…). Never, has so many men been in jail in Hungary than in his time. (…). At the same time together with PETER Gabor, he was the preparator of the Soviet military murders at the Octogon square which furnished the reasons to reinforce the AVH. (Background of the Rajk Case, CIA, May 23, 1956, p. 7) (IMG)
While such terrorism did assist the Rajk group in fomenting unrest among significant segments of the population, especially the intelligentsia, the bulk of the Hungarian masses were against Rajk and held him responsible for the terror:
RAJK was less popular in parliament and in public … because he was repeatedly mentioned as the director of the … terror. (Background of the Rajk Case, CIA, May 23, 1956, p. 7) (IMG)
He was already unpopular enough in public and the Hungarian parliament. A number of factors undermined the Rajk faction. Firstly, the denunciation of Tito’s group by the Cominform raised vigilance against Titoism through the region, thus keeping in check the network to which Rajk belonged. This allowed the communist faction to moved ahead and demote Rajk and his collaborators:
When RAJK Laszlo was removed from the heavy of the ministry of interior, the public opinion of the country breathed a little more freely. Everybody believed that no worse, no more wicked, no more cruel a person could replace him. (Background of the Rajk Case, CIA, May 23, 1956, p. 10) (IMG)
Eventually Rajk and his group were purged, with Rajk being executed for sabotage and espionage. The interrogation and trial of Rajk, during which Rajk stated his ties to Nazi German intelligence and his links to Tito’s circle, further exposed the … character of the Yugoslav state. Karel Kaplan, a West German intelligence agent, remarked:
The political fallout of Rajk's trial was Cominform's second resolution on Yugoslavia, of November 1949, with the suggestive title, "The Yugoslav Communist Party in the Hands of Murderers and Spies." The trial and this resolution resulted in intensified persecution of "enemies" within Communist parties, and in escalating Soviet-bloc attacks against Yugoslavia. (The Report on the Murder of the General Secretary, Karel Kaplan, 1990, p. 30) (IMG)
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Images from the following sources were photoshopped for the caption photo of this article.
Laszlo Rajk. https://rajk.info/en/family-story/images---family-story/rajk-laszlo-a-vadlottak.html
Miklos Horthy. https://kaiserreich.fandom.com/wiki/Miklós_Horthy