“We know that you were not born a scoundrel...”. János Kádár interrogating László Rajk, 1949

Abstract

In the context of the conflict with Tito’s Yugoslavia, unleashed on Stalin’s initiative in 1948, the Soviet Union took steps to rally all the countries of the emerging Eastern bloc on the anti-Yugoslav platform. Particularly active in the anti-Yugoslav campaign was the leader of the Hungarian communists, Mátyás Rákosi, who feared that Moscow would not forgive him for his former closeness with the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party. In order to prove his loyalty to Stalin, and at the same time get rid of the most powerful domestic political competitor, Rákosi organized a large show trial of László Rajk, prepared with the participation of advisers from the USSR, modeled on the great Moscow trials of the 1930s. The Rajk trial of September 1949 further escalated the campaign against the Tito regime, during which, in accordance with a new resolution of the Cominform, adopted in November 1949, Yugoslavia was declared a country which was no longer in the power of just nationalists and revisionists, but spies and killers. The reader is invited to read the protocol of interrogation of László Rajk with the participation of the future leader of Hungary, János Kádár, who himself would be subjected to severe repressions by the Rákosi regime two years later on similar charges. For the communist reformer János Kádár, involvement in the Rajk case became as indelible a stain on his political career as the suppression of the popular uprising in 1956.

Received: 30.04.2023.

Citation
Stykalin A. S., Gusev Yu. P. “We know that you were not born a scoundrel...”. János Kádár interrogating László Rajk, 1949 // Slavic Almanac. 2024. No 1–2. P. 373–426 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2024.1-2.21