NEB YEARBOOK 2014–2015 2014–2015 NEB YEARBOOK NEB YEARBOOK 2014–2015 NEB YEARBOOK 2014–2015 Committee of National Remembrance Budapest 2016 Edited by Réka Kiss and Zsolt Horváth Development and copy editing by Éva Misits © Office of the Committee of National Remembrance, 2016 © Barbara Bank, Zsuzsanna Borvendég, Stefano Bottoni, Bence Csatári, István Galambos, Réka Kiss, Anita M. Madarász, Áron Máthé, József Ö. Kovács, István Ötvös, Viktor Attila Soós, Bernadett Wirthné Diera, 2016 This issue is supported by the Memorial Committee established for the 60th anniversary of the 1956 revolution and war of independence Published by the Office of the Committee of National Remembrance H-1055 Budapest, Balassi Bálint utca 5. Responsible for the publication is the General Director of the Office of the Committee of National Remembrance Layout Júlia Varga Printed by PrimeRate Kft. ISSN 2498-650X CONTENTS Introduction . 7 JÓZSEF Ö. KOVÁCS The Struggle for Land: Social Practices of the Veiled Communist Dictator-ship in Rural Hungary in 1945 . 11 ISTVÁN GALAMBOS Dreams Allotted: The Land Distribution of 1945 in Keszthely . 33 BARBARA BANK Hungarians in the Soviet Labor Camps . 59 ISTVÁN ÖTVÖS Show Trials and Politics in Post-War Hungary . 79 RÉKA KISS 1956: Discourses and Reprisals . 93 VIKTOR ATTILA SOÓS An Agent’s Story from Two Perspectives: The Portrait of Agent “Mátrai” Based on His Confessions and the Documents of Hungarian State Security . 123 BERNADETT WIRTHNÉ DIERA The Situation of the Catholic Church and Youth Pastoral Care in Hungary: A Presentation of Operation “Black Ravens” . 163 5 BENCE CSATÁRI The Popular Music Policy of Hungarian Radio in the Kádár Era . 189 ÁRON MÁTHÉ The Hungarian Legacy of Soviet “Anti-Fascism” and the Issue of the Criminalization of the Communist Dictator-ship: Can Communist Ideology Come in Red, White, and Green? . 205 STEFANO BOTTONI “Mutually Beneficial” Business: Inter-Party Hungarian-Italian Economic Relations during the Cold War . 245 ZSUZSANNA BORVENDÉG Journalists in the Web of the Soviet Committee for State Security . 271 ANITA M. MADARÁSZ Culture and Education in the Service of Politics: Methods of the United Kingdom for Gathering Intelligence on Communist Countries, According to the Hungarian Secret Services . 297 Authors . 323 6 INTRODUCTION Dear Reader, the volume you hold in your hands is the first yearbook of the Hungarian Committee of National Remembrance (Nemzeti Emlékezet Bizottsá- ga, NEB). The Committee was established by the Hungarian National Assembly, in accordance with the provisions of the Hungarian Constitution, and officially started its work in February 2014, so our institution is still rather young, with scarcely more than two years of history behind it. Of the five members of the Committee, all of them historians, three members were appointed by Parlia- ment, one member was delegated by the Minister of Justice, and one member was appointed by the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Similarly to its partner institutions abroad, the most important tasks of the NEB include conducting systematic and comprehensive research on the power mechanisms, key organizations, and cadre policy of the communist dictatorship; preserving the memory of the dictatorship; and informing public opinion on this subject, which means that our activities include awareness raising as well as the coordi- nation of large-scale professional research projects. Following World War II, the fate of Hungary was predominantly determined by the loss of the war, and the subsequent Soviet occupation of the country. The communist party, upon seizing key positions of power with the aid of the Soviet troops and Moscow leadership, managed to eliminate all opposing democratic forces within a short period of time. The resulting one-party system prevailed, despite considerable changes, until 1990. Regardless of periodical changes, cer- tain features of the dictatorship remained immovable, including the severe rest- riction of liberties, extensive control over society, and the dependence of politi- cal leadership on the directives of the Soviet Union. The methods of repression inevitably changed with the times, from brutal physical violence and terror at the beginning of the regime, to more subtle, but no less efficient administrative means, and existential marginalization. Nevertheless, the various law enforce- ment bodies always remained at the beck and call of political leadership. 7 NEBYEARBOOK 2014–2015 In light of the above, the five members of the Committee of National Re- membrance, as well as the historical and legal experts employed by the NEB, were guided by two basic principles in the course of establishing our institution- al objectives. On the one hand, we are committed to the task of honoring the memory of the victims of the communist dictatorship, and to the processing and presentation of individual and collective traumas that shaped the lives of several generations during the communist regime. On the other hand, by exam- ining the institutional history, operation, and governing apparatus of key party organs, state organs, and social institutions, we seek answers to the question of how the overt and covert power mechanisms of the one-party dictatorship operated in everyday life. Or, to put it differently, on the various decision-mak- ing and executive levels of government, who were in charge of reinforcing the communist regime, and how did they accomplish this task from the onset of the Soviet occupation until the fall of the dictatorship in 1989? The aim of the twelve studies published in this yearbook is to provide an overview of the first results of the intensive research activities of the NEB, the primary fields of our research, as well as the professional interests of members and full-time researchers of the NEB. The first section includes studies pertaining to the post-war period of initial political coalition, followed by the communist takeover. Among the four stud- ies included in this section, two were prepared by the Rural History Workshop jointly established in August 2014 by the Research Center for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Committee of National Remem- brance. The research conducted by this workshop concerned the comprehen- sive analysis of the radical changes that affected rural Hungary, the first phase of which, in conjunction with the seventieth anniversary of the Soviet occupation, was the involvement and coordination of several institutions in an extensive re- search project on the processes and social impact of the Sovietization of Hun- garian agriculture. In this volume, József Ö. Kovács presents key issues of research regarding the establishment of the communist dictatorship in rural Hungary, while István Galambos demonstrates the controversial execution and political exploitation of the much-awaited land distribution campaign of 1945 through a local case study. Meanwhile, the third study discusses one of the most widely experienced yet taboo traumas of Hungarian society, the subject of captivity in Soviet labor camps. In her study, Barbara Bank offers an overview of our current knowledge of the operation of GULAG and GUPVI camps through the personal histories of former Hungarian captives. Lastly, István Ötvös discusses one of the 8 NEBYEARBOOK 2014–2015 major stages of the post-war communist takeover, by offering an alternative in- terpretation of the internal logic and construction of early political show trials. The NEB recently coordinated a large-scale interinstitutional research pro- gram in order to systematically explore the reprisals following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, based on the extensive research of archived historical sourc- es. In her article, Réka Kiss provides an evaluation and overview of the most important findings and open questions of research on the reprisals – which were an integral part of the genesis of the Kádár era –, as well as the prevalent dis- courses of the reprisals and their reception in public and professional debate. Perhaps the most frequently discussed issue of the recent past is the opera- tion of communist state security bodies, especially the role of the political police in shaping the one-party state’s church policy. In this volume, two studies were dedicated to this issue, each discussing the period after 1956, but from two dif- ferent perspectives. The study of Viktor Attila Soós presents the life history of an agent by critically examining two different sources (the personal memoirs of the agent in question, as well as the documentation prepared by state security), which resulted in two different narratives of the activities of a Roman Catholic bishop who was recruited by Hungarian state security. Meanwhile, Bernadett Wirthné Diera analyzes the correlations between church policy and state securi- ty through a discussion of the last grand-scale attempt of the communist dicta- torship to crush the Hungarian Catholic Church. The series of state security op- erations under the code name “Black Ravens” is especially remarkable, because this concentrated state security attack on small religious youth communities can be considered the most extensive police operation of the Kádár era. Another important aspect of the operation of the communist dictatorship was the role of propaganda and cultural policy, here examined by two studies. The first one by Bence Csatári allows a glimpse into the party-controlled world of the Hungarian media by examining the popular music policy of Hungarian Radio during the Kádár era, while in the second study, Áron Máthé analyzes the legacy of Soviet-type “anti-fascism”, the question of criminalizing the dic- tatorship, the role of nationalism in the ideological legitimation of Hungarian communist parties, and the possible internal connections between these ideo- logical elements. This study also reflects on the controversies between different historical and political perspectives, and calls attention to problematic issues for future research. 9 NEBYEARBOOK 2014–2015 Last but not least, the fourth section of this volume is dedicated to the sy- stems of foreign relationships and foreign intelligence activities of the Hungarian communist regime.