Rákosi had been involved in left-wing politics since his youth, and in 1919 was a leadingcommissar in the short-livedHungarian Soviet Republic. After the fall of the Communist government, he escaped the country and worked abroad as an agent of theComintern. 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 acause célèbre in the international Communist movement, and the predominantly HungarianRákosi Battalion of theInternational Brigades in theSpanish 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 theHungarian Revolution of 1848.
As theRed Army drove the GermanWehrmacht 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-foundedHungarian Communist Party. The party suffered a crushing defeat inHungary's postwar free election, at the hands of the agrarianIndependent Smallholders' Party; however, at Moscow's insistence the Communists received key positions in the government including theInterior Ministry, while Rákosi himself became a heavily influentialdeputy prime minister. From this position, the Communists were able to use political intrigue, subterfuge, andconspiracy 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 apeople's republic with Rákosi as its absolute ruler.
Rákosi was an ardentStalinist, and his government was very loyal to theSoviet Union; he even set up apersonality cult of his own, modeled on that of Stalin. He presided over the mass imprisonment of hundreds of thousands ofHungarian people, and the deaths of thousands.[6][7] He orchestratedshow trials modeled on those of the USSR, among the most prominent victims of which was his former lieutenantLászló Rajk. His policies ofcollectivization and massrepression devastated the country's economy and political life, causing massive discontent. After thedeath of Stalin in 1953, Rákosi was partially demoted at Moscow's behest and the reformist CommunistImre 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 atreform and ultimately force the latter out of office in 1955.
After Soviet leaderNikita 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 theSoviet Union, replaced by his second-in-commandErnő Gerő. TheHungarian 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 underJános 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 inGorky in 1971, and his ashes were returned to Hungary in secret. Rákosi is generally seen as a symbol of tyranny and oppression in Hungary.[8]
Rákosi was born inAda, a village inBács-Bodrog County[1] in theKingdom of Hungary (now a town inVojvodina,Serbia). Born toJewish parents, the fourth son of József Rosenfeld, a grocer, his mother Cecília Léderer would give birth to seven more children.[1] Of his younger siblings the most notable wasFerenc Biró [hu] (1904–2006), an administrator, who also became active in Communist politics and was, for a time, General Manager of theMátyás Rákosi Steel and Metal Works during his brother's rule.[9] 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 theHolocaust.[10]
Rákosi's paternal grandfather participated in theHungarian 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 oppositionistParty of Independence and '48. Hechanged his surname Rosenfeld to Rákosi in 1903.[11] He later repudiated religion and in common with most otherMarxists described himself as anatheist and opponent of organised religion.[12]
Rákosi was a diligent and good student during his childhood.[13] He finished his elementary studies inSopron, then took his final exam at the High Technical Gymnasium ofSzeged in 1910, where one of his teachers wasMihály Babits. He then studied external trade at the Eastern Commerce Academy.[14] He won scholarships for a year each inHamburg (1912) andLondon (1913).[citation needed]
He served in theAustro-Hungarian Army during theFirst World War and was captured on theEastern 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 theBolshevik Revolution.[citation needed]
After returning to Hungary, he participated in the communist movement ofBéla Kun and also joined theParty of Communists in Hungary. During the short-lived 133-day Communist rule after the resignation of PresidentMihály Károlyi, when theHungarian 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 bySándor Garbai. Between 3 April and 24 June 1919, Rákosi was one of the six people's commissars for social production, alongsideJenő Varga,Antal Dovcsák, Gyula Hevesi,József Kelen andFerenc Bajáki. He was also involved in the Hungarian Red Army's Northern and Eastern military campaigns against the newly formedCzechoslovakia andRomania. At the end of July 1919, he was promoted to Commander of the internal law-enforcement Red Guard for a short time.Following the Soviet Republic's fall, Rákosi fled Hungary on 2 August 1919 via the Austrian border, eventually to theSoviet Union where he worked as part of theCommunist International, including representing it at theLivorno Congress of theItalian Socialist Party in 1921.[16] After returning toHungary 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 troopsat Világos in 1849.[17] In theSoviet Union, he became leader of theComintern. In 1942, he married divorced lawyerFeodora (Fenia) Kornilova [hu], a woman ofYakut origin. He returned toDebrecen, Hungary, on 30 January 1945, having been selected by the Soviet authorities to organise the Hungarian Communist Party.[17]
Rákosi addresses an election rally in Budapest, 1954
When theRed Army set up a Soviet-approved government in Hungary (1944–1945), Rákosi was appointedGeneral Secretary of theHungarian Communist Party (MKP) (1945). He was a member of theHigh National Council from 27 September to 7 December 1945. Rákosi was deputy prime minister from 1945 to 1949, and was actingprime minister from 1 to 4 February 1946 and on 31 May 1947.
Initially, Rákosi and the Communists appeared willing to work within the system. From 1947 onwards, however, he and the Communists began pressuring the other parties to exclude those not willing to work with the Communists on the grounds that they were "fascists" or fascist sympathisers. Later on, after the Communists won complete control, it was commonly believed that Rákosi referred to this practice as "salami tactics," saying he had destroyed the non-Communist forces in the country by "cutting them off like slices of salami." However, no verified source for the "salami" quote has ever been discovered. According to historianNorman Stone, the term might have been invented by the leader of the Hungarian Independence Party, Zoltán Pfeiffer.[18]
The process began whenSmallholder Prime MinisterFerenc Nagy was forced to resign in favour of a more pliant Smallholder,Lajos Dinnyés. Bythe 1947 elections, the Communists had won a plurality, and had largely emasculated the next-largest non-Communist Party, theSocial Democrats.
By October 1947, Rákosi had dropped all pretense of liberal democracy. He gave the non-Communist parties an ultimatum: cooperate with a new, Communist-dominated coalition government or go into exile.[19] By the end of 1947, the opposition parties had largely shunted aside their more courageous members, leaving them in the hands offellow travellers willing to do the Communists' bidding. In the summer of 1948, the Communists forced the Social Democrats to merge with them to form theHungarian Working People's Party (MDP). However, the few remaining independent-minded Social Democrats were quickly pushed out in short order, leaving the MDP as an enlarged and renamed MKP.
He also pushed out the Smallholder president,Zoltán Tildy, in favour of Social Democrat-turned-CommunistÁrpád Szakasits, and forced Dinnyés to resign in favour of the openly pro-CommunistIstván Dobi. A year later,elections took place with a single list of candidates. Although non-Communists nominally still figured, in reality they were fellow travellers.[citation needed]
Approximately 350,000 officials and intellectuals were purged under his rule, from 1948 to 1956.[20] Rákosi imposed totalitarian rule on Hungary — arresting, jailing and killing both real and imagined foes in various waves of Stalin-inspiredpolitical purges. In August 1952, he also became Prime Minister (Chairman of the Council of Ministers).
However, in June 1953, Rákosi and other party leaders were summoned to Moscow, where the Soviet leadership dressed down their Hungarian counterparts for Hungary's lackluster economic performance.[21] On 13 June 1953, to appease theSoviet Politburo, Rákosi accepted the Soviet model of collective leadership. While he gave up the premiership toImre Nagy, he retained the office of General Secretary. Nagy favoured a more humane way of governing, which Rákosi vigorously opposed.[citation needed] On 9 March 1955, the Central Committee of the MDP condemned Nagy for "rightist deviation." Hungarian newspapers joined the attacks and Nagy was blamed for the country's economic problems. On 18 April, the National Assembly unanimously sacked Nagy from his post. Although theKremlin frowned on a return of Rákosi to the premiership, he and Nagy's successor,András Hegedüs, quickly put the country back on its previous Stalinist course.
The post-war Hungarian economy faced several challenges. The most important was the destruction of infrastructure in the war (40% of national wealth, including all bridges, railways, raw materials, machinery, etc.).[22] Hungary agreed to pay war reparations totalling approximately US$300 million, to theSoviet Union,Czechoslovakia andYugoslavia, and to support Soviet garrisons.[citation needed]
TheHungarian National Bank in 1946 estimated the cost of reparations as "between 19 and 22 percent of the annual national income." In spite of this, after thehighest historical rate of inflation in world history, anew, stable currency was successfully introduced in August 1946 on the basis of the plans of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party. The low production of consumer goods and the backwardness of light industry resulted in frequent shortages, especially in the countryside, leading to discontent. In addition, the huge investments in military sectors after the outbreak of theKorean War further reduced the supply of consumer goods. Due to shortages, forced savings (state bond sales to the population) and below-inflation wage increases were introduced.[citation needed]
Rákosi was then removed as General Secretary of the Party under pressure from theSoviet Politburo in June 1956 (shortly afterNikita Khrushchev'sSecret Speech), and was replaced by his former second-in-command,Ernő Gerő. To remove him from the Hungarian political scene, the Soviet Politburo exiled Rákosi to the Soviet Union later in 1956, with the official story being that he was "seeking medical attention". From 1964 to 1968 he lived in the town ofTokmok inSoviet Kirghizia (modern dayKyrgyzstan) where he became an manager in a wallpaper factory.[23] Later Rákosi was sent toArzamas and, later toGorky.[24]
In 1970, he was finally granted permission to return to Hungary if he promised not to engage in political activities. He refused the deal and remained in the USSR where he died in Gorky in 1971. After his death, his ashes were privately returned to Hungary for burial in theFarkasréti Cemetery inBudapest. Only his initials are visible on his gravestone to avoid vandalism.[25]
^"Ракоши, Матьяш" [Rákosi Mátyás].Encyclopedia of Chüy Oblast (in Kyrgyz and Russian). Bishkek: Chief Editorial Board of Kyrgyz Encyclopedia. 1994. p. 650.ISBN5-89750-083-5.
Martin Mevius (2011). "A Crown for Ráákosi: The Vogeler Case, the Holy Crown of St Stephen, and the (Inter)national Legitimacy of the Hungarian Communist Regime, 1945––1978".The Slavonic and East European Review.89 (1): 76.doi:10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.89.1.0076.
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