Janos Kadar. Biography of a political figure in Hungary

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Janos Kadar (years of life - 1912-1989) is an ambiguous figure. In Russian reference books, he is called a great statesman and politician, under whose rule Hungary achieved economic prosperity. Other publications stigmatize him as a Stalinist who came to power on the bayonets of the Soviet troops, a protege of the Kremlin and the organizer of the execution of Imre Nagy, the overthrown prime minister of the country. Who really was Kadar, who was awarded the Order of the Hero of the Soviet Union? In this article, we will try to understand his confusing biography.

Childhood

Janos Kadar was born on May 26, 1912. He was the illegitimate son of the maid Barbola Czemranek by the soldier Janos Kresinger. Since he was born on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the city of Fiume (now Rijeka, in Croatia), he was recorded in the register under the name Giovanni Giuseppe Chemranek. When the boy was six years old, his mother moved to Budapest. In the folk elementary school, he showed extraordinary abilities. as the besthis student was sent to free education in a higher city school. However, the financial situation in the family was difficult. Janos Czemranek left his education at the age of fourteen and got a job as an auxiliary worker in a printing house. Strange as it may sound, but he was brought to the Communist Party … chess. Young Janos was very fond of this game. Once he happened to win a chess tournament. As a prize, he was presented with a book by F. Engels "Anti-Dühring". This work, in the words of Chemranek himself, completely turned his mind around.

Connection with Marxism

Janos Kadar won the chess tournament in 1928, when he was only sixteen years old. A serious and large-scale crisis in the world economy was brewing. The workers were the first to feel the deterioration in wages and living standards. A young printing shop mechanic helped organize a spontaneous rally and strike. The government severely suppressed this protest of the workers, and many of Chemranek's comrades were arrested. In 1930, the printing house closed due to the crisis. So the unemployed Chemranek, imbued with even greater antagonism towards the class of exploiters, came into contact with the then banned Communist Party of Hungary. In 1931 he joined the Komsomol cell named after. Ya. Sverdlov and took the underground nickname of Barna (Brown hair). As early as May 1933, he became a member of the Committee of the Youth Wing of the Communist Party in Budapest. The Soviet Union, which generously financed this organization, offered him to study at Moscow University, but the young Komsomol member refused.

World War II times

Janos Kadar, whose biography has since become closely intertwined with politics, as a true Stalinist, had nothing against the union of the USSR with Nazi Germany. At that time, he had already betrayed the Communist Party, joining the ranks of the Social Democrats in 1935. There he also made a career and headed the cell of the SDPV. In fact, throughout the war, he was a formal member of the Czechoslovak "Resistance", but he did not engage in special activities there. Years later, communist propaganda spread the information that he allegedly created the anti-fascist Hungarian Front, but no one recorded any activity of this organization. In the early forties, he also betrayed the Social Democrats, again enrolling in the Pest Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary. And again, a deafening career take-off: in 1942 he was already a member of the Central Committee, and in 1943 - Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Career in the Soviet Union

In April 1944, Janos Kadar was arrested in Serbia for desertion. He managed to escape. Hiding, he took another pseudonym - Kadar (Cooper), which from now on became his last name. In April 1964, the then leadership of the USSR, trying to present its ally as an "outstanding fighter against fascism", awarded him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and presented the most outstanding awards at that time - the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. When Hungary was liberated from fascism, Kadar, at that time already an agent of the NKVD, was elected to the Provisional National Assembly, as well as a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (VKP). WithSince then, his career has skyrocketed. In 1946, he had already become Deputy General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the same time, from 1945 to 1948, he served as secretary of the capital's city committee. And finally, in August 1948, he was appointed Minister of the Interior of the country. In this post, he initiated the arrest of Laszlo Raiko, accusing him of anti-Soviet activities. Having become a potential rival of the Stalinist Mathias Rakosi, Kadar was removed from his post and became a concentration camp prisoner himself. He was released only in 1956.

Janos Kadar: politician of the socialist camp regime

At that time, dissatisfaction with the Soviet model of governing the country was brewing in Hungary. Government member Imre Nagy actively advocated cooperation with trade unions, the release of political prisoners, and the abolition of censorship. Janos Kadar initially fully supported this political course and even declared that he would stop the first Russian tank that crossed the Hungarian border with his body. Thus, he quickly made a career, and on October 30, 1956 he was appointed minister in the cabinet headed by Nadia. But already on the first of November, Kadar escapes from Hungary and meets with Nikita Khrushchev in Uzhgorod, who gives him clear instructions on the formation of a regime controlled by the USSR. A week later, the new ruler with Soviet tanks returns to Budapest.

The era of "goulash communism"

November 8, 1956 Kadar announced the usurpation of power. Nadia and his associates sought asylum on the territory of the Yugoslav embassy. Kadar promised his former associatesfull amnesty. But when Nadia left the embassy, he was arrested and executed two years later. At the same time, Janos Kadar, whose photo is still revered by the older generation of Hungarians, was a skilled politician. In the conditions of the Prague Spring, he managed to squeeze out of his great partner, the USSR, the maximum benefits for his country. Cheap Soviet gas and the liberalization of the economy, Hungary's openness to tourists from the capitalist bloc made the country more or less prosperous. The era of "goulash communism" ended even before the collapse of the USSR. Already in May 1988, Kadar was removed, and a year later, on July 6, he died.