Janos Kadar (years of life - 1912-1989) is a controversial figure. In Russian directories he is called a great statesman and political figure, during whose rule Hungary achieved economic prosperity. Other publications brand 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, Imre Nagy, deposed the country's prime minister. Who really was Kadar, awarded the Order of the Hero of the Soviet Union? In this article, we will try to figure out his confusing biography.
Childhood
Janos Kadar was born on May 26, 1912. He was the illegitimate son of a servant Barbola Chemranek from a soldier Janos Krezinger. 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 registry under the name Giovanni Giuseppe Chemranek. When the boy was six years old, his mother moved to Budapest. In a public elementary school, he showed extraordinary abilities. As the best student, he was sent for free education at a higher urban school. However, the financial situation in the family was difficult. At fourteen, Janos Chemranek dropped out of education and was hired by ancillary workers at the printing house. Oddly enough, these sounds, but he was brought to the Communist Party ... chess. Young Yanosh was very interested in this game. Once he happened to win a chess tournament. As a prize, he was presented with the book by F. Engels, Anti-Dühring. This work, in the words of Chemranek himself, completely turned his mind.
Connection with Marxism
At the chess tournament, Janos Kadar won in 1928, when he was only sixteen years old. A serious and large-scale crisis was brewing in the global economy. The first to worsen wages and living standards were workers. A young printing mechanic helped organize a spontaneous rally and strike. The government brutally suppressed this speech 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 to the class of exploiters, came into contact with the then banned Communist Party of Hungary. In 1931, he joined the Komsomol cell them. Ya. Sverdlova and took the underground nickname Barn (Brown). In 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 studies at Moscow University, but the young Komsomolets refused.
Times of the second world war
Janos Kadar, whose biography has since been closely intertwined with politics, as a true Stalinist had nothing against the alliance of the USSR with Nazi Germany. At that time, he had already changed the Communist Party, joining the ranks of the Social Democrats in 1935. There he also made a career and headed the SDPV cell. In fact, throughout the war he was a formal participant in the Czechoslovak Resistance, but he did not engage in special activities there. Years later, communist propaganda spread information that he allegedly created the anti-fascist Hungarian Front, but no one recorded any activity of this organization. In the early forties, he cheated on the Social Democrats, again enrolling in the Pest Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary. And again a deafening career rise: in 1942 he was already a member of the Central Committee, and in 1943 - secretary of the Central Committee of the CPV.
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 henceforth became his last name. In April 1964, the then leadership of the USSR, trying to make their ally an “outstanding fighter against fascism”, awarded him the title 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, then 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 (CPSU). Since then, his career has gone up rapidly. In 1946, he already became deputy general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. At the same time, from 1945 to 1948, he serves as secretary of the city city committee. And finally, in August 1948 he was appointed Minister of the Interior. In this post, he initiated the arrest of Laszlo Raiko, accusing him of anti-Soviet activities. Having become a potential rival to the Stalinist Matthias Rakosi, Kadar was removed from his post and himself became a prisoner of a concentration camp. He was released only in 1956.
Janos Kadar: politician of the regime of the socialist camp
At that time, dissatisfaction was brewing in Hungary with the Soviet model of government. Government member Imre Nadia actively advocated for cooperation with trade unions, the release of political prisoners, and the abolition of censorship. At first, Janos Kadar fully supported this political course and even declared that he would stop with his body the very first Russian tank that crosses the Hungarian border. Thus, he quickly made a career, and on October 30, 1956 he was appointed minister in the cabinet, headed by Nadia. But already on November 1, Kadar escapes from Hungary and meets in Uzhgorod with Nikita Khrushchev, 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"
On November 8, 1956, Kadar announced the usurpation of power. Nadia and his associates sought refuge in the territory of the embassy of Yugoslavia. Kadar promised his former associates a full 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 the maximum of benefits for his country from his great partner, the USSR. Cheap Soviet gas and economic liberalization, 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 deposed, and a year later, on the sixth of July, he died.