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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 28-5-103
TITLE:             Fuller Biography on Janos Kadar
BY:                
DATE:              1956-10-25
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Research
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956 Revolution, Communist Parties--Hungary, Personalities

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H - FULLER BIOG OF KADAR

D-44

RFE EVALUATION AND RESEARCH SECTION	BACKGROUND REPORT
(Hungarian Research)	25 October 1956

FULLER BIOGRAPHY ON JANOS KADAR.

Radio BUDAPEST announced at 1232 hours that the
Politbureau had divested Erno GERO of his office as First
Secretary of the Hungarian Workers' Party Central Committee.
The Politbureau appointed Janos KADAR in his place.

Janos KADAR was born on November 9,1912 in the
village of KAPOLY, county Somogy. His parents were poor
peasants. The family was very poor and the young KADAR could
only finish his higher elementary education by helping his
mother (who in the meantime went to live in BUDAPEST) to
deliver papers. He was trained to be a mechanic.

At the age of 17 he joined the youth
organization of the Ironworkers' Union. In 1931, two years later,
he became a member of the Association of the Young
Communist Workers, which was working underground at the time.
One year later he joined the Hungarian Communist Party and
became secretary general of the youth organization in the
same year. He was one of the most active organizers of the
underground Communist Party. Prom 1931 on, he was under
continuous police supervision and arrested several times.
During this time he spent altogether three years in prison.

In 1935, KADAR became a member of the Pary's
Politbureau, where he remained uninterruptedly till 1951,
when he was imprisoned by RAKOSI. In prison he developed a
firm friendship with Zoltan VAS.

During the war, KADAR was one of the most active
organizers of the opposition, together with Laszlo RAJK. In
the Hungarian National Independent Front, in which the
Social Democrat Party, the Independent Smallholder Party and
the National Peasant Party grouped together against the
HORTHY regime and the German occupation, KADAR took part as a
member of the Politbureau of the Communist Party. It was
his task to maintain relations between the Communist Party
and the non-Communist Democratic parties. He directed the
Party's underground press, both the editing and distribution.
In 1943 it was he who organized the circulation of the
Party's newly formed underground paper, Szabad Nep.

In 1944, after the German occupation, the
GESTAPO arrested him, but he kept his name secret and was later
able to escape.

After the Russians occupied BUDAPEST he was the
first to organize the BUDAPEST association of the Hungarian
Communist Party. Immediately after the siege of BUDAPEST

H - 1 - FULLER BIOG OF KADAR

D-45

he participated in the organization of the BUDAPEST police.
For a time he was deputy chief of police. At the end of
1945 the Politbureau appointed him to be head of the Party's
organization, which had until then been in the hands of
Laszlo RAJK.

In the 1945 elections, KADAR entered Parliament
on the list of the Communist Party for the constituency of
county Nograd. He remained a member until his arrest.

In 1946 he became the Party's deputy First
Secretary. At that time Matyas RAKOSI was the First Secretary.
He retained his post also after the fusion in 1948 with the
Social Democrat Party.

In August 1948 he received his first government
appointment. He was appointed Minister of the Interior in
the place of RAJK, who was set aside in the post of Minister
of Foreign Affairs. He was Minister of the Interior at the
time of the MINDSZENTY and RAJK trials. Up to December 29,
1949, the State Security Authorities came under the Minister
of the Interior, then becoming an independent organization
responsible to the Council of Ministers, which on December
29, 1949, entrusted Janos KADAR with its supervision.

In June 1950 he was relieved of the office of
Minister of the Interior.

In February 1951, he made an important speech
at the second congress of the Hungarian Workers' Party on
the question of organization. He demanded the enrolling of
more members. He condemned schematism and developing
bureaucracy. After the congress, the Central Committee elected
him to the Politbureau, the Secretariat and the Organizing
Committee. A few months later KADAR was arrested,

Contrary to the RAJK affair, no official
statement was given on KADAR's arrest and the court did not hear
his case openly. Several other leading Communists were
arrested with KADAR, including Gyula KADAR, foreign minister,
Ferenc DONATH and Geza LOSONCZY, former secretaries of
state etc.

KADAR was released from prison in 1954, at the
time of Imre NAGY's new course. The release from prison
took place but the rehabilitation failed to come about
because in the meantime NAGY fell and RAKOSI resumed power.

After his release KADAR first became the first
secretary of the BUDAPEST XIII. district Party committee,
and later was appointed first secretary of the count Pest
Party committee.

[page 3]

H - 2 - FULLER BIOG OF KADAR

D-46

His complete rehabilitation took place only
on July 18 this year, when the Central Committee forced
RAKOSI to resign. KADAR became a member of both the
Politbureau and the secretariat. It was in this capacity that
he led. the Party delegation to the Chinese Party Congress
and took part in the BELGRADE delegation.

ENDS.

  OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search