Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Was János Kádár married?
Kádár, as in 1946, was a Communist Party campaigner, and was described by historian Robert Gough as "a great success". The Communist Party won a majority in parliament in 1947, and because of the escalation of the Cold War, the Soviet leadership ordered them to create a one-party state.[36] Kádár played an active role in the creation of the Hungarian Working People's Party; created by a merger of the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. At the unification congress Kádár made a speech which made little impact on the Communist movement in Hungary.[37] In May 1948 Kádár visited the Soviet Union, and for the first and last time in his life he saw Joseph Stalin with his own eyes. During his visit to the USSR, Kádár's brother, Jenő died. On 5 August 1948 László Rajk was appointed to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Kádár took his place as Minister of the Interior.[38] As Interior Minister, he did not have real power as the most important organizations of internal state security operated under the direct control of Rákosi and his closest associates. In 1949, Borbála died, and Kádár married Mária Tamáska.[39] Just as Stalin had launched a Great Purge against those with knowledge of the pre-Stalin party, Rákosi launched a purge against those who had worked in Hungary, and not in the Soviet Union, during World War II and before. In retrospect, it is clear that Kádár was appointed Minister of the Interior with the deliberate aim to involve him in the "show trial" of Laszlo Rajk, although the investigations and proceedings were handled by the State Security Agency with the active participation of the Soviet Secret Police. Rákosi later boasted of "spending many a sleepless night" in unraveling the threads of the "anti-party conspiracy" led by Rajk and his "gang." During the public trial, Rákosi personally gave instructions to the judge over the phone. Rákosi would later attempt to blame Kádár for Rajk's death.[40] Later in his life Rákosi said that Rajk died screaming "Long live Stalin! Long live Rákosi!" while Tibor Szönyi died without saying a word and András Szalai crying. Farkas and Gábor Péter, upon the death of Rajk and the others, said "provocateurs to their last breaths". This event didn't assure Kádár; making him doubt if any of the accusation leveled against his co-workers were true. It is believed that after Rajk's death Kádár was seen vomiting; these rumours have not been confirmed by any sources from that time.[41] Rákosi contacted him the following the day, asking him why he was in such a bad mood, and continued, saying; "Did the executions affect you that much?". According to certain rumours, which are probably not reliable, Kádár visited Rákosi to tell him about his reaction to the execution. Later, during a party presentation to a college, Kádár emphasised party austerity. This presentation might reflect on Kádár's reaction to Rajk's execution and his revelation that he might become the next victim of government repression. When holding his presentation, he was described by his audience as a "haggard", "distressed" and as a man under a lot of "strain".[42]
After the German invasion of Hungary, the Peace Party, with other parties, established the Hungarian Front, the party's potential allies were still very wary of them. Therefore, the Popular Front was never able to win much support amongst the populace. In the aftermath of the invasion, the party under Kádár's leadership started partistan operations and created their own Military Committee.[25] Kádár tried to cross the border into Yugoslavia in hope of making contact with the Yugoslav partisans and their leader, Josip Broz Tito.[26] At the same time, Kádár probably hoped to establish better, and stronger, relations with the USSR; something they had been trying to do since 1942. Kádár was given a new identity as an army corporal trying to cross the Hungarian-Yugoslav border. This attempt failed, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The authorities never figured out his real identity therefore members such as Rákosi thought he was a secret agent for the police. There is however no hard proof for these accusations, and incompetence remains the sole plausible reason. It was later proven, when SS officer Otto Winckelmann reported to Berlin that Kádár had been arrested, they had mistakenly confused Kádár for another communist.[27]
In addition to being an assistant caretaker, Borbála delivered newspapers in the morning. She did all this to ensure that Kádár would be getting a better education than she did. Piroska Döme, who met Borbála much later to life, notes that her hands were disfigured because of manual work. In the summer time, Kádár would find work in the countryside. As Kádár later said, he was seen as "alien" by his contemporaries, in the countryside they would call him a "city boy" while in the city they would call him a "country boy". Living in Városház street gave him a good start at life, but the family's poverty and his illegitimacy made him stand out, this made normal social development for a boy of his age difficult. Then in 1920, Borbála got pregnant again, with the man impregnating her leaving soon. Kádár had to help Borbála take care of her new son, and his half-brother, Jenő. Because of the pregnancy Borbála lost her job, and they moved to 13th District of the Angyalföld area.[10] Borbála refused to talk about Kádár's father, something which left Kádár bewildered.[11]
An interpretation of events in Kádár's political and personal life, beginning circa 1945, including an association with the trial, execution, reburial, atonement of László Rajk, and ending with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, are portrayed in Robert Ardrey's 1958 play, Shadow of Heroes.
As the revolution spread throughout the country, the central committee met on 25 October and agreed that János Kádár should be made party leader and Imre Nagy be made prime minister, marking the end of the Gerő interregnum. Gerő went to the Soviet Union, but after the revolution was crushed, the Communist government of Kádár initially refused to let him return to Hungary.
Kádár accepted the offer to act as party secretary in the heavily industrialised 13th district of Budapest. He rose to prominence quickly, building up a large following amongst workers who demanded increased freedom for trade unions.
Pusztaszemes is a village in Somogy County, Hungary. It is known for being the birthplace of János Kádár's father, "János Krezinger".
Biszku, as a hard-line communist, strongly opposed the New Economic Mechanism (ÚGM) which was imposed by the Kádár regime in 1968 and contained "capitalist elements". In 1972, together with Zoltán Komócsin, and other fellow communists, he became involved in a plot to force János Kádár to resign from virtually all of his public functions in an effort to return Hungary to a more orthodox Soviet-style line. To achieve his goals, Biszku tried to convince Yuri Andropov of the rightness of his cause, who immediately alerted Kádár. Afterwards Kádár slowly removed Biszku from power. Biszku was again MP between 1975 and 1985, representing Constituency II in Szabolcs-Szatmár County.
János Kádár held power in Hungary until the "apparat coup" in the spring of 1988,[55] when he resigned under pressure as General Secretary in the face of mounting economic difficulties and his own ill health. At a party conference in Budapest on 22 May 1988, at which half a dozen of his Politburo associates were also removed, Kádár announced his resignation and was officially replaced as General Secretary by Prime Minister Károly Grósz, who strove to continue Kádár's policies in a modified form adapted to the new circumstances. Kádár was named instead to the ceremonial position of Party President. He did not wish to be re-elected to the Political Committee, the most important decision-making body of the party. In May 1989, as Grósz and his associates in turn were being sidelined by a faction of young "radical reformers" who set out to dismantle Communism altogether, Kádár, his health visibly failing, was officially removed from office completely.[56]
Kádár was known for his simple and modest lifestyle and avoided the self-indulgence persona of other Communist leaders. He also had a strong aversion to and zero tolerance of corruption or ill-doing in his government. Playing chess was his only pastime.[53]
After being released for parole, he was politically in limbo. The hope of rejoining the Communist Party was shattered by the Comintern's decision to dissolve the national communist party in Hungary. The few remaining members of the party were told to infiltrate and work co-operatively with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary and trade unions.[16] Kádár had in the meantime been able to persuade himself that it was because of changes within the party, and not his confessions, which had led to none of his associates making contact with him. He did, at the same time, have four more months of his prison sentence to serve before being released. In prison Kádár met with Mátyás Rákosi, a commissar of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and a renowned political prisoner. While Kádár later claimed that there grew a father-son like bond between them, the more plausible truth is that there grew a "somewhat adolescent cheekiness" between the two. In prison, Rákosi interrogated Kádár, and came to the conclusion that his confessions were due to his "shortcomings". After being released from prison for good, some former party activists made contact with him and instructed Kádár to infiltrate the Social Democratic Party with them. Within the party, Kádár and his associates made no secret of their Marxist views, frequently talking about the struggles of the working class and their gaze, which was directed towards the Soviet Union.[17]
Kádár was born out of wedlock as János József Czermanik[3] as the son of the soldier János Krezinger and the servant maid Borbála Czermanik. Krezinger came from a smallholder family of Pusztaszemes, Somogy County.[4] Kadar's father had possibly Bavarian German origins.[5] Krezinger met with Borbála during his military service, who was born in Ógyalla (today Hurbanovo, Slovakia) to a landless Slovak father and Hungarian mother.[6] The story however on how they met is unknown. Abandoned, Borbála gave birth to János in Fiume's Santo Spirito Hospital on 26 May 1912.[3] Having given birth in the middle of the holiday season, no one wanted to employ a single mother with a child. His mother, Borbála went to look for Krezinger, but his family wanted nothing to do with them. She walked ten kilometres to the city of Kapoly, she was able to persuade a family by the name of Bálint to care for her child. For this however, they wanted pay. In the meantime Borbála looked for work in the nation's capital, Budapest.[7]
The Soviet tank divisions moved into Budapest with the purpose of crushing the revolution at dawn on 4 November 1956. The proclamation of the so-called Revolutionary Workers'-Peasants' Government of Hungary, headed by Kádár, was broadcast from Szolnok the same day.
His first meeting with Marxist literature came in 1928 after he won a junior chess competition organised by the Barbers Trade Union. His prize was Friedrich Engels's Anti-Dühring. The tournament organiser explained to Kádár that if he didn't understand it after his first reading, he should re-read it until he understood it. Kádár followed his advice, even if his friends were "unimpressed" by his reading. As he later noted later in his life, he did not understand the reading but it got him thinking: "Immutable laws and connections in the world which I had not suspected." While it may be true that as Kádár comments that the book had great influence over him, it was in 1929 when he was fired after he flared up at his employer after he talked condescendingly towards Kádár. When the Great Depression hit Hungary, Kádár was the first to be fired. What ensued was low paid jobs and poverty.[13] He later became unemployed, and it was this experience which brought him into contact with the Communist Party of Hungary. According to Kádár he became a member of the party in 1931.[14]
The Hungarian Working People's Party decided to dissolve itself and to reorganize itself as the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. On 25 October 1956, Kádár was elected General Secretary. He was also a member of the Nagy Government as Minister of State.
The period from 1956–1968 was one of reform in Eastern Europe. The beginning of these transformations was marked by the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which resulted in János Kádár’s placement as the communist leader of the People's Republic of Hungary and the creation of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP). For the first ten years of his rule, Kádár’s objective was to create a united Hungary, announcing in December 1961 that "those who are not against us are with us." Having reached social peace, Kádár turned his attention to economic improvement.
Kádár, while in prison, was able to send out messages to Péter, and other high-ranking party members, they were able to orchestrate a scheme to free him. In the meantime, the leader of Hungary Miklós Horthy was conspiring against the German occupiers. There were rumours that claim that Horthy tried to get in contact with Kádár, but did not know that he was in prison.[27] Horthy was deposed by the German government and replaced by Arrow Cross Party leader Ferenc Szálasi. Szálasi's policies had an immediate effect on Kádár; he had emptied the prison Kádár lived in and sent them to Nazi concentration camps. Kádár was able to escape and made his way back to Budapest.[28] Immediately after his return to Budapest, Kádár headed the communist party's military committee. The committee tried to persuade workers to help the Soviet forces, but was not able to muster much support from the populace, therefore its effect was marginal at best. After the Soviet victory in Budapest, he changed his name from Csermanek to Kádár, literally meaning "cobber" or "barrel-maker".[29]
The 15th point was withdrawn after pressure from the USSR that a 200,000 strong Soviet detachment be garrisoned in Hungary. This development allowed Kádár to divert huge defence funds to welfare.
Kádár still lived in poverty, and found it hard to blend in with the upper working class and the intelligentsia. Paradoxically, his main Communist contact in the Social Democratic Party was a sculptor named György Goldmann. Kádár evolved into an effective speaker on "bread and butter issues", but failed at having any success on more serious and complex topics.[18] In 1940 he was recalled to the party's ranks. At the beginning of its refounding, the party liked to use members without any police records, therefore Kádár was given more responsibilities within the infiltration of the Social Democratic Party.[19] During May and June the police arrested and rounded up several party activists, including Goldman, but Kádár had managed to go into hiding. As early as May 1942, Kádár became a member of the newly formed Central Committee of the Communist Party, mostly due to the lack of personnel, seeing that the majority of them had been sent to prison. István Kovács, the acting party leader from December 1942, said; "he [Kádár] was extremely modest, a clever man but not then theoretically trained". Kovács brought Kádár into the party leadership and gave him a seat in the Secretariat of the Central Committee.[20] By January 1943, had been able to get in touch with some seventy to eighty members, but this effort was torn apart by a new round of mass arrests, with Kovács being among them.[21]
Rákosi's leadership consisted of Mihály Farkas the Minister of Defence. Kádár and Béla Kovács noted with puzzlement the leadership's total lack of interest in the domestic Communist's experience and outlook. As head of cadres, Kádár supervised membership appointments to the party. This position gave him contacts, some of whom would become very important to him in his later life.[32] After failing to secure a majority in Parliament after the 1945 election, the Communist leadership started the divide and conquer strategy known as salami tactics. Kádár became a prominent figure during the period between the 1945 and the 1947 Hungarian parliamentary elections.[33] Kádár had evolved a sense of rivalry with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary, claiming the party was "thrashing" them in government, and that they made it impossible for the Communists to negotiate policy with the Hungarian trade unions.[34]
Kádár was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (1975–76). He was also awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 3 April 1964.[54]
A few months before his death Kádár asked a Roman Catholic priest to hear his confession, which proves his conversion from atheist communism to Roman Catholicism, according to Miklós Németh's testimony.[57][58][59]
In 1946, Kádár campaigned for the communist party in workers districts and factories. These areas were heavily contested between the Communists and the Social Democrats. The Communists were able to persuade the Social Democrats to hold elections in factories where the communists held the majority. The clear majority results gained by the Communists during this election prompted the Social Democrats to postpone the rest of the election. At the 3rd Congress of the Communist Party of Hungary, Kádár was appointed one of Rákosi's two deputies. He was appointed deputy because of social and ethnic background, the majority of the leadership were of Jewish origins and were intellectuals, Kádár was however a Hungarian worker.[34] In the aftermath of his appointment, he enrolled himself in Russian lessons and grew fond of reading, his favorite being The Good Soldier Švejk.[35]
On November 2, János Kádár, who had by that time severed relations with the Nagy government, officially "somewhere in eastern Hungary"
but probably in the Carpatho-Ukrainian town of Uzhgorod, began to organize "a new revolutionary center" to overthrow the Nagy government with Soviet help. On November 4, at 04.05 hours on Radio Szolnok Ferenc Münnich announced the establishment of the "Revolutionary Workers'-Peasants' Government of Hungary". Shortly after 05.00 hours on János Kádár announced on Radio Szolnok the composition of the new "Revolutionary Workers'-Peasants' Government" under his prime ministership, oulined its program, and called for support. On 4 November, Kádár's government appealed to the Soviet Union to help suppress the "counterrevolutionaries". Kádár reached Budapest on 7 November with a Soviet military convoy.
János Kádár (/ˈkɑːdɑːr/; Hungarian:[ˈjaːnoʃ ˈkaːdaːr]; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989) was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his retirement in 1988. His 32-year term as General Secretary covered most of the period the People's Republic of Hungary existed. Due to Kádár's age, declining health and declining political mastery, he retired as General Secretary of the party in 1988 and a younger generation consisting mostly of reformers took over.