Dictator of the Month:
October, 2001Dictator of the Month:
October, 2001
| Janos
Kadar
Take me to the picture gallery Fact Sheet Name: Janos Kadar
|
Biography
Early Life Janos Kadar was born in Fiume in the Austro-Hungarian Empire on 26 May 1912. As a young man, Kadar worked in the metals factory in Budapest. He became a member of the communist youth movement in Hungary in 1931, and was jailed once for illegal communist activities. After he was released from prison he became the Communist Party secretary for Budapest, and became the Party Secretary of the Central Committee in 1943. Kadar fought as a partisan with the Czechoslovakian Resistance during the Second World War. Rise
to Power In
1946 he became deputy chief of the Budapest police and was appointed to
Secretary General of the Hungarian Communist Party. In 1948 he became the
Mimister of the Department of the Interior and the head of the country’s
secret police. In 1951, Kadar was accused of treason by Matyas Rakosi for
being sympathetic to Tito and jailed until 1953. During this time more
than 100,000 Hungarians were imprisoned, 200,000 expelled and 2,000 killed
by Rakosi. After
Kadar’s release from prison, he resumed his ascent to political
prominence in Hungary, becoming the first secretary of the Communist Party
Central Committee in July 1956 followed by the First Secretary of the
Socialist Worker’s Party in later in the same year. The
economics of Rakosi, a staunch Stalinist, were ruinous to the Hungarian
economy and the standard of living in the country was falling. When Josef
Stalin died in 1953, Rakosi was replaced by reformist Imre Nagy as
Premier, although over the next few years a power struggle between Rakosi
and Nagy ensued. Imre
Nagy began to make many major anti-Communist policy changes which led to
his ouster on 18 April 1955, leaving Rakosi back in control. However,
Nikita Khruschev’s denounciation of Stalinism in February 1956 sealed
Rakosi’s fate, and he was removed from power by the Soviets on 18 July
1956, but he was able wield enough influence to have his friend Erno Gero
succeed him. The
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 On
23 October 1956 peaceful student demonstrations broke out in Budapest;
numbers participating the demonstrations began to increase, and protests
turned violent with the Soviet’s mobilizing the Red Army against the
protesters on 25 October. With no confidence in Gero’s government, he
was forced to resign and was replaced by Kadar. Nagy’s anti-Soviet
rhetoric continued, and on 01 November he announced Hungary’s withdrawal
from the Warsaw Pact, followed by his announcement of a coalition
government with Kadar on 03 November. The
Soviets found this intolerable and swiftly mobilized the Red Army to
restore control on 04 November 1956. Kadar
now felt that the Nagy reforms were going to far and began to develop an
intense dislike for him; and the lack of unity on policy within the
leadership of Hungary led to a schism of the revolt’s central control.
Nagy, who had appealed for support from Western governments but was never
granted it, was thus doomed to failure at the Russian’s hands. On
08 November 1956, backed by the Soviets, Janos Kadar declared a new
government and Nagy was forced to flee the country; he was caught however,
and tried and executed later for treason, along with several other key
people in his government. Kadar did regain control over the country with
Soviet assistance, but not before 30,000 had died during the revolt. He
also initiated purges of opposition to his rule that left more that 1200
dead, and thousands more imprisoned. In 1962 he carried out another purge
of former Stalinists, leaving many more dead. He
remained as Premier until 1958, but resigned until 1961, when he took the
office again until 1965. Regardless of his role as premier, Kadar did stay
head of state in Hungary until 1988. Economics
and Advancement Kadar’s
rule was one of contrasts; on the one hand he was unpopular with some in
Hungary due to his absolute pro-Soviet foreign policy stance, his role in
the Hungarian revolt of 1956, and his support of the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968; yet at the same time, although always publicly
supporting the USSR, he allowed many internal reforms within Hungary.
Kadar strangled military spending in favor of funding social programmes.
In fact, during Kadar’s rule, Hungary was regarded as one of the most
liberal, most free and decentrallised economies of the Warsaw Pact. In
fact, Kadar had gathered Hungarian economists to devise an economic
strategy that would specifically satisfy the people. Between
1968 and 1972 the economy of Hungary was transformed by decentrallisation
and privitisation, with more than a third of the GNP privatized by 1972.
In contrast to the Soviet Union’s practices of keeping consumer goods
difficult to obtain and keeping real wage growth low, Kadar allowed for
high real wage growth and high availability of consumer goods. Avoiding
the pitfall of planned farm output, which the Soviets and Chinese had
repeatedly seen lead to starvation and food shortages, Kadar allowed for
private farms and market pricing for goods. The lack of mandated
agricultural pricing led to farm output way above the rest of that of
other planned economies. A large focus was given to efficiency
improvements, both in industry and with regard to energy. Kadar
was granted the authority to do this because of his outward hard-line
pro-Soviet stance and illusions of being a complete Soviet puppet. By
relative terms Hungary’s citizens enjoyed some of the most lenient
travel restrictions of the Warsaw Pact, and had one of the highest
standards of living in the Eastern Bloc. In fact the Hungarians purposely
shied away from the limelight in Moscow with regard to economic issues,
and it was probably unknown to the USSR exactly how much freedom was being
allowed in the country, which is surprising. Not
surprisingly, the improvement of conditions in Hungary led to a boom in
international tourism from North America and Western Europe, which further
improved the financial situation. Relations with the US, despite Kadar’s
outwardly pro-Soviet demeanor, steadily improved. Hungary eventually found
itself forced to develop better ties with Western Europe, as its economic
miracle made it the object of jealousy and isolation in the Eastern Bloc. This
all said, it should not be forgotten that Kadar did not allow opposition
and criticism and although relative freedoms were granted, much of the
population did live in terror of his secret police; censorship of
anti-Soviet sentiment was strictly enforced and harshly punished. Kadar remained in power until 1988, when he was forced to step down due to his then-failing health and the coincident collapse of the Warsaw Pact alliance; he was then relegated to symbolic political appointments until 1989, when he was unable to perform even ceremonial state functions due to advanced senility. He died on 06 July 1989. Original article written by www.dictatorofthemonth.com. Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/4/newsid_2739000/2739039.stm
http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF0505/Lipsius/Lipsius.html
submit.sccur.uci.edu/r54ew3%5C7874_version2.doc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janos_Kadar
http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/K/Kadar-Ja.html http://www.seminaire-sherbrooke.qc.ca/hist/hist5/travaux/biog/K/kadar.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDkadar.htm |
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