Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 408-1

Title

Research Documentation on the Period Between 1945-1956

Date(s)

1901 - 2003

Description Level

Subfonds

Extent and medium (processed)

24 Archival boxes, 3.0 linear meters

Context

Archival history

The original documents on the political police (including material of investigations) are in the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security; documents of the Hungarian Communist Party are kept in the Political History and Trade Union Archives; records of the Hungarian Workers’ Party and of government organizations are in the National Archives of Hungary; while the documents of courts and the city of Budapest are in the Budapest City Archives. Series 9 and 10 include material collected by the donor himself.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

The subfonds consists of 10 series, primarily made up of the records of law enforcement and judicial organs (political police, people’s courts, etc.) in the period from 1945 to 1956, and the records of the Hungarian Communist Party later called the Hungarian Working People's Party.

The subfonds consists of records on the organization, operation and regulations of the political police under various names (Political Police Department, State Security Department, State Security Authority) as well as records of the Communist Party, documents of the Central Supervisory Committee (exclusions, disciplinary procedures, and taking back excluded members). Some of the documents are the political police’s – illegally transmitted – information to the communist leaders.

One of the series includes documents of political trials, police investigations and people’s court procedures after 1945. With few exceptions, documents of trials on trumped-up charges against communists and social democrats that were later reviewed had not been preserved; only the revisions carried out between 1954 and 1956, and summaries thereof.

The wave of arrests in 1953 hit the State Security Authority too, notably head of the Authority Gábor Péter. Documents of his trial and the documents of investigation and court procedure of Mihály Farkas, minister of defense, deputy general secretary of the Communist Party who was arrested in 1956 are in a separate series.

In March 1956 the Central Leadership of the Hungarian Working People's Party set up a committee (the so called Farkas Committee) to investigate the committed unlawful acts and to establish the responsibility of Mihály Farkas; selected records of the committee belong to a separate series.

Series 8 of the subfonds is made up of miscellaneous documents that were included in the collection either because of the importance of persons involved or the special nature of the case.

Series 9 includes original newspapers from 1945 collected by the donor.

Series 10 mostly consists of the researcher’s notes about persons executed or dead in prison; in the research, however, it turned out that the majority of data collected from the death certificates were false, and the mechanism of falsification became clear only after the research was finished.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information

The overwhelming majority of records documenting the operation of the political police and the show trials were destroyed or perished in the 1956 revolution. Hence the significance of the – mostly communist party – documents of this series as secondary sources. The value of the Farkas Committee documents is that this is the only set of documents of the political police surviving the destruction. Gábor Péter and his imprisoned associates were regularly interrogated from 1954 about their methods of interrogation, and the way the trumped-up charges were developed; these documents are a good source to reconstruct the missing records too.

Accruals

Not Expected

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

General restrictions of research are applicable.

Conditions governing reproduction

Az OSA kutatótermében oktatási és kutatási célra digitálisan másolható.

Description Control

Archivist's note

Processed by László Varga and Örs Lehel Tari, March 23, 2015.