Vol. 43 No. 4 1976 - page 586

586
PARTISAN REVIEW
when his turn came, foiled the Soviets by seceding and establishing his
independence-even Stalin could not hang a whole people united behind
their leader. Koci Xoxe , the almighty Communist boss in Albania, was not
so fortunate; he was sent to the gallows so that his country would not follow
the Yugoslav example.
And now it came time for Stalin to act to prevent an even larger disaster
than had befallen him in Belgrade and to set a grandiose example and
liquidate all potential Titos in his empire. Preparations began for the trial
of Laszlo Rajk in Budapest.
There were certain preliminaries that had to be gone through first . The
potential list of the accused had to be selected. It consisted of two main
categories. First of all, Hungarian communists who had returned home from
exile in Western Europe or America after the world war ended; many of
them had fought in Spain against Franco and had remained in the West
fighting in resistance movements against Hitler. A second target consisted
of the partisans, leaders of the clandestine Communist party in prewar
Hungary who fought in the country against the Nazis.
All of these groups had one thing in common. They had not been
trained in Moscow and were not sent to Hungary by the Soviet secret police ,
the M.V.D. In the twisted minds of the Soviet rulers, they were "potential
enemies," the first group because it had been exposed to "bourgeois in–
fluence" during their exile in the West, the second one because of its popu–
larity; they did not only risk their lives for a cause, but dared to do it without
any help and advice from far-away Moscow. Both categories contained
idealistic, independent-minded people, therefore "potentially dangerous"
-not would-be, but could-be Titos.
At the same time a plausible story had to be concocted, at least for
internal consumption. On this, Stalin and Beria, his police chief, remained
rather vague but their general guidelines became clear: a conspiracy hatched
by Tito and the intelligence forces of the West in order to topple the Socialist
states.
The concrete details of this' 'plot" were worked out on a day-to-day
basis and the cooperation between the two communist governments suc–
ceeded brilliantly. Stalin supplied the grand concept and his star pupil
Matyas Rakosi, General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party,
worked out the details, the local color, as well as the cast of characters headed
by Rajk and Szonyi. They were well chosen for the role, Rajk, the Minister of
the Interior, second most powerful man in Hungary, Spanish freedom
fighter, "partisan," and Szonyi, member of the Central Committee , intel–
lectual,Jew, and recently returned home from his exile in Switzerland.
The Soviet Secret Police Chief for Southeast Europe , Colonel Fyodor
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