The Wheel Turns

Among the chief architects of the terror that reigned in Hungary between 1949 and 1953 were a father and son. When Stalin ordered bullet-headed Party Boss Matyas Rakosi to liquidate the top party and government leadership, from Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk down, on the grounds of Titoism, Rakosi knew where to turn for help. His man: Defense Minister Mihaly Farkas, a longtime Stalinist. In a key position in the AVH (security police) at that time was Farkas' son, Lieut. Colonel Vladimir Farkas.

To get a confession of guilt out of Foreign Minister Rajk, the Stalinists sent mild-mannered Janos Kadar, his best friend and wartime comrade, to talk with Rajk in his cell. "Of course, we all know that you are innocent," said Kadar, but "by doing this you will render a historic service to the Communist movement." Rajk confessed in court--and was hanged. A little later Kadar himself was arrested. "After his release," wrote Hungarian Journalist George Paloczi-Horvath, "he told the Central Committee how he was tortured. A lieutenant colonel of the security police had beaten him until he fainted. When he came to, the man was standing above him urinating in his face."

George Paloczi-Horvath (who fled Hungary during the revolution last October) was a state witness in Kadar's trial in 1951. "Kadar's once handsome face had become distorted," he recalled. "He had a terrified and at the same time ferocious expression." Judged guilty, Kadar was sent to solitary confinement for three years. Wrote Paloczi-Horvath in the London Sunday Times of his own five years in a Communist prison: "There is a chance for expiation, for facing oneself and one's past squarely. But solitary confinement, utter degradation and an ocean of pain leave curious traces on the subconscious mind. They lead to almost senseless moral perfectionism in some people, and in others a ferocious craving for revenge."

Kadar's chief torturer was Lieut. Colonel Vladimir Farkas. Not only did Farkas make Kadar submit to utter degradation, but he had him castrated. The turn of the Communist wheel made Janos Kadar Premier of Hungary last October. Forecast Paloczi-Horvath: "Now he can take revenge. He has power."

Last week a brief announcement from Budapest reported that Mihaly Farkas, contemptuously identified only as "an inhabitant of Budapest," had been sentenced to 16 years in jail for "serious violations of law during his term of office." No mention was made of his son Vladimir, but there are secret trials to come.

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