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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 30-3-85
TITLE:             Malenkov and Imre Nagy
BY:                
DATE:              1958-6-23
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Evaluation and Research Section
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1953--Nagy's New Course, 1954, Hungary--Foreign Relations--Soviet Union, Personalities

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Radio Free Europe/Munich
Office of the Political Advisor 
Background Information; USSR

See Eastern Europe

23 June 1958

See Eastern Europe

MALEHKOV AND IMRE NAGY

The relationship between G. M. Malenkov, Chairman of the
USSR Council of Ministers from March 1953 until February 1955, and
Imre Nagy, Chairman of the Hungarian Council of Ministers from June
1953 to April 1955, cannot be determined from any Soviet or Hungarian
sources. The evidence of their association is, at best, only
circumstantial,

Not only do the periods of their incumbency as governmental heads
coincide chronologically, but the policies of the "new course" in both
countries--correction of the previous disproportion between the rates of
development of heavy and light industry and concessions in agriculture--
are popularly associated with their persons. In the case of Nagy, the
shifts effected were extremely far reaching in scope, particularly the
dissolution of the cooperative; Malenkov1s objectives and implementation
had more limited aims. Nevertheless both were subsequently accused of
errors of "rightist deviation", Nagy directly, and Malenkov indirectly in
the Shepilov article (Pravda, 25 January 1955) and by Khrushchev in his
speech at the plenum which preceded the announcement of the removal of
Malenkov (see Background Information, 28 February 1955). As the result
of the Hungarian-October Nagy's ideological errors regarding the; peasantry
have been retroactively labelled the "roots of his treason" (See Background
Information 1 February 1953); Malenkov, on the other hand, has merely been
deprived of the credit for the 1953 tax concession to the peasantry and in
addition has been censured/on unspecified charges, for "incorrect guidance
of agriculture" and more specifically, for disregard of "material incentives"
in the post war period when the present First Secretary was the Kremlin's
spokesman on agriculture. To justify the inclusion of Malenkov in the
antiparty group along with Molotov and. Kagahovich, Khrushchev has also been
compelled to reverse the original charges against his more youthful opponent
and blame him, not for favoring light industry, but for opposing the program
of simultaneously overtaking the U.S. in per capital output in agriculture
and heavy industry-"rightist opportunism" in the eyes of the anti-Party
dogmatists (A, Ruinyantsev, Kommunist, #10,1957).

This amorphous amalgam of economic errors has now hardened into a
more readily identifiable political compound through the gradual addition
of the grave accusations of Malenkov's coresponsibility in Stalin's and
Beria's political crimes and cultural terror. (Khrushchev's speeches on
literature, Pravda, 28 August 1957; C.C. Resolution annulling the decrees
on the operas-1949-51, Pravda, 8 June 1958).

To the circumstantial connection between Malenkov and Nagy and to
the officially documented charges can be added the information provided,
the former functionary of the Polish Central Committee, So Bialer, [1] who

-------------------------------		

1 For the accuracy of Bialers Information or: the July 1955 plenum
see Background Information's 18 June 1958.


-ii-

states that the Soviet Politburo letter (February 1955) on the reasons 
for the dismissal of Malenkov contains the following unpublicized charge.

   "The policy of Malenkov, aside from the harm which it 
threatened in Soviet domestic matters, concealed serious 
dangers for the countries of the Peoples Democracies and 
for the relations of the Soviet Union with these countries9 
an example of which is the situation in Hungary", (S> 
Bialert The Three Sources of Kremlin Policy, New Leader, 
29 July 1957; see below p. 2)

        Between February 1955—resignation as Chairman of the Council of 
Ministers—and July 1957—expulsion from the Presidium and Central Committee] 
Go M. Malenkov made only a single public appearance beyond the borders of the 
Soviet Union. This unique emergence from nearly total obscurity took place 
in Budapest when Malenkov, together with Khrushchev, attended the five 
governmental-Party meeting—Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslavkia, Bulgaria, and 
the Soviet Union—which incorporated the charge of "treason" against Imre 
Nagy in its final communique (Pravda, 6 January 1957). From that date until 
the announcement of Nagy* s execution on 17 June 1958 Moscow1 s position with 
respect to the former Chairman of the Hungarian Council of Ministers never 
changed (See Background Information, 1 February 1958); after that time 
Malenkov never again was a member of a Soviet delegation. His role in these 
talks must remain a matter of conjecture to be clarified only in the future 
as unexpectedly in timing as in the case of I. Nagy. From the latter1s own 
statements it is clear that Malenkov1 s attitude towards Hungary in no way 
differed basically from that of Khrushchev, Mikoyan,

          or Kaganovich (see below pp. 3-5). This, however, will protect him 
as litle from a future arraignment by Khrushchev on charges of having 
encouraged "splitting" and "disruptive" tendencies within the "socialist 
camp" as Soviet i. e.. Khrushchev1 s, promises to Yugoslavia guaranteed the 
person of Imre Nagy against a similar indictment. To mask the collapse of 
his own policies inside the bloc, to demonstrate the unbroken continuity from 
the Belgrade Declaration to the Sofia speech, to erase the cause and effect 
relationship between his secret speech and the Polish and Hungarian Octobers, 
Khrushchev must as inevitably resurrect the unpublicized denunciation of 
Malenkov made in February 1955 as he has already been compelled to revive the 
condemnation of Tito contained in the 194-8 Cominform resolution. The "ties" 
between the executed Nagy and the living Malenkov, tenuous and short as they 
may have been, are strong enough to condemn the latter forever*

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