by the Russians in 1849. During his second exile in Moscow (1940-1944), Rakosi became fluent in Russian and a Russian citizen, married a woman of Russian-Mongolian origins, and cultivated contacts with senior Soviet officials, including Stalin himself
(Sisa 275; and Vali 33). He resumed work with Comintern which sent him on secret missions to Belgium, France and Spain. Stalin handpicked Rakosi to lead the postwar HCP. The mantle of Hungarian Communist leadership fell on him in part because Kun and most other senior Hungarian Communists in the Soviet Union had been liquidated during Stalin's purges (1936-1939) and others in Hungary had met a similar fate at the hands of Horthy's secret police, the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross or the Gestapo. Rakosi witnessed first hand what happened to anyone who incurred Stalin's suspicion or wrath. Fejto said he learned from Stalin the importance of iron Party discipline (23). According to Zimmer, Rakosi was often then and subsequently "in Stalin's bad graces . . . [but the oft-parano
...