DOCUMENT 66
Inquiry
from the Military Procurator of the Moscow Military District, Ankudinov, to the
ECCI regarding the case of Bela Szanto. 9 March 1940.[i]
TOP
SECRET Copy
No.1
9/10
March 1940
No. 01629
Please
refer to our number when responding.
TO
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL.
In
connection with the case of the for[mer] member of the Communist Party of
Hungary (f[ormer] People’s Commissar for the Military Affairs of the Hungarian
Soviet Republic) SZANTO Bela Aleksandrovich, which was forwarded to the Office
of Military Procurator of the M[oscow] M[ilitary] D[istrict] for evaluation, in
order to ensure the most complete and thorough inquiry in the case, I ask you
to communicate [answers to] the following:[ii]
1)
Whether, since 1927, SZANTO has had differences with the rest of the CC CP of
Hungary regarding questions of party work. [What was] the essence of these
differences[?]
2)
Whether the condemnation of SZANTO’s line on this issue by the Political
Secretariat of the Comintern in November 1929 and by the II Congress of the CP
of Hungary was a result of incorrect information about his actual position by
the CC at that time.
3)
Whether that CC of the CP of Hungary was exposed and dissolved by the decision
of the Comintern.
4)
[What was] the essence of the differences between SZANTO, Bela and Bela KUN in
1935[?]
5)
[What was] the decision of the International Control Commission about SZANTO
regarding his differences with the CC of the CP of Hungary in 1935[?]
6)
Whether the CC of the CP of Hungary was dissolved in 1936 and what the reason
was for its dissolution.
7)
Whether after the VII Comintern Congress the newly-elected CC ordered SZANTO
Bela to write a book on the history of the Hungarian revolution.
MILITARY
PROCURATOR OF THE MVO[iii]
JURIST
OF THE MILITARY DIVISION Ankudinov /ANKUDINOV/.
Typed
in 2 copies
Copy
No. 1 – to the addressee
Copy
No. 2 – to the nar[komat]
l. v.
RGASPI, f. 495, op. 199, d. 184 (II), ll.
82-82ob.
Original in Russian. Typewritten.
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[i] The letter is written on the letterhead of the Military Procurator of the Moscow Military District. It was sent to the Dimitrov’s Secretariat and received on 11 March 1940. From there it was forwarded to the ECCI’s Cadres Department.
[ii] Handwritten on the margins:
To
c. Privorotskaia
Prepare
the answer
13/III <Signed by the head of the Cadres Department of the ECCI>.
Elizaveta Markovna Privorotskaia. Born in 1895, she joined the RSDRP(b) in 1911. Between October 1935 and 16 November 1941, she worked as chief analyst in the Cadres Department of the ECCI. On 30 April 1941, she was reprimanded by the ECCI’s Secretariat for violating the rules of secrecy (talking about work on public transport). She was fired as a result of the reduction in ECCI at the time of its transfer to Ufa during WWII.
[iii] MVO – abbr. of Moskovsky Voennyi Okrug (the Moscow Military District).