Rákosi's 'Salami' Speech of 29 February 1952
라코시의 1952년 2월 29일 '살라미' 연설
A speech delivered by Mátyás Rákosi on 29 February 1952 to the Party Academy of the Hungarian Working People's Party, later published under the title 'The Road of Our People's Democracy.' In this retrospective address, Rákosi recounted how the Communist Party had seized power in Hungary since 1945, explicitly coining and detailing the method he called 'salami tactics': slicing away the coalition-partner Smallholders Party piece by piece, like cutting thin slices off a salami. Delivered at a time when the Communists already held total control, the speech was cynically candid, openly describing the secret police monopoly, the phased nationalisation of banks and industry, and the deliberate sequencing of first neutralizing the Protestant churches before moving against the Catholic Church.
In depth
Background
By February 1952, Mátyás Rákosi was the unchallenged leader of the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP). He had forced the Social Democratic Party into a merger in 1948, achieved total power monopoly through single-list elections in 1949, and was conducting widespread repression via the State Security Authority (ÁVH). The speech was delivered at the Party Academy, the MDP's cadre training institution, and was subsequently published in English in June 1952 by the Hungarian News and Information Service.
Content of the Speech
Rákosi began by recounting the 1945 elections, where the Smallholders Party won 56% of the vote to the Communists' 17%, then narrated step by step how the Communists neutralized their coalition partners. The 'salami tactics' (szalámitaktika) he coined and detailed operated as follows: (1) First demand only state control over banks, later expand to nationalisation of the largest ones; (2) In industry, start with the mines, then gradually extend to large machine factories; (3) Slice away reactionary elements within the Smallholders Party piece by piece, forcing the party to purge its own right wing, then centre, then left; (4) Split and neutralize the Protestant churches before moving against the Catholic Church.
Rákosi admitted only one exception to gradual salami-slicing: 'There was a single position, the control of which was claimed by our Party from the first minute, and where it was not inclined to consider any distribution according to the proportionate strength of parties in the Coalition. This was the State Security Authority.' He further acknowledged that 'after the liberation, we didn't clarify this problem before wide masses, because any discussion of the dictatorship of the proletariat as our final aim would have caused great alarm among our coalition partners.'
Significance
This speech is a rare self-exposing primary-source record of a ruling leader describing his own power-seizure methods in retrospect. The term 'salami tactics' was formalised through this speech and gained international currency after Time magazine reported on it in April 1952. It became the standard descriptor for how communist parties across Eastern Europe consolidated one-party dictatorships, and later entered political science and game theory as a general term for incremental encroachment strategies. The speech is essential for understanding the character of the Rákosi regime that set the stage for the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Related people
Sources
- revolutionarydemocracy.org Full text of Rákosi's 29 February 1952 speech 'The Road of Our People's Democracy,' delivered to the Party Academy and published June 1952. Rákosi details salami tactics: slicing away the Smallholders Party, phased nationalisation, church strategy, and the State Security Authority monopoly.
- time.com Time magazine (14 April 1952) reporting on Rákosi's candid description of salami tactics in Social Review, including his explanation of 'demanding a little more each day, like cutting up a salami, thin slice after thin slice.'
- Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive bibliography confirming the speech's date (29 February 1952) and its published title 'The Road to Our People's Democracy.'
- libcom.org Libcom.org footnote 26 confirming Rákosi's speech was delivered 'February 29, 1952, to the Party Academy' and subsequently published in June 1952.
- Wikipedia (EN) Wikipedia article on salami tactics, confirming Rákosi coined the term and describing the step-by-step destruction of the Smallholders Party.