Communist paramilitary commander who led the Lenin Boys and was a leading participant in the Red Terror of 1919
Born into a working-class family in Budapest, he worked as a shoemaker and served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the First World War. In 1918 he escaped to Soviet Russia, joined the Hungarian Communist group and studied at an agitators’ school. Back in Hungary by December 1918, he joined the sailor detachment guarding the Communist Party headquarters. Under the Soviet Republic he commanded more than two hundred men and oversaw some revolutionary tribunal trials, while his men arrested, tortured and executed suspected counter-revolutionaries without trial. Ordered to disarm by Vilmos Böhm at the end of April, the group was re-armed at his request to Béla Kun after the June rising and resumed its activities. Arrested on 4 August after the fall, he was convicted of nine murders and hanged on 18 December 1919.
Career timeline
- 1914–1918Served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy
- 1918Joined the Hungarian Communist group in Soviet Russia
- 1918Sailor guard of the Communist Party headquarters
- 1919Commander of the Lenin Boys
- 1919Sentenced to death for murder and executed
Founder of Hungary's secret police, and its prisoner
From 1945, Gábor Péter led Hungary’s political police, preparing and conducting show trials. Arrested in 1953, he was sentenced to life imprisonment the following year, then released under an individual amnesty in 1959.
Born into a Jewish tailor's family in Újfehértó, he joined the Hungarian Communist Party in 1931. He headed the Budapest political police in 1945 and led the state security service (ÁVO, then ÁVH) in 1945–52, directing purges and torture including the Rajk trial. In early 1953 Rákosi, imitating the Soviet "anti-Zionist" purge, had him arrested. In June 1953 Beria pressed for his case to be reviewed, but in 1954 a court martial sentenced him to life as a Zionist spy. Released under an individual amnesty in 1959, he worked as a librarian.
Career timeline
- late 1920sBecame active in the labor movement.
- 1931Joined the Hungarian Communist Party.
- 1943Joined the leadership of the communist Peace Party.
- 1945Became head of the Political Security Department at the Budapest headquarters of the Hungarian State Police.
- 1945–1952Led the ÁVO and ÁVH secret-police organizations and played a prominent role in preparing and conducting show trials.
- 1952Was dismissed from his post and expelled from the Hungarian Working People's Party.
- 1953Was arrested on January 3.
- 1954Was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Military Supreme Court.
- 1957His sentence was commuted to 14 years.
- 1959Released under an individual amnesty and worked as a librarian until retirement.
A police chief who stood between state orders and guns aimed at the people
On 23 October 1956, he refused the order to fire on unarmed demonstrators.
Sándor Kopácsi was a Hungarian police commander who began as a metalworker and anti-Nazi resistance activist, then sought room for reform within the state. As Budapest police chief, he refused on 23 October 1956 to order fire on unarmed demonstrators, cooperated with the uprising, and became deputy commander of the National Guard. Arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Imre Nagy trial, he was released in the 1963 amnesty and later gave the revolution an important insider testimony through his memoir.
Career timeline
- 1944Joined the MOKÁN anti-Nazi resistance
- 1945Joined the Hungarian Communist Party and entered the police
- 1949Director of Internment Affairs, Ministry of the Interior
- 1952–1956Chief of Police of Budapest
- 1956Deputy commander of the National Guard
- 1958Sentenced to life imprisonment in the Imre Nagy trial
- 1963Released in an amnesty
- 1975–2001Emigration to Canada and memoir writing
