Fegyelmezetlen légió? Az állambiztonság fegyelmi ügyei
Undisciplined Legion?: Disciplinary Cases in the State Security Apparatus

Summary/Abstract: The study undertakes the primary analysis of disciplinary cases preserved in the personnel files of the Hungarian state security service (Chief Directorate III in the Ministry of the Interior). The roughly three hundred surviving case files present the internal world of the Kádár-era political police in a distinctive light. Several characteristic social phenomena of the period are identified through the fragmentarily documented proceedings. The examples uncovered allow the organizational culture of the secret service between 1962 and 1990 to be interpreted within the conceptual framework of “Kádárism”, as described by János M. Rainer. The sporadic nature of the data and the trends discernible in the proceedings underscore the challenges inherent in both research and broader historiographical generalization.

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