History of the Information Office under the presidency of István Szirmai (1956-1957)

The published book - as the part of the NEB Library book series - uncovers the important slice of the relation between the communist regime and the mass media in one of the most exciting and most tragic period of the 20th century Hungarian history, in a year after the suppression of the revolution and independence war of 1956. With the help of the publication, we can look into the backstage secret of the functioning of the party-state media's governing body - the Information Office (TH) - on the basis of contemporary documents, while the reader becomes familiar with the complicated process of how the power relations were settled between the Agitation and Propaganda Department (APO) - the media’s governing body of the state party, namely of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party’s Central Committee - and the TH subordinated to the Council of Ministers. The author researched also how was the operational mechanism of the media’s governing body and its change associated with István Szirmai, who was ranked among the confidential people of János Kádár and who was on the top of the TH after the oppression of the revolution and barely a year later he was the leader of the APO.

In the work, we can read the prehistory of the TH during the first prime ministership of Imre Nagy and the first measures and re-organization of the office at the end of 1956. We get information about what kind of info came to the communist regime’s media management through the confidental reports of the Hungarian News Agency (MTI) about how devastating opinion the politicians in democratic countries had about the establishment of Kádár’s puppet government. Additionally, the author wrote about the role of the TH in the press diplomacy, and of course about the - varying intensity - participation of the office in the censorship. Up on the row of this the party state control of MTI and the Hungarian Radio and the intricate network of paper licensing procedures of written press are examined. Furthermore, we can read about how one of the heads of divisions offered his services to Béla Biszku Minister of the Interior, or about the fact that how the Soviet soldiers spoke into the newspapers editorial work. The book, which is interlarded with historical documents, can be important - among other things - because of this for those who are interested in the recent history of the press.