60 ÁRPÁD VON KLIMÓ
The Communist era prior to 1962 was characterized by two
distinct periods of confessional policy: between 1948 and 1953,
open terror and extreme violence deployed against Church offi-
cers, Catholic activists, and religious orders; and, between 1956
and 1958, reprisals. The year 1962 brought a new dynamic of pow-
er between the Church and the Communist state. Instead of us-
ing open violence, the Communist apparatus—consisting, on the
one hand, of the State Office of Church Affairs and, on the other
hand, of the state security services—worked together with in-
formants and collaborators inside the Church to create a “culture
of prevention.” Instead of torture and imprisonment, “conversa-
tions” were enough to assure the state’s absolute control over the
former “bastion of imperialism.”25
It was now the clergy itself who guaranteed Communist dom-
ination. This was the devilish consequence of the “soft” dictator-
ship under János Kádár. The 1964 “Partial Agreement” between
the Vatican and the Hungarian Communist government, which
resulted from negotiations started in 1962, marked, according to
Nicolas Bauquet, a major turning point in the history of church-
state relations in Hungary.26 The agreement sanctified close col-
laboration between the Church hierarchy and the Communist
state, particularly in the suppression of dissent.
This image of a church under observation and control, howev-
er, is not the full picture. Since we have almost no primary sources
bearing on the matter other than those produced by the secret
police, we have to emphasize that this image reflects a very spe-
cific, biased perspective on reality.27 Katherine Verdery has rightly
- Ibid., 627.
- Ibid., 782; Szabó, A Szentszék és a Magyar Népköztársaság kapcsolatai a hat-
vanas években, 48. - Von Klimó, “Nonnen und Tschekistinnen: Vorstellungen der ungarischen
Staatssicherheit von einer katholischen Gegenöffentlichkeit in den frühen fünfziger
Jahren,” in Sphären von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs, ed. Gábor T.