Hungary will publish tens of thousands of state security documents from the communist period

Hungary will soon publish tens of thousands of documents about state security collaborators from the communist era.

In addition to full-time agents and officers, the security service also recruited ordinary citizens, often through blackmail or other forms of coercion, to monitor their colleagues, friends, neighbors, and relatives, and to report on them to their handlers.

The upcoming publication of these files, which the Historical Archive of the State Security Services announced today will take place in two phases starting November 4, is part of the new center-right Hungarian government’s efforts to introduce greater transparency in the work of state institutions.

After a press conference held today at the archive’s premises, the institution’s general director, Gerge Bendeguz Cseh, stated that the issue of publishing these documents has been contentious since Hungary’s democratic transition 36 years ago, mainly, as he noted, because their publication would likely compromise politicians who are still active.

“This is an old debate. Hungarian society has neither managed to swallow nor to spit out this problem since the regime change,” said Cseh.

However, shortly after his Tisa party convincingly defeated long-time Hungarian leader Viktor Orban in April, Prime Minister Peter Magyar stated that his new government “will fulfill one of the most important promises of the democratic transition: we will make the existing files publicly available and searchable.”

The files, which are estimated to contain between 50,000 and 60,000 names and which were previously available only to close relatives of the mentioned individuals and researchers, will now be accessible through a searchable online database.

Users will be able to request information about members of the security services, informants, or individuals who were targets for recruitment, based on name, date or place of birth, mother’s name, code name, as well as the type or number of the document.

Certain documents will be partially redacted to protect sensitive personal data, including medical records, information about addictions, sexual activities, and sexual orientation.

The second wave of document publication is planned for February 25, when about 9,000 so-called “B files” will be presented to the public. These files can contain several hundred pages and include detailed information about individuals who were recruited or were targets of recruitment.

Cseh, the director of the archive, stated that governments succeeding dictatorships rarely disclose the names of former agents and informants, let alone such detailed files as those Hungary is now preparing to publish.

“Such radical disclosures have never happened anywhere before. Now we can truly understand who were the secret collaborators or informants of the state security,” he said.