INCS - Vol. X - The International Newsletter of Communist Studies ...

34 The International Newsletter of Communist Studies
Conrad Ulrich, whose actual Hungarian name was Sándor Nógrádi. In the 1930s, together
with Henry Barbusse and Romain Rolland, Kellerman was the Secretary of the Amsterdam-
Pleyell Movement. He was equally fluent in French, German, Czech, and the Slovak
languages, and he spoke Russian, of course.
The fifth reason worth mentioning is the organizational know-how and the international
outlook. Among the Hungarians many were active in the home grown social democratic
movement that kept in touch with other social democratic parties. With no exception,
every Comintern member of Hungarian descent was part of this group.
The sixth reason was that these Hungarians were reliable and trustworthy. There were
many signs of this already from the beginning, although the importance of these factors
changed with the beginning of the purges in the second half of the 1920s. However, they
were key factors in selecting the operatives of the Lux Hotel (Nevertheless, it is also true
that there were many Hungarians among the ordinary residents of the Lux Hotel, such as
the economist Eugen Varga (Jenö Varga), a great survivor and regular resident). I would
like to mention parenthetically that reliability and trustworthiness were also key factors
in a related field that saw the participation of many Hungarians: For a long time in
Siberia, the Russian word for “Hungarian” or “vengry” was synonymous with “CHEKA.”
Later many Hungarians could also be found in the OGPU/GPU. However, these Hungarians
could not avoid their fate, and at the second half of the 1930s, executioners terminated
the lives of even those who had reached relatively high positions, such as Béla Biró who
was general.
The seventh reason possibly was that Hungarians in leading positions liked to work
together with others, particularly with their colleagues from earlier times. This was the
case with Eugene Varga who worked with a lot of people. His carrier began in August
1920 as the founder of the economics section of the publication Communist International.
With Gyula Alpári (Julius Alpari), he was also the editor of the journal Inprekorr for 19
years, a record for remaining in one and the same position in the Comintern. (He was also
able to circumvent Stalinist terror. In July 1944, he was murdered in the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp).
Hungarians in a widespread range of Comintern positions
Clearly, Hungarians participated at all levels of the Comintern. What makes it difficult to
identify all of them, even today with many of the formerly secret records available, is
connected with the use of spoken and written names. Here are a few examples. Alpári is
simple. Most often he used Julius as an alias, which is a latinized version of the Hungarian
name Gyula. He used Julius Alpari to sign his articles and his cheques. It was even more
straightforward with Béla Kun. He was so well known that he rarely used a cover-name.
During his travels there were only a few instances when he could have been confused with
somebody else.
The situation was completely different in the case of Mátyás Rákosi. At every turn, there
were obstacles found during the research about him. It was difficult for those who spoke
no Hungarian to pronounce and spell his name correctly. There were Marboshi, Marboczi,
Rakoschin and Rakoczi. This last one was the name of a well-known Hungarian patriot
from the 18th century, which reflects very well the knowledge of Hungarian history of this
correspondent of the KPD-"Zentrale". The Italians had no problems with his name. In
police reports he was referred to as Pinguino. This was not a name chosen by him: The
Italian police was making fun of him because of his rounded, stocky appearance. They
simply needed a name by which they could identify him, and in his case the moniker
worked perfectly. He himself preferred the pseudonyms Giacomo, Jacques or Raul, which
at least indicated that he knew several languages.
Many difficulties in connection with the use of names were actually caused by Sándor
Nógrádi. His real name was not known by the Comintern. Most often he used Alex
Kellerman. Many people thought this to be his real name, but in reality it was a cover
name. His original name, however, was not Nógrádi but Grunbaum, which he had
hungarized to Nógrádi, just like many Germans, Slavs or Rumanians who were Hungarian
citizens. In Paris, where he carried out the most important assignment of his life, he used
the name Conrad Ulrich. In the 1930s, he was an associate of Henry Barbusse and Romain
Rolland as Secretary of the Amsterdam-Pleyel Movement. His name hinted of Czech
34