VOL. XVI (2010), NO 23 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online XVI (2010), no. 23 172
Reports and Calls for Papers
International Conference on Alexander Radó in Budapest.
On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of birth of Sándor (Alexander) Radó, reknown
Hungarian geographer-cartographer and famous Russian spy, a two days international
conference was held in Budapest, on the 4th and 5th of November 2009. The initiator of the
conference was Radó’s stepson, András Trom, Hungarian journalist, and the organizer was
the MoD Institute and Museum of Military History of Hungary. This was the very first
conference dedicated to examining and evaluating the role of Sándor Radó in military
intelligence during the WWII and his contribution in developing the post-war geography of
Hungary to the level of an internationally acknowledge cooperation partner.
Radó’s memoirs were published in Hungarian in 1971 and, afterwards, in 21 languages. The
first uncensored, complete edition was published by Andras Trom in 2006. During the
conference lots of details were disclosed about Radó’s hidden life by András Trom. German
historian Bernd-Rainer Barth gave comprehensive information about the main figures of
Radó’s Swiss GRU intelligence group and about the circumstances of the writing of Radó’s
memoirs. Barth gave assessment of the clue of Radó’s arrest and reason of his inprisonment
in the Gulag. German historian Rainer Karlsch gave some important hints about the
contribution of the Radó group to the nuclear intelligence and its influence to the the
development of the Soviet nuclear bomb. In the paper of Russian historian Sergei Poltorak,
some evidences were disclosed about the conflicts between GRU and SMERSh which led to
the arrest of several leading Russian spies. French historian Guillaume Bourgeois focused
on Radó’s attempt to escape in Cairo in 1945 and the destiny of his wife and co-fighter
Helene Jansen, who lived in France between 1945 and 1955. The Hungarian lecturers
presented Radó’s pre- and post-war geographic and cartographic activity. They evaluated
Radó’s contribution to the free flow of international geographic information and his role as
that of a forerunner of globalization. During the conference a memorial tablet dedicated to
Radó was inaugurated in the garden of the Museum.
(Bernd-Rainer Barth, Berlin)
Konferenz: Krieg und Frieden. 100 Jahre Ausserordentlicher Kongress der
Sozialistischen Internationale „Gegen den Krieg“ von 1912 in Basel und die Frage des
Friedens heute.
Call for Papers – Basel, 23./24. November 2012
Das Problem eines aufkommenden Krieges wurde ab 1905 das beherrschende Thema in
der Sozialistischen Internationale. Zwar hatte man das Problem des Krieges und seiner
Verhinderung schon seit der Gründung in unterschiedlichen Resolutionen vermerkt, dieses
Thema wurde aber auf den Kongressen eher am Rande, wenn überhaupt, behandelt.
Im November 1912 fand in Basel der „Ausserordentliche Internationale Sozialistenkongress“
oder „Friedenskongress der Sozialistischen Internationale“ statt. Nicht nur die große Zahl der
555 Delegierten aus 23 Ländern war beeindruckend, sondern auch die Resonanz des
Friedensmarsches durch das Zentrum der Stadt Basel sowie die Ansprachen von Jean