ABSTRACT
In Hungary, a political department in the General Staff, led by Colonel Palffy-osterreicher, performed political police duties in addition to the political department of police headquarters at No. 60 Andrassy Ut. In Rumania special units, the Tudor Vladimirescu and the Horia Closca Crisan divisions were formed from prisoners-of-war indoctrinated in special political training camps in Russia. The mass recruiting was done by the People’s Front, the communist-controlled ‘monolithic’ monopoly political organisation. There are also special laws on ‘Defence of the People’s Power’ and on ‘espionage’, which prescribes heavy penalties for a large variety of offences whose definition, is conveniently elastic. V. I. Lenin’s Bolsheviks did their best to conform to the model, and when war shattered the imperial Russian state they proved more efficient at seizing power than rival revolutionaries. The communist exiles worked hard, and took their duties as a planning staff as seriously as had Lenin in his exile years.
