Talk:Mátyás Rákosi

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[edit] Citation for birth last name

I think we should give a citation for Rakosi's birth sur name. The original Rosenfeld was listed as needing a citation. I found one, but that showed Rosencrantz, so I added that name and the citation.

It has been reverted back to Rosenfeld with out a citation that I can find.

Which ever name we cite, either use my citation-which shows Rosencrantz or change to Rosenfeld but please give a citation. also, we could offer both names and citations. I think the name change should have a citation. Kosi szepen Magarbatyak.Buddydog21 (talk) 09:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Origin

There's a slow revert war whether Rákosi was a Jew or not. A book Uprising (about 1956 Hungarian Revolution) from David Irving states (page 37): Born “Matthias Roth” on March 9th, 1892, the son of a Jewish grocer.... Whatever one thing about DI it is not likely invention.

Source for name Rosenfeld is not provided and the whole war feels quite useless. The time spent on it should be dedicated to expand the facts-poor article. Pavel Vozenilek 05:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

It is not specefied in any mainstream outlet e.g MS Encarata, Brittanica, etc that he was Jewish. Although it is well known that Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Bela Kun were Jews. Zvesda

Mátyás Rákosi was born on March 9th 1892 with the name József Rosenfeld, into a poor jewish family with 12 children. It is well-known and no "revert war" is needed to decide whether it is true or not. (193.6.243.100 09:08, 3 April 2006 (UTC))

There is not any evidence for such information. Zvesda

There are a lot of evidence, because it is well-known. For example, a rabbi of a hungarian jewish community says here: http://www.zsido.hu/aktiv/rabbiv.php, that Rákosi left his jewish religion and did a lot of harm even for the jews. The link text is hungarian, but I can find you a lot of english evidence on the net, if you want. In hungary, there are some falsification in this case, for example, some say that Rákosi's original name was Manó Roth. It is not correct, "Manó Róth" is a classical nickname for all jews in hungarian culture, but his original name was Rosenfeld. And there is a fear in the hungarian jewish people that Rákosi's jewish origin and his crimes against humanity will be used sometime for helping anti-semitism. Thanks LamaXX

Whether or not he was Jewish, that opening sentence is both stylistically clunky ("Jewish-origin"?) and unnecessary. Rakosi was not a leader of the Jewish community, so there's no need to mention his religion in the opening sentence. Would you describe George W. Bush as a "Christian-origin U.S. President"?

[edit] Appeasing Tito?

"In August 1952 he also became prime minister of Hungary, but on 13 June 1953, to appease Tito, he was forced to give up the office to Imre Nagy, while retaining the office of General Secretary."

I know Tito was heavily interested in Hungarian politics at the time, but who was doing the appeasing here? Khrushchev? It is unclear. Twalls 21:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Hungarian dictator"

The reference to Rakosi in the first sentence as "Hungarian dictator" is clearly in violation of WP:NPOV. He may very well have been a dictator in the opinion of many people, maybe even the majority of Hungarians, but nonetheless, this is a statement of opinion. I'll note that even Joseph Stalin is not referred to as a dictator at the begining of the article. Peter G Werner 03:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Is Rákosi a dictator?
"Dictator" has a (modern) definition
1. "a person exercising absolute power, esp. a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession" (Random House)
2. "b: one holding complete autocratic control c: one ruling absolutely and often oppressively" (Websters)
Rákosi was a non-hereditary ruler who governed oppressively, without restriction. Therefore Rákosi was a dictator.
I give my standing consent to any registered editor wishing to remove the POV tag. István 16:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Hitler's regime is also called a dictatorship, still, there is no POV tag put on the article. I therefore remove the POV tag. 85.238.77.55 17:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
The biographies of neither Adolph Hitler nor Joseph Stalin refer to either as "dictaror" in the lead paragraph of the article. I feel to do so is blatantly POV. I've referred this issue to Wikipedia:Neutrality Project for a third opinion. I would ask that editors here show some respect for whatever consensus comes out of that discussion. I personally would agree with people here that Rakosi was a Stalinist and a dictator, but Wikipedia is about NPOV and not presentation of our opinions. Iamcuriousblue 22:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, then we should include a second paragraph where his regime is described and there we can also mention that it was a dictatorship. H-Vergilius 04:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Iamcuriousblue, please have a closer look at the lead paragraph of Joseph Stalin. He is clearly called a dictator in the first paragraph even if it is not conspicuous. H-Vergilius 11:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well I tried to neutralize a bit. Would it be OK? Or the term 'dictatorship' isn't neutral enough too? H-Vergilius 12:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are no responses again. There is a Hungarian phrase that 'not speaking is agreeing', so I remove the NPOV tag. H-Vergilius 15:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)