The Postcard
A postcard that was published by Francis Frith & Co. Ltd. of Reigate. The card was printed in England.
The card was posted in Bristol using two ½d. stamps on Saturday the 15th. October 1949. It was sent to:
Mrs. Brothers,
29, Walcot Street,
Bath,
Somerset.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Lu,
Len will be coming in
to Bath this Monday, so
will see you some time
in the morning.
All the best,
Love,
Dorothy."
Guangzhou
So what else happened on the day that Dorothy posted the card?
Well, on the 15th. October 1949, Communist troops were reported to be in full control of Guangzhou.
President Truman
Also on that day, President Truman nominated nineteen new federal judges, including Virgin Islands Governor William H. Hastie, the first African-American to be named to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Elmer Clifton
The 15th. October 1949 also marked the death at the age of 59 the American writer, film director and actor Elmer Clifton.
László Rajk
László Rajk also died on that day, by execution. László, who was a Hungarian Communist politician who served as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs, was 40 years of age when he died.
László Rajk was accused of being a "Titoist Spy", an agent for western imperialism, and one who planned on restoring capitalism and jeopardizing Hungary's independence.
During his time in prison, Rajk was tortured, and was promised acquittal if he took responsibility for the charges brought against him. Stalin's NKVD emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secretary Mátyás Rákosi to orchestrate Rajk's show trial.
At his trial, held between the 16th. and 24th. September 1949, in the large assembly hall of the headquarters of the Metal and Engineering Workers' Trade Union in Budapest, Rajk confessed to all the charges brought against him.
However after his confession the prosecution decided, against the promise made, to call for the heaviest sentences to be brought down upon him and the other seven men who stood trial with him.
Rajk was to be made an example of at the beginning of Stalin's anti-Titoist purges. Rajk, along with Drs. Tibor Szönyi and András Szalai, was sentenced to death by hanging, and executed on the 15th. October 1949.
The Rajk trial marked the beginning of the anti-Titoist drive movement of Stalin, and it was also the beginning of the removal of all political parties in Hungary.
The purges, however, left the economy in a truly disastrous state, whereby a lack of capital inflow doomed the building projects that were already underway.
A vast number of the intelligentsia were then employed on the sort of manual labouring duties usually reserved for skilled professionals. The result left the country with an inadequate infrastructure, and unsatisfactorily manufactured goods.
The government was also using too many men to search for spies within the country and not enough to perform the productive work to sustain the economy.
Dissatisfaction with Rákosi's rule began to surface. On the 28th. March 1956, following numerous demonstrations, Rajk was rehabilitated in spite of his responsibility for the excesses of the secret police ÁVH which he had founded in 1946, including initial large purges and executions under his direction.
The rehabilitation speech, even though it was not publicized, had vast consequences for Rákosi, who had used the Rajk guilt as an explanation for the other purges that followed. Now that he had to admit that he was, indeed, wrong, it ended up ruining Rákosi's rightful authority.
László Rajk was then reburied, before 100,000 mourners, on the 6th. October 1956, along with two other men who had lost their lives during the purges. (This was a precursor to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which began on the 23rd. October.)
Júlia Rajk's commitment to rehabilitating her late husband's reputation was instrumental in generating the large turnout for his funeral.
