Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
INTRODUCTION
FABULOUS SPY GAMES to disentangle enabled the import of embargoed products to the eastern side of the Iron Curtain on the one hand, and also provided some scope to educate a new generation, the members of which had the opportunity to learn the ropes of the capitalist market economy, which gave them an unbeatable advantage at the dawn of the change in political system. They had money in their pockets, know-how in their heads, and a plethora of nexuses and relations behind them. Describing the rise of the Kádárian foreign trade lobby, the book ‘The Age of the Impexes’ focused on these, presenting a number of convincing examples to demonstrate how the profits of state foreign trade made their way into private pockets, and how the skimming of these profits made the importexport business a loss-making enterprise for Hungary.8 One of the main contributing factors to the country’s indebtedness was the constant deficit of the trade balance, so we can regard the functioning of the network built with secret service methods as one of the critical factors resulting in the economic dilemma that eventually overwhelmed Hungary. This book makes an attempt to identify who the persons who laid the foundations for the foreign trade lobby and its ensuing rise were, and where they emerged from. 8 Borvendég 2017 9 Borvendég 2015; Borvendég 2019 10 Borvendég 2018 While writing this book, I tried to come up with a story that is comprehensible and meaningful in itself. Even so, it may prove a challenging read without an understanding of my previous books. The significance of military intelligence in these matters has been pointed out in my major study entitled Disguised as Journalism, explaining how the tasks Hungarian journalists were charged with by the Soviet secret services made way for Kádár ’ s western-oriented politics.9 The monograph Won over by the Firm - the Firms of Those Won Over actually starts where this book ends.10 The book introduces the reader to a number of secret service methods elaborated to 12
