Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘THE HUNGARIAN MAFIA’ - The red octopus
FABULOUS SPY GAMES communist parties operating in western countries. Sebes knew the international communist networks well, he was young when he joined the Hungarian Party of Communists, which was operating illegally, and was caught several times while carrying out propaganda activities, so he was in and out of Hungarian prisons. In 1936, he fled to Spain to fight on the side of the Republicans in the Civil War as a member of the International Brigades. During the war, he joined the French communists, working as a secretary of the Hungarian party organisation operating in France. He returned home after 1945 and became the head of the Department for Economy of the Hungarian Communist Party (MKP). Apparently, however, he was dealing not only with the affairs of the Hungarian economy, but also used his well-documented international relationships to support communists in western countries. According to the report, it was Sebes who channelled the money intended for the campaign of the Italian Communist Party from Hungarian-owned bank accounts in Switzerland to Italy, but it was also he who arranged funding for the strikes organised by the French communists. According to the CIA, all of this was funded by the profits from business deals made by Hungarian companies, which means that during the time of the three-year economic plan when Hungary was making strenuous efforts to repair the damage inflicted by the war, the party leadership withdrew funding to support Italian and French sister parties. Béla Révai was regarded by the CIA as one of the Hungarian ‘businessmen in Switzerland and was, according to their knowledge, assigned the task of obtaining US dollars and managing this foreign currency. Révai worked in the Mobiliare Verkehrs bank in Zurich, whose owners are said to have been émigrés from Hungary and which specialised in providing funding for the business deals made by Hungarian companies in western countries.124 124 Ibid. 50
