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Hungary is uploading its complete archive of national security records to the Internet, which could reveal who spied on neighbors, colleagues, friends and relatives during four decades of communist rule until 1989.
The Hungarian government said this was an important step in the country's democratic transition.
For some, it offers a long-awaited opportunity to pursue explanations for arrests, interrogations and disappearances at the hands of the communist regime and its vast network of spies.
For others, it may reveal painful secrets buried for decades.
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As an opposition activist in Hungary under communism in the 1980s, Bálint Magyar knew he was always under close surveillance.
He has since managed to obtain some of the personal information collected secretly by the state, including a police informant's report documenting a speech he gave to a group of teachers in 1987. He "suggested that regime change would soon occur in our country," the report said.
Today, Mazar is able to view the matter with humor. "I don't remember myself talking about the possibility of regime change that early on," he told BBC World Service.
He still doesn't know who the informant was or any details of the operation to monitor his activities, but those answers may come soon.
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"The entire machine itself, and how it works, has never been made public," he said. "Perhaps making all documents fully publicly accessible will help give everyone a clearer understanding of the entire system."
The first batch of files were made public on November 4, the day that marked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s military suppression of Hungary’s 1956 pro-democracy uprising.
In the years that followed, hundreds of movement leaders were imprisoned and executed.
Hungary has established a huge surveillance system. Collaborators are recruited from the public, often through blackmail or bribery, and are responsible for monitoring their communities. Gergő Bendegúz Cseh, head of the Hungarian National Security Historical Archive, said that the names of 50,000 to 60,000 such people are recorded in the archives.
"We are scanning and making public the files of all former agents, so people will be able to understand from the existing documents not only that someone was recruited, but also on what basis, how the recruitment process was carried out, what kind of blackmail they were subjected to, and how they carried out their tasks," Cech said.
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Péter "Sziámi" Müller was part of the subversive Hungarian underground rock scene of the 1980s. Police informants were always among the crowds keeping watch.
"You get reported and you're taken to the police station, so yes, it happens over and over again," he said.
Miller had fought against the communist system for years but was uncomfortable identifying those who collaborated.
"I'm not entirely sold on the idea that, after all these years, society still needs to come to terms with this reckoning or catharsis, where people have to be singled out, shamed, humiliated and punished because they've either died or moved on to another stage of their lives," he said.
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The legislation to open records was passed in September.
After winning the election in April with a landslide victory over Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said his government would "fulfill one of the most important promises of the democratic transition, which is that we will make available records available to the public and make them searchable".
After the fall of communism, some countries, including Poland and Germany, opened their archives earlier. However, not all records are digitized, and access is sometimes limited to personal or family records.
Hungary said its online archive would allow anyone to make open and unrestricted inquiries.
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But in Balint Mazar's view, the files were released too late to pursue accountability.
"The question is no longer primarily about who should be held accountable, or who can still be held accountable, because most of that generation is no longer alive and others have long since left active employment," he said.
Balint Magyar, who became a member of parliament and government minister after the fall of communism, is now a senior researcher at the Central European University Democracy Institute, Budapest.
For him, the value of public records goes beyond holding individuals accountable.
"A country cannot live in lies and not face up to its past in some way. (Declassifying the archives) will certainly help Hungary do that," he said.
Hungary is about to learn more about its shadowy history.
Supporters of the measure see it as an important step toward historical reconciliation; but for some, facing these secrets will be painful.
This article was originally written in English. We used artificial intelligence to assist in translation and was reviewed by BBC journalists before publication. Learn more about how we use artificial intelligence.
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