We all have memories of time that is already behind us. Sometimes these memories are recalled by photographs from our own albums, and sometimes by pictures taken by someone else. In this book we put on display photos once made by the Hungarian state security. The keeper of the communist regime’s political police’s files is the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security, having thousands of photographs in its possession. From these pictures the ones showing the retaliatiom following the 1956 revolution and war of independence are known to the public; yet the visual copies of the events from the same source closer to us in time are much less part of our collective memory. That is why it is so important to show the pictures of the Eighties, the most defining decade on our personal and national history; photos, which are – by Susan Sontag’s definition – “have the power to prove and accuse”. These are the visual documentations of investigations and secret surveillance, and with them this work goes beyond the narrow borders of the Hungarian capital – by presenting several events from various towns and villages from the country; and also it focuses not only on the now historical gatherings of the political opposition, but also on smaller groups’ or individuals’ actions. As these pictures show up their real values hand in hand with their own special ‘state security history’, this book tells not only the story recorded on the photos, but also the story of their making.