People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 10 Government and administration 40 Legislature and state representation 14 Monarchs and royalty 2 Military command 20 Security, intelligence and policing 10 Diplomacy and international organization 10 Economy, finance and planning 3 Agriculture and land policy 4 Ideology and propaganda 3 Education 3 Law and justice 2
Affiliation(set)

Most people

Any Soviet Unionstate 28 Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 21 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 11 Hungarystate 2 East Germanystate 2 Finland state institutionsstate 1 Italy state institutionsstate 1 Polandstate 1

All 18 affiliations

Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Democratic People’s Republic of Koreastate 1

East Germany

East Germanystate 2

Finland

Finland state institutionsstate 1

Germany

Communist Party of Germany (KPD) 1 Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) 1

Hungary

Hungarystate 2

Italy

Italy state institutionsstate 1

Poland

Polandstate 1

Romania

Romaniastate 1

Russia

Russian Empirestate 1 Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 1 Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) 1 Russian Provisional Governmentstate 1 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 11

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 21 Soviet Unionstate 28

United States

United States state institutionsstate 1 Democratic Party (United States) 1
Position
Any Marxism and communism 1 Liberalism and republicanism 1
Citizenship
Any Hungary 2
Background
Any Hungary 2
Era
Any

People of the wider world

The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 1 The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 1
Law and justice Hungary (state) Clear all

Dénes Berinkey

Berinkey Dénes
Hungary Liberalism and republicanism Hungary Hungary 1871–1944 ○ Heart attack

Last prime minister of the Hungarian People’s Republic, who resigned with his cabinet over the Vix note

A lawyer from a Calvinist family in Komárom County, he headed the international department of the Ministry of Justice until 1918 and was a founding member of the social-science review Huszadik Század. After the Aster Revolution he was justice minister in the Károlyi government from November 1918 and became prime minister in January 1919. When the French Lieutenant Colonel Fernand Vix handed him the Entente note on 20 March, he resigned with his cabinet rather than accept terms that violated the country’s territorial integrity, opening the way to the Soviet Republic. He then withdrew from politics, worked as a lawyer from 1920 and published studies in international, criminal and private law. He died of a heart attack in Budapest in 1944.

Career timeline
  • –1918Head of the international department of the Ministry of Justice
  • 1918–1919Justice minister in the Károlyi government
  • 1919Prime minister of Hungary
  • 1920–Lawyer

Ferenc Vida

Vida Ferenc
Hungary Communism Hungary Hungarian 1911–1990 ○ Natural causes

A communist judge who enforced political trials

Even in 1989, he maintained that Imre Nagy was guilty and expressed no regret for the judgment.

Ferenc Vida was a communist lawyer who had taken part in the illegal movement, endured imprisonment, and rose through Hungary’s postwar party and judicial bureaucracy. After the 1956 Revolution he became one of the judges who imposed the greatest number of death sentences in the state’s retaliatory trials. In the 1958 trial of Imre Nagy, he chaired the Supreme Court’s People’s Court Council, sharply restricting defendants’ statements and the defence’s requests for evidence, and sentenced Nagy, Miklós Gimes and Pál Maléter to death. He still refused in 1989 to acknowledge the trial’s illegality or express remorse.

Career timeline
  • 1934Graduated from Szeged law academy and helped found the Palestine Communist Party
  • 1935–1942Joined Hungary’s illegal communist movement and worked as a trainee lawyer
  • 1942–1945Sentenced to life imprisonment in the Schönherz trial and deported to Germany
  • 1945–1949District party secretary and adviser to the Ministry of the Interior
  • 1951–1953Worked in the Ministry of Justice
  • 1953–1972Judge of the Supreme Court, presiding over People’s Court Councils and serving as deputy head of a judicial college
  • 1958Presiding judge in the Imre Nagy trial, issuing death sentences