Activities and affiliations

What people did, and whom they served in that activity.

Activity

All 1 Ideology and propaganda 1

State, movement or organization

All 81 Soviet Union 65 People’s Republic of China 5 Hungary 2 Comintern 2 Benin 1 Germany state institutions 1 Russian Empire 1 Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) 1
All 10 affiliations by country

Benin

Benin 1

China

People’s Republic of China 5

East Germany

East Germany 1

Germany

Germany state institutions 1

Hungary

Hungary 2 Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) 1

International organizations

Comintern 2 International Workingmen's Association (First International) 1

Russia

Russian Empire 1

Soviet Union

Soviet Union 65

Ideology and propaganda · Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) people 1

Clear all

József Révai

Révai József
Ideology and propaganda Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) Hungary Hungary 1898–1959 ○ Heart disease

Overseer of culture in the Rákosi era

In June 1953, Soviet leaders criticized Rákosi’s concentration of power and discussed a reorganization of Hungary’s leadership. Révai was not invited to the Moscow talks and was dropped from the party Political Committee that month.

Born into a Jewish middle-class family, he was a founder of the Hungarian Communist Party in 1918, lived in the Soviet Union in 1934–44 and edited the party daily Szabad Nép in 1945–50. From 1948 to 1953 he controlled all aspects of Hungarian cultural life, and from 1949 he was also minister of culture. Pushed into the background by Rákosi from 1952, he was not invited to the Kremlin talks of June 1953, where Molotov mocked him as "everything rolled into one" in ideology. He left the Political Committee in 1953 and briefly returned in 1956.

Career timeline
  • 1917Joined the staff of the anti-war left-wing journals Tett and its successor Ma.
  • 1918Took part in founding the Hungarian Communist Party and joined the staff of its paper, Vörös Újság.
  • 1930–1934Arrested in 1930 and sentenced in 1931 to three and a half years in prison. After release in 1934, he went to Moscow via Prague.
  • 1944–1945Returned to Hungary in 1944, helped establish the party Central Committee, and became its propaganda and press chief in 1945.
  • 1945–1950Served as editor-in-chief of the party’s central daily, Szabad Nép.
  • 1949–1953Served as minister of public education.
  • 1953–1958Served as deputy president of the Presidential Council.
  • 1956Returned to the Political Committee at the party Central Committee meeting in July, but was taken to Moscow during the Hungarian Revolution in October.
  • 1957Returned as an adviser to the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party’s Provisional Executive Committee and was elected to its Central Committee. After losing the June party debate, he accepted the majority view.